Noh Workshop @ HUB Kyoto, where things appear and disappear

"Is it comfortable? Good, it shouldn't be!"

Noh means skill, noh means talent.humorous Dr. Diego Pellecchia reminded us of an often overlooked definition- possibility! Last Sunday, Diego led a workshop at  Kyohakuin, the venue for the HUB Kyoto initiative to bring change makers together in one place. Indeed, in a gorgeous venue with such a rich history, the possibilites truely are endless.

Originally the residence of a Nanga (Chinese literati style) painter in the Meiji era, HUB founding member Lucinda Cowing explained that following the Second World War, Kyohakuin became a finishing school for girls. Here, they were trained in the traditional arts, including tea ceremony and calligraphy, but also Noh theatre. Hence it is believed that the recently-restored Noh stage was built during this period.

Diego started the session by describing how he first began exploring his possibilities with Noh when he met Monique Arnaud in his home of Italy in 2006. After taking Noh classes from her there, he decided to pursue a PhD focusing on the reception of Noh theatre in Europe at the Royal Holloway University of London,  Drama, and Theatre Department.

Currently he is a student of Kongo school of Noh at the International Noh Institute in Kyoto. He also is a researcher at Ritsumeikan University and gives Noh workshops internationally. This workshop was his first in Japan.

For some of the participants, it was their first experience with Noh.  Others like former dancer Julien de Vries, used to watch Noh every Sunday at midnight on NHK. Another participant/observer was photographer Stéphane Barbery who took some stunning photos of the workshop that are available here.

Before moving on to Noh chanting and Noh movements, Diego explained how Noh represents the potential for things to happen. Noh starts with an empty stage. Things appear- the music, the masks, the costumes, the dances, the chants. When the performance is over- they disappear. Diego reminded the workshop participants to keep this in mind as they tested themselves at becoming one with the Noh chanting and movements.

"Noh is like a mirror- it is honest, it reflects."

The workshop focused on a shimai, a self-contained unit of a full Noh performance, entitled Oi Matsu, the Ancient Pine.  Oimatsu is the first shimai that Diego ever learned. It depicts how the protagonist Sugawara Michizane, after being expelled to Chikuzen, Kyushu from Kyoto, would long for days of old.  He reminisces on the plum and ancient pine trees that used to adorn his courtyard in the capital when the next day they appear to him in his Kyushu residence.  Click here for a synopsis of the entire play.

According to the Samurai Archives:

Oimatsu, literally "old pine tree," is an auspicious Noh play depicting, symbolically, an old pine tree. In this play, as throughout Noh and other theatrical and artistic traditions, the pine represents longevity and strength, especially through difficulties, as the pine is evergreen through the winter.

The participants would become the traveling ancient pine tree.

After leading the participants through the chants for the shimai, Diego explained how the performers, no matter what their size, would form a strong skeleton for the large and heavy Noh costumes that they would wear should they perform. The masks would block a large part of their vision— it's normal to be restricted to one eyehole, and not be able to see one's toes —they  so Noh performers must know the stage like the back of their hand. This also is why Noh performers seem to move as if they are sliding across the stage. Diego guided the workshop participants through the movements in their new skeletons.

"Focus on reproducing a beautiful shaper. You are now an old pine visiting from Tokyo to Kyushu."

All of the participants, experiencing Noh as performers for the first time, took a while to feel comfortable with the movements and chanting, which although steming back from 650 years ago, were very new to them.  It is no wonder that Noh performances take years of dedicated training to perfect the simple yet very technical movements.

Diego ended the workshop saying, " When you see a Noh performance, I am sure that you will think of it differently."
  
For those who missed this workshop, there will be more to come and Diego will be appearing for the first time as the shite lead role in a full production of a Noh play at the bi-annual International Noh Institute performance on June 29th, 2013. 

-Posted by Jen Teeter

“Film Festival Month” wraps up in Tokyo: Spotlight on Festival Cinema Brasil 2009 -- Director Edison Mineki Discusses History of Film in Brazil

The delights of October in Tokyo, along with things like persimmons and crisp autumn weather, definitely include the lineup of intriguing film festivals. In addition to high-profile offerings such as the UNHCR Refugee Film Festival, the Tokyo International Film Festival and the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival , other regionally-themed cinematic events on offer throughout the month included the Festival de Cine Cubano, the Festival of German Films in Tokyo, and the Festival Cinema Brasil 2009.

The latter festival played for its fifth year in Tokyo from October 3-9 before moving on to Osaka for its debut run. The official event website explains the ethos of the festival:

Following last year’s celebration of a century of Japanese Immigration to Brazil, this year we will celebrate 80 years of Japanese immigration to the Amazon state. For this occasion the festival will be showcasing films featuring Amazonas and related themes from Japanese directors.

