Organizer and Chair: Jonah Salz, Franklin and Marshall College
Discussant: Thoedore C. Bestor, Cornell University
Japanese traditional theater has a particularly elastic ability to transform itself with each generation, adapting itself to new modes of transmission, innovations in transportation and technology, and changing patron's tastes. These four papers treat traditional forms not as perfected and protected museum pieces, but as vital, malleable forms undergoing major transformations in the post war years, even as they are treated (and, often, present themselves) as "timeless" national treasures.
William Lee discusses Hayachine Kagura, a ritual, folk dramatic form, and how it has maintained and reformulated its essential rustic, ritual qualities, as interest among scholars, tourists, and the mass media has expanded since the War. How are folk ritual participants transformed into theatrical performers on national and international theatrical stages?
Patricia Pringle explores the economic and political factors leading to construction of the "Joruri Sheataa" in the rural Nose region of Osaka prefecture, promoting the local puppet theater to the touristic public and mass media. How are the amateur practitioners and the delicate "iemoto" (headmaster) system, affected by such promotional activities?
Lorie Brau examines rakugo storytelling and its avid audiences. How has recording changed the traditional relationship between masters and disciples? How do tape and video recordings of performances alter master hanashika performances, and expectations of audience members?
Jonah Salz examines the boom in takigi (bonfire lit) noh kyogen performances throughout the country as the product of the convergent needs of producers, performers, and audiences. How are modern lighting and sound technologies employed to enhance traditional performances, and how has their success fed back into the "true" indoor tradition?
This panel examines tourism and technology's impact on a thousand year range of performance, including both folk and elite genres. It should provide evidence, to paraphrase Geertz, of how these cultural performances are telling a story about themselves both to themselves and to tourist others, and how technology is altering their means of telling it, and perhaps the story itself.
William Lee, Minnesota State University, Akita
This paper looks at the effects of scholarship, media attention, tourism and performances outside the local community on Hayachine kagura, an example of the yamabushi kagura variety of Japanese folk performance which is performed in two villages at the foot of Mt. Hayachine in Iwate Prefecture. Hayachine kagura was one of the first folk performances in northern Japan to be studied by scholars. It has also been promoted as a tourist attraction by the local government and been the subject of a three hour documentary film. As a result, performances have for many years been well attended by non locals, and the two troupes have been invited to perform in other parts of Japan and even abroad. This paper will discuss the impact of this national and international recognition on troupe organization and performance practices, as well as, in more general terms, the implications of Hayachine kagura's growing professionalism for its survival as folk performance. In order to better assess and put in perspective the Hayachine case, some comparison will be made with examples of kagura in other locales that have received less attention.
Lorie Brau, New York University
Since the end of the eighteenth century, hanashika (professional storytellers) have captivated Japanese audiences with rakugo, humorous "punch line" tales. Today, most hanashika choose their material from the koten, or classic, rakugo repertoire. Many of their stories, which are passed down along with performance techniques from master to disciple, detail the lives of the urban merchant and artisan classes of the late Edo period.
Over the last hundred years, technology has transformed the way in which rakugo is learned, performed and received by audiences. The shorthand transcription techniques developed in the Meiji period that made rakugo into a genre of popular literature have been succeeded by electronic forms of documentation-phonograph recordings, cassette tapes, CDs, and videos.
My paper focuses on the effect of these newer kinds of documentation on rakugo training and audience reception. In traditional rakugo training, masters teach their disciples a story by reciting it for them three times and hearing the disciple recite it back. The formal lesson remains the legitimate method for learning a new story, but storytellers in training no longer must listen to repeated recitations until they have memorized it: their tape recorder takes notes for them. Sometimes they even learn stories from commercially produced tapes. How does the tape recorder change the storyteller's learning process and the way in which he tells his story?
It is performer-to-performer and performance-to-performance variations in recitations of well-known tales that rakugo connoisseurs claim to enjoy. What effect do commercial recordings of tales have on audiences viewing live renditions by the same or other performers? Does foreknowledge of a particular version generate certain expectations in the audience?
The accessibility of commercial rakugo tapes (and tapes made illicitly at live performances) has created a new subculture of rakugo fans centered on producing and sharing rakugo documentation. Through these tapes, amateurs can imitate the masters and perform rakugo themselves. Many fans have never even heard rakugo performed live. They become experts on recorded performances in the way that some classical musical buffs do.
No two live rakugo performances are ever the same, but on a recording, the listener hears the same performance over and over. My paper inquires into how electronic documentation may change the concept of the rakugo text.
Patricia Pringle Sims, University of Hawai'i
Nose district is a collection of villages in northern Osaka prefecture, located about two hours by car from Osaka. In the Edo period it was on the procession route from the Japan Sea to Kyoto, but with the coming of rail transportation, its distance from rail lines isolated it from the development of Osaka and Kyoto, to the south and east. Nose has a strong tradition of amateur joruri (well known as the narration that accompanies puppetry on the Osaka bunraku stage) performance. There are three separate "iemoto" schools that date back to 1807, when three individuals in three separate locales set themselves up as the first iemoto. There are three separate pyramids, each with a coveted iemoto geimei at the top. These three iemoto systems are the central factor for determining social status in these villages, and being iemoto carries tremendous financial responsibility as well as well defined ritual obligations.
When the government of former prime minister Takeshita announced its new "furusato" local initiative grants of Y1 oku (God only knows what this will translate to in U.S. dollars by the time AAS comes around), the local government held referenda to determine what in Nose deserved to be promoted. The joruri tradition edged out improving housing infrastructure and building leisure facilities to become the favored project. A multi-purpose theater, called the "Joruri Sheataa," was built at a cost of Y17 oku and was opened in 1993
Both at that time, and at the first anniversary of the building of the "Joruri Sheataa," the Japanese National Broadcasting System, (NHK) filmed extensively on location, culminating in a total of 60 minutes of TV coverage.
The head of the theater is an Osaka cultural bureaucrat, Ouchi Yoko. She is rotated out to Nose only 2 days a week, her other postings being community centers inside Osaka City.
My presentation will cover a brief history of the three iemoto systems, the Osaka fu government's handling of the "Joruri Sheataa," and the effect of tourism and media coverage on the local joruri tradition.
Jonah Salz, Traditional Theatre Training, Kyoto
Since the 1950s, classical Japanese noh and kyogen theater have experienced an astounding boom in popularity. Leading the way is the anomalous juxtaposition of this ancient, intimate form in modern, public settings during the "takigi noh," bonfire lit summer noh spectacles now held throughout the country, which now number over 200 annually. Surprisingly, rather than eschew modern lighting and sound technologies in order to keep the arts "pure," noh actors seem to embrace them, while audiences revel in the glow of this mysterious "hometown of the heart."
This paper will examine the three principle players responsible for the current takigi noh boom:
A brief historical overview of takigi noh will be followed by interviews with contemporary producers, actors, audiences and critics, with a review of the current proliferation in takigi noh literature. Finally, a preliminary analysis of the ways in which the six-hundred-year-old tradition of noh kyogen has been severely altered in the past forty years will be offered.
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