Kyoto performance reviews

Yamamoto Noh Theatre English leaflet Mar 25 2019 Yamamoto Noh Theatre, Osaka Japanese theatre in English Sponsored by the Japanese Foundation for Osaka Culture, this is part of a series of English-language events at the YamamotoNoh Theatre in downtown Osaka. The small, two story theatre—perhaps 200 could squish in if necessary—held about 60 persons, including a whole row of suited men—Osaka city officials?—and middle-age or younger women. There were 12 foreigners, including myself and a few friends. Piano benches/low benches were placed instead of floor cushions (zabuton), with backrests for the last seats. My friend arrived first and chose seats directy facing the central pillar, the stage seen from an angle—a new perspective! The program included three versions of oft-told tales based on the Heike Monogtari (Tale of Heike), as Yoshitsune.  After a brief introduction, a kodan storytelling version of X was performed in English. The melodramatic tale depicts the child Emper...

Kata as convenient shortcuts to Japanese traditional performance culture  http://www.miyagawacho.jp/pdf/kyoodori_leaflet_2019.pdf The highly-codified dance forms, Kata, found throughout Japanese traditional dance and theatre, and even some modern theatre, are shortcuts. They are highly refined and defined, capable of infinite varieties of combinations, at a wide range of levels of energies and paces. They are pre-fabricated material ready to be enlisted to quickly and beautiful put up new creations, lego blocks of beauty and power. This was evident in the annual dances of teenage maiko and middle-age geisha in the Miyagawa-cho Kyo odori held April first in rainy, sakura-strewn Kyoto. The small strip of teahouses just east of the Kawabata Avenue south of Shijo in Kyoto is home to the Miyagawa-cho, one of the “Five Geisha Districts” that includes its more famous neighbor Gion. http://miyako-odori.jp/english/  The Miyako Odori is a pillar of Kyoto’s spring to...

Old wine, champagne bottles: Commemorative noh performances in Japan I recently attended the name-taking commemorative performance of Shigeyama Doji in Tokyo, as he leaped his father to take his late grandfather's name Sennojo. And a 30-year anniversary of the Ohtsuki Noh Stage by an active Kanze School noh performer Otsuki Bunzo in Osaka led me thinking about the role of commemoration as self-generating power source vital to the traditional arts for a variety of reasons. What follows are some general thoughts on the issue of 記念　（memorial) performances in noh. Commemorative performances in Japan are given often in the traditional theatre world. These serve multiple, mutually enforcing purposes, acting in much the same way that Corinthian pillars and marble floors, high ceilings with stained glass and natural light make churches and commercial banks symbols of god-given, stability and permanence. By dusting off rare plays and versions, famous names from t...

Wow, it has been awhile since I last posted. Yet I have been writing my own detailed notes on shows I have seen in Kyoto and Osaka and Tokyo regularly. My interests of late: contemporary spoken drama, re-vivals of "classic" modern theatre (Kara Juro, Betsuyaku Minoru), and traditional theatre. Now, especially interested in how Noh and Kyogen have expanded their use of workshops, lecture-demonstrations and all sorts of "docking" to interact with new spectators and other genres. I will try to post at least once a week beginning April 1st--not a joke! Let's see if my new year (the year starts in April in Japan, at least for teachers and workers) resolution will last.