The aim of Festival Cinema Brasil is to create an air of free cultural exchange and to reach audiences all over Japan, introducing them to the rich culture and history of Brazil and its people. In the hope of strengthening Brazil’s image abroad, the festival will showcase works from Brazilian filmmakers encouraging people in Japan to learn more about Brazil. This would lead to more opportunities for the Brazilian film industry, giving them the chance to break into the commercial Japanese DVD and film market.

Indeed, the Festival Cinema Brasil's trilingual website itself serves as an excellent guide to various aspects of Brazilian culture, offering resources such as a basic Portuguese language guide, map of Brazilian shops in Tokyo and Osaka, introduction to Brazilian music, and more here.

Films screened at the festival from Japanese directors included Eu Sou Feliz (I Am Happy) from Soraya Umewaka, and Pertificando from Akiko Nagura. Umewaka’s documentary portrayed the lives of people in a favela (slum) in Rio de Janeiro, seeking to illustrate how they perceived the concept of happiness. The daughter of a Lebanese mother and a Japanese father from a family of Noh theater performers, Umewaka (also a Noh artist herself) has traveled the world documenting the lives of street children in order to open viewers’ eyes to social inequalities. The Japan Times has an excellent piece focusing on her work here.

Nagura’s Pertificando featured collaborations between Japanese and Brazilian musicians who expressed their views on various social issues—such as rising unemployment amongst Braziians in Japan—through the voice of music. The director made an appearance at the festival to give a short introduction to her film, which was then followed by a mini live concert held at the Tokyo venue of the Tsutaya Theater in Shibuya featuring performer Koji Abe (a seven-string guitarist) who appeared in the documentary.

The festival lineup also included O Signo da Cidade (The Sign of the City), a film set against the backdrop of Brazil’s largest metropolis of Sao Paulo while featuring gorgeous music and cinematography. Screenwriter Bruna Lombardi, who also appears as the film's lead actress, has crafted a story of various characters' intertwining destinies that is both heartwarming and deeply spiritual. The film’s website includes interviews with Lombardi and her husband, the film’s director Carlos Alberto Riccelli, as well as music from the soundtrack. Also featured at the festival was O Misterio do Samba (The Mystery of Samba), where famous Brazilian singer Marisa Monte conducted research into samba’s history. Special talk sessions were also held with several samba experts in conjunction with the festival, giving additional insight into the legendary musical genre.

  Festival Cinema Brasil Director Edison Mineki (left) and Assistant Director Momoko Watanabe

One of the festival’s more politically-oriented works was Zuzu Angel, a true story portraying the life of the Brazilian fashion designer of the same name, who dedicated her life to seeking justice for the arrest and murder of her son Stuart during the 1970’s by the Brazilian military dictatorship. Following the screening, I chatted with festival director Edison Mineki about cultural expression in Brazil in the context of the country’s turbulent political history.

Kimberly Hughes: What a powerful film. Of course, it was quite disturbing to see graphic scenes of the torture used against activists during this time period. But it’s also important to know that this history existed.

Edison Mineki: Exactly. This was a very difficult time in our country’s history. I was a youngster still living in Brazil then, and the repression was everywhere. We were actually more afraid of police than we were of common street criminals, and any criticism of the dictatorship had to be made indirectly. Artists found a way to protest, however, through means such as the satirical political journal O Pasquim.

Gradually, workers, intellectuals and artists began coming together more openly to demand change, at times fronted by famous performers such as Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. In 1983 and 1984, the movement known as Diretas Ja! (Rights Already!) emerged in demand for free presidential elections. I attended one of these gatherings, held at a bridge in Sao Paulo, where around two million people joined together to call for change. It was absolutely exhilarating to be a part of this history.

KH: And there was an impact on film during this period as well, I assume?

EM: Yes. Film censorship was heavy during the military dictatorship, and even after its collapse in the mid-1980’s, people were often still afraid to speak out. This was compounded by the economic collapse that occurred after the election of President Collor in the late 1980’s, when film production basically stopped. Finally, with President Franco in office in the mid 1990’s, people began feeling safe to speak their minds, and films made a comeback. It was a cinema renaissance, of sorts.

KH: Could you explain a bit about the history of the Festival Cinema Brasil in Japan?

EM: I’ve always loved watching movies, ever since I was a kid. After I came to Japan in the mid-1990’s, around the time when the film industry in Brazil was rebuilding itself, I started thinking about ways to bring them to Japan. A big inspiration for this was watching the film O Quatrilho, a story about the lives of some Italian immigrants in Brazil. I tossed the idea around of starting a Brazilian film festival here with some friends in the media industry, and in 2004 the Brastel Telecom company agreed to become a sponsor. The festival started running officially in 2005, and has been growing ever since.

