Senrei Nishikawa is gone,
master artist and teacher
On December 6, Senrei Nishikawa passed away. I had not seen
her for over a year. She was sick, but apparently in good spirits, spending her
time in the mountain home she loved, in northwest Kyoto.
Her
manager Takae Hoshino only informed the world ten days later, enough time to
prepare for the non-funeral home-visit. The path next to her house led to a
lovely bamboo garden, low benches and even a heater for those waiting to enter
a 4 tatami room and view the photo, urn, and sign a mourner’s book. Takae,
looking worn and grateful, greeted visitors, who streamed in by twos and threes
while I was there. The photo, Senrei looking hopefully in profile, in pastel
kimono, and urn-bag embroidered were chosen by Sensei: a director to the end. I
lit some incense and thanked her for her art and friendship.
T.T.T. teacher
I
had first met Senrei through Akira. When our last buyo teacher suddenly was
unable to teach the Traditional Theatre Training program I organize in Kyoto
each summer, he recommended her as someone with both pedagogical thoroughness
and international interests. She had studied kyogen briefly with Sennojo, and
won the first “young artists” prize for Kyoto City in 1981. In fact she was in
Warsaw, Poland at the time, arranging for a future tour. She wanted more
details of course, but agreed on the phone to teach. This was June, 2000 I
believe.
What
struck me at first about Senrei was her charm and beauty, of course, but also
her utter professionalism. She would always greet me formally and politely,
making me think it was HER honor to have me over, grateful for the opportunity
to teach.
Our
recital that year was at the Kyoto Art Center. She deftly utilized the
temporary stage, curtains, and corridors for a lovely concert atmosphere. Two
men were given Fuji Musume: one completed the first half; the second stepped up
from behind and took over in a “relay dance,” a great solution to the thorny
problem of what to do when dancers prove unable to master a full dance by themselves
in the middle of lessons.
She was precise with her use of
time (using a stopwatch!), and quick with her judgment: she looked carefully at their c.v.s
and heard my explanations of their backgrounds and interests. Then on meeting
students for the first time, she would immediately size them up, decide their
dance, and was invariably correct. She helped them buy yukata if they wanted
them, cooing over how well they matched as if they were her own daughters. From
her first tentative classes, she quickly grew into an assured teacher, knowing
when to bark, when to bite; when to physically mould a student to the correct
form, when to give verbal instructions (regardless of whether they were
Japanese/foreigner). When she taught, there was an absolute tension in the
room; you knew you were with a master, and she didn’t except compromise.
Students loved her, but also loved it when she was absent and they could go
over the forms slowly and more gently with her less forceful disciples like
Kayorei and Chikagesensei.
She especially prized men in her
class, as normally there were so few. Usually she chose female roles for them,
and laughed gaily as they grew more willowy and effeminate each day. She seemed
to have a very clear idea of the trajectory of the training, learning the forms
completely the first week, then spending the rest of the time making sure each
role was understood and details expressed.
When I visited, she wouldn’t let
me translate for lessons—“even if they don’t understand the words, they understand
from my expression.” She didn’t want their concentration on her to be diverted.
Yet when I entered, she would take a break, announcing “the program director is
here, all bow,” and use the time for questions on administrative matters.
Although we had summaries and translations of some of the dances, she didn’t
want these handed out the first weeks—“let them just do the
movements”—preferring ignorance to be alleviated only at the final stages.
Despite anxieties of doing the dance perfectly, no one ever had a problem
memorizing the movements themselves. Final week would rehearse with noh stage in mind, bowing low to get through the kirido,
having the koken on hand, and a few properties. She was training athletes for
the big game.
Even in her last year, when she
only had strength for 90 minutes, she figured out a schedule that would allow
her to train students the first half, then leave her disciples to complete the
lesson. Although students were happy to have the release of tension, and it was
pedagogically sound, it was clear this would be her last T.T.T., making every
lesson a treasure to those who knew. Soon after she announced her withdrawal
from T.T.T., and other regular lessons, concentrating on only a few favorite
students.