Edison Mineki is also the Executive Producer of Tupiniqum Entertainment Co., Ltd., described on the film festival website as an "event production company-aiming to promote cultural exchange between Brazil and Japan" and "introducing Brazilian culture through music and cinema to the Japanese community."

-- Kimberly Hughes

How the Irish Saved Civilization, Spread St. Patrick's Day Parades (Occidental-friendly Matsuri) throughout Japan, & May Be Saving Civilization Again

(or at least putting some much-needed goodwill and fun into our shared World Civilization for one day a year)

The outward signs of any Japanese matsuri are the most puzzling enigmas to the stranger who sees them for the first time. They are many and varied; they are quite unlike anything in the way of holiday decoration ever seen in the Occident; they have each a meaning founded upon some belief or some tradition, --- a meaning known to every Japanese child; but that meaning is utterly impossible for any foreigner to guess.

- Lafcadio Hearn, 1894

A little less than a century after Hearn wrote these words, the first St. Patrick's Day parade in Tokyo in 1991 joined Japan's many matsuris, with decorations easily understandable to people all over the world. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the first Japanese St. Patrick's Day parade down Omote-Sando's broad, tree-lined boulevard in Tokyo's youth mecca, Harajuku. This year, six parades will be taking place throughout Japan, in Nagoya, Sendai, Kyoto, Ise, Yokohama, and Tokyo.

Thomas Cahill's 1995 book tells us how the Irish saved civilization during the European Middle Ages. However, it remains a mystery how and why Irish people from the far western end of the massive Eurasian landmass, leapfrogged two continents, to its far eastern end in Japan—to make Tokyo an epicenter of ever-increasing waves of St. Patrick's Day parades spreading throughout the archipelago. These Irish-Japanese parades seem to be generated by enthusiasm at the grassroots, thus are different from other adopted European and American holidays such as Valentine's Day and Christmas, popularized by department stores for commercial reasons.

There are many issues here that merit scrutiny and discussion by those interested in multiculturalism: What is it about St. Patrick's Day that gives it such strong appeal in Japan? The Guinness? The similarity to Japanese matsuri? The costumes? The music? The dancing? How does the Irish concept Craic compare with the Japanese term Tanoshii? Are they both the same and different? Why and how?

Does everyone, in fact, become Irish on St. Patrick's Day? That would make St.Patrick's Day's "Irishness" a metaculture, possibly saving contemporary civilization by serving as a global day of ethnic transcendence every year.

Why did Japan become the eastern center for St. Patrick's Day parades? Simply because of geography, because it's at the far eastern end of Eurasia and the Irish could go no further? Or are there more compelling reasons why? And, will these parades now begin spreading from Japan westward through Korea to China to India, in a reverse path from Buddhism? Will Celtic Christian motifs join the syncretic art in the Dunhuang caves in China? Who will be the pilgrims and saints spearheading this movement? Do I hear Enya singing "Sumiregusa" ("Wild Violet") in Japanese in the background?


The St. Patrick's Day parade, now a global cottage industry, has been multicultural from its inception. It was not indigenous to Ireland, but, instead, created in the Irish-American diasporan culture when the first parade took place in 1762 in New York. When Irish immigrants flooded the United States to escape the mid-1800's Irish Famine, they encountered discrimination by the dominant Anglo-Protestants. As St. Patrick's Day became a rallying symbol for Irish-American pride, parades began proliferating all over the United States.

The story of the Irish in Japan, of course, dates at least back to Lafcadio Hearn, a nineteenth-century global nomad, and an Anglo-Irish-Greek-American-Japanese hyphenate. About a century after the chronicler of "Old Japan" migrated to the archipelago, Irish engineers, business people, and teachers started arriving in larger numbers during Ireland's economic slump when Japan experienced its 1980's Go-Go decade.

Around one hundred young Irish teachers come to Japan on the JET program every year. Some Irish students simply come to Japan to study or visit. A sizeable proportion of these people have remained to permanently work for a Japanese company, often marrying Japanese spouses. When the Irish economy began taking off in the 1990's, IT and other business networks have developed between the two countries. Japanese companies have established offices and manufacturing plants in Ireland and Irish businesses have come to Japan. There are also 70 Irish pubs throughout Japan, from Kyushu to Hokkaido; the Japan Gaelic Athletic Association; and several Irish music and dance groups and schools.

Around nine hundred registered Irish residents live in Japan (compared to a little over seven hundred Japanese residents in Ireland). Japanese spouses, mixed children, Japanese aficionados of Irish culture, Irish-Americans, and Irish-Australians increase the population of the multi-ethnic Irish community in Japan.

One of my most pleasant memories of the Irish community in Tokyo is of an Irish-Indian-Japanese St. Patrick's Day party at the Irish ambassador's house in the early 1990's, where a Japanese virtuoso Celtic harpist played in the background.

The ambassador's wife was from India so they had an Irish-Punjabi fusion cuisine buffet – Irish soda bread served with curry dishes – with Guinness Stout and Bailey's Irish Creme for beverages. When I commented on how great the combination was, a young Irishman told me that India and Ireland actually have ancient connections and that the Irish and Indian languages are related through the Indo-European/Central Asian family. For example, the word for "brother" in Sanskrit is bhratar, and related to the Irish brathair.

And while there are differences between Ireland and Japan, they have more in common besides both being island outposts of Eurasia. In ancient Ireland, before the Christian conversion, the sun was also a powerful symbol. It's said that St. Patrick actually incorporated sun symbology with that of the cross, creating the Celtic cross. Their cultures share the veneration of water as a regenerative symbol in ritual cleansing and purification. There's a deep love of poetry in both countries. Seamus Heaney, the Irish literary Nobel laureate, is a personal friend of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, who visited him last year.

An Irish friend of mine, who is married to a Japanese woman, and lives in Japan permanently, told me he felt at home in Japan from the moment he arrived, especially when he saw the spirals and circles in the rock gardens of Kyoto. They reminded him of Celtic art.

Similarly, a Japanese friend of mine told me that traditional Irish music awakened something hauntingly powerful inside of him. I told him perhaps aspects of traditional Japanese culture—repressed in Japan during its rapid modernization during the Meiji (1868-1912) period when schools began teaching classical European music at the expense of traditional Japanese music; similarly to the Anglo-Saxon repression of Celtic culture—still lingered in the Japanese collective unconscious. Perhaps these yearnings for what had been lost began surfacing in him upon the recognition of a parallel of itself in the traditional Irish musical revivals.

Formerly suppressed indigenous and traditional cultures have not only resurfaced, but are also flourishing worldwide. In the African-American experience, ancient African rhythms survived severe cultural repression during slavery. One African-American scholar attributes this to persistent "cultural memory." In the 1990's, as a Japanese traditional musical revival began building steam in tandem with the Irish traditional musical explosion (and world music everywhere), I couldn't help but wonder if there was something very old and powerful at play.


Echoing Buddhist thought and the mysticism of other faith traditions, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, who had his own connections with Japan, including writing a Noh play, At the Hawk's Well, had another more mystical theory—that we all resonate to archetypal symbols, no matter from which culture, because, ultimately, we are all made of one single energy—and that memories of this unity can be evoked by symbols:

The borders of our minds are ever shifting
And many minds can flow into one another...

And create or reveal a single mind, a single energy

But these are just a couple of possible hypotheses on the topic of the proliferation of Irish parades in Japan, a subject which deserves much more investigation, and, as a toast to this ongoing discussion, I join all those in Japan and everywhere wishing each other "Éirinn go Brách"or "Happy St.  Patrick's Day!"

- Jean Miyake Downey

(Originally posted at the Kyoto Journal website. Photos of St. Pat's Day parade in Tokyo 2006, courtesy of Kjeld Duits at iKjeld.com.)

Minoru Miki's ORA-J performs Hagoromo ( an angel of many cultures) in Tokyo

(Noh performer performing in Hagoroma. (Photo: sacred-texts.com (site has the full text of the play)

Composer Minoru Miki's Orchestra Asia, ORA-J, will be performing Hagoromo in Tokyo:

The 17th regular concert of ORA-J will be held on November 8 &10 in Tokyo and Chiba under my producing. I am planning to premiere a theatre piece Hagoromo which story is very famous in Japan and in 1995 it premiered as a music drama in Moscow as Japanese-Russian cooperation. This time I will use its 12 song melodies and ORA-J members including me will add instrumental sections for the drama with two singers.

This is an ancient story about a human who stole an angel's cloak, preventing the angel's return to heaven. This story probably goes back to Central Asian as variations of it exist in India, Persia, China, Japan, the Liu Chiu Islands and Sweden. The story of Hasan in The Arabian Nights is based on same theme.

According to Arthur Waley, the Noh version of Hagoromo was written by Seami, who begins by quoting a couplet from the Shih jen Yu Hsieh (Jadedust of the Poets), a Sung Dynasty poetry text popular in medieval Japan:

On a thousand leagues of lovely hill clouds suddenly close;
But by one tower the bright moon shines in a clear sky.

-JD