More than other teachers,
students continued studying with her, even returning repeatedly to Japan on
grants so they could do so. She maintained a practice for them at reasonable
rates, along with AKP and Kyoto Center students, performing on a noh stage once
a year in a grand recital. She once explained how she had different rates for
different groups, from children’s group lessons to ojousan’s without money to
private lessons in Osaka—she taught, or had disciples teach, in the 2-story
keikoba she had constructed for both lessons and small recitals. I watched in
awe the grueling pace of pre-recital lessons of Echigo-jishi, as students were
made to repeat and immediately move to next dance, sweat dripping, beneath her
watchful eye.
I usually saw her seductive,
gentle, and funny side at T.T.T., but discovered her capacity for executive
decision when a cassette tape recorder malfunctioned at the beginning of the
recital at the Kawamara Noh Stage one year. Two dancers had already begun their
entrance to the main stage for Matsu no midori, the curtain was raised, but the
recorder wasn’t functioning. I was on standby to begin Aisatsu when it was
over, the stage manager Tsuji Noboru gamely trying the machine’s plug again.
Senrei barked the orders seemingly simultaneously: “Jonah, find a spare
recorder; Tsujisan, fix it!; girls, stay perfectly still, don’t waver, maintain
the form” until it was evident the problem wouldn’t be solved quickly. “Back
up, slowly, all the way through the curtain, don’t look nervous” she hissed,
then lowered the curtain. I went out to make apologies and do opening welcoming
remarks, while they found another recorder. I’m sure some in the audience were
impressed by the short, perfect opening dance that took place only on the
hashigakari!
I had one running feud with Senrei
that couldn’t be resolved. On the recital day, students are too nervous and
busy with their own pieces to observe others. So it is standard (at amateur
recitals of any kind I suppose) to use the dress rehearsal as chance to see
colleagues’ performances. But while she herself enjoyed coming earlier to watch
the noh and kyogen actors, she forbade her students to do so. The makeup, hair,
and kimono that they wore took much time and shouldn’t be disturbed was the
superficial reason given, but actually she didn’t want them to be distracted.
“But they could learn a lot from watching others!” I argued. “Nothing they
could learn would replace what they lost in not concentrating on their own. You
don’t learn from other people, good or bad, just from imagining your own dance
and quieting your heart. Once they’ve finished their part they can go out and
enjoy the rest.” The dressing room for noh and kyogen were boisterous places,
smoking, snacks, stories, and ordered chaos as those changing exchanged kimono
with those finished. The buyo women sat at their mirrors, calm and coiled,
awaiting their rehearsal times or the performance itself. “Program director
Jonah has an announcement! Everyone on stage!” she would herd them up for one
last time, then quickly herd them back.
A lesser difference of opinion
was on the bangai teacher’s special
performances. Previous teacher Fujima had always joined the noh and kyogen
teachers in performing one felicitous dance to begin or end the program. But
Senrei refused absolutely, sending instead her disciples young. “I won’t dance
without proper lighting, costumes, wigs—and all my energy would be on my own
dance.” Instead, she sat in the audience, still from first to last, murmuring a
few comments to herself as she watched the recital. As her disciples completed
their dance on the hashigakari, she would physically poke me to stand to
deliver my welcoming adresss. “But didn’t I ruin the ma?” “No, you don’t want
it to be daradara” she’d reply
perkily, not one for wabisabi niceties.
She only relented at her last
recital. Her note for the program was, in retrospect, her farewell: she spoke
of “hitomawari,” the coming full circle, of teaching at T.T.T. She had
announced her 10 minute opening dance to her fans, so for the first and only
time, fifty persons waited outside in the rain for the opening doors for the
recital; by showtime, the theatre was packed (many left as soon as she’d
finished). The dance was starkly beautiful, severe and moving, creating an aura
in the building that could be felt by all. A tough act to follow to say the
least.
The cast party would take place
near the noh theatre. The buyo table was always slightly apart from the others,
she sitting as queen bee to other disciples and students. She made sure to
comment on each student, and was happy when students from other tables came to
chat with her. She drank, but left for home at closing, letting the noh and
kyogen habitués of Pontocho and Gion to take care of the second party.
Senrei the artist
I found out the price for her ready
agreement the following New Year’s. She wanted to meet to discuss something, so
came to Yasaka Shrine after Sambaso to have coffee. A Polish publisher wanted
to publish a book of photos designeed by them, could I translate a few
articles. No talk of fees was made; it was implicit that she had done me a
favor, now it was my time toreciprocate. The difficult essays by Kazuko Tsurumi
and among others were eventually published in English in Senrei by Tobiichi.
When T.T.T. was taken over as a
shuusai project by the Kyoto art centre, the executives led by Inoue Yachiyo
demanded that Kyoto tachers be hired. Since Takayabashi Shinji was an
Osaka-affiliated noh actor, he was replaced with Kyoto Kanze actors. Senrei was
also on the chopping block, as Nishikawa school is ased in Nagoya and sh was
not a member of the artists’ association. But on hearing this possibility,
Senrei immediately joined—end of problem!
T.T.T. began Senrei’s
international adventures. She taught classes at reasonable prices for foreign
students, and went abroad annually (at her own expense) to give
lecture-demonstrations and performances: Berkeley, Portland, Paris,
Switzerland. She was able to secure funding, and went with a twelve-person team
for a 2-person performance, skillfully negotiating with universities and Japan
Foundation in Paris for halls, venues for workshops. She flattered me that the
lessons of how to teach and appeal to foreigners she learned in T.T.T. were
essential for her knowledge of how to perform abroad. At her “evenings of
Senrei” she would invite foreigners for free, in return for getting their
detailed responses via mail or letter. She sought out my contacts to get a
better sense of the artistic context and consciousness of Europeans, then
created by that stimulation.
Her performances—Dojoji, Camille
Claudel, Ten Cows, Arinomama—were spiritually profound explorations of human
existence, sometime precious, but usually sophisticated contemplations that
were clearly the work of a master. Her collaborators—biwa and shakuhachi
greats, Kanze Hisao and Okura Shonosuke—were not chosen for name-value—she
bridled when I suggested this during interview once—but because she was sure
they could provide proper performance with minimum rehearsal. “If you entrust a
professional, you don’t have to worry about quality.” She would not hesitate to
make herself ugly, as in Claudel, or to refine the dance to a few movements
within great stillness. At the talkback for Ten Cows she admitted she had only
reached No. 7 or 8, not clear what the future might bring. Yet except for these
demonstrations and lectures, she always charged top price, 5-7000 for her
recitals, even for initial offerings, finding that rising to the expectations
of spectators was important to produce good works.
When I attempted a joint
interview with her and Heidi for the Kyoto Journal, it was a disaster. Clearly
Senrei was a singular flower who needed her own vase. The photo-shoot was
redone, with some wonderful umbrella outdoors shots, and the interview
concentrated on her own work and outlook. My favorite quote, “I never look at
videos of past performances; it’s so boring, like meeting an old lover.”
Although of course I am biased, I
was grateful that she came to every Noho show, without fail, and even sat
through a long and sometimes awkward workshop production of Lady Macbeth. She
didn’t like what she saw always, but had kind words for me about something, and
was always curious at what seemed to please the audience. She even came to
Noho’s 30th with a gift.
When acquaintances get over the
initial shock of her passing, they immediately ask, “how old was she?” and I
cannot answer. I still don’t know if she was 58 or 68. And I don’t think she
got older in the twelve years I knew her. She was timeless, and precious,
mixing innocence and curiosity of a child with the sharp eye of a connoisseur,
a philosopher, and a creator. She sits on the pedestal of my heart next to
Sennojo, a genuine innovator and provocateur.
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