Kagura

This weekend, I skipped dance rehearsal at Kobe-Jogakuin and traveled to Fukuoka. I took the train and then the subway, so I could board this guy, the kodama. I learned something about shinkansen: first, the hikari rail star and the nozomi go about the same speed, but kodama is the local train of shinkansen, (SLOW).






I was visiting Bryan so that we could go by bus to takachiho, a small mountain town, where we would attend an all-night performance of the 33 sacred Kagura dances.

Geography Lesson:

In the graphic to the left, the Hyogo prefecture is highlighted in orange. Kobe is on its East side, and that is where I currently live. This prefecture, plus six of its neighbors (including Kyoto and Osaka) make up the Kansai region. In the map on the right, the orange highlighted prefecture is Miyazaki, where Takachiho is. Regarding islands, Hyogo is in Honshuu, and Miyazaki is in Kyuushuu.

How does Kagura fit this blog?:

I have not researched Kagura yet- I prefer to get down my initial observations, before I learn the textbook definitions. However, I have heard rumors.

Rumor #1: Kagura is the oldest folk dance of Japan. That said, it is like the mother of dance in Japan. Could I see kagura influence in works of butoh or Shimazaki-sensei's modern dance? What would the differences be? And just how did ancient dudes dance?

Rumor #2: Kagura tells the story of Shinto myth, including the creation of the world and Amaterasu's hiding in and re-emergence from the cave. I love narrative dances. They are satisfying for the watcher (because she gets a coherent story from the piece) and challenging for the do-er (who has to tell a story clearly through movement/gesture, a difficult language).

The performance was in a home in the mountains. The cab driver was willing to brave our horrible Japanese and converse with us. I asked if he has ever seen the kagura dances, and he said that he has been dancing them for the past twenty years. Impressive! I assume that you do not have to be a priest or serious religious person, but can participate in the dance as a hobby. He dropped us off and said something to a person in Shinto dress, and it seemed like he was vouching for us and assuring that we made it back the next morning. The man in shinto dress told us to "Douzo," and so we did.

After removing my shoes at the small foyer, I stepped into a large tatami room, with a room off to the right serving as a backstage and rooms off to the left for the kitchen and bathrooms. The space for the stage was demarcated by green carpet; decorated with hanging paper pictures depicting images prevalent in shintoism like the rabbit and the moon, boars, a torii, and the characters for fire, water, and wood; and lined on the wall-side by food offerings and a ledge for the masks to be placed.

A shinto ceremony started at 4pm, after which the dancers proceeded to the house. All of the dancers were men dressed in white kimonos, some with masks and some without. Their ages ranged from young teens to men in their 50's. They proceeded in a single-file line, with the wooden box (home of the god?) being carried on two men's shoulders. Observers were taking turns tossing a coin into the box and running under the box and back over. Bryan and I each took our turn making an offering, after which he said, "Now we are a part of it!"

The dancers formed a large circle outside and then inside, doing a slow and controlled step-together, step-together, that twisted the body in two curving arcs.

Circles were a major theme of the evening, both in formations of multiple bodies and in the individual's movements. Often, as they were tracing a large circle on stage, the players would carve semi-circles with their steps. Weighty steps made a semi-circle intention downwards as their knees bent and straightened.

During the first dances, the dancers always carried items in both hands: either a sword, bells, a white fan with the Japanese red sun on it, or a staff with paper on one or both ends.

If my writing seems distracted or terse, there is a reason - the dance started at 5:30 pm and continued, nonstop, until 8 am. If anything, I should be hailed for my bravery for attempting to recall the highlights of an experience both soul-shattering and uplifting. Normally I think performance writing should be in present tense, but this is in past tense. So there you go.

In the beginning, I was very attentive to the movement. The first dances were all men without masks, human beings, and they sang along with the beats of the taiko and the sound of the flute. The older men sitting in our area expressed their regret that we couldn't understand what the dancers were singing. "Zenzen wakaranai ne?" It seemed like the chorus of greek plays, because the men moved simply as their singing probably told the story of the gods.

Their movements were weighted, with the loud thud of the taiko emphasizing downward steps. At the same time, each step was controlled (so that the step lands softly) and specific. The torso was not absolutely vertical, but had a slight lean forward, mostly in the upper back. The body was one-piece, with no isolation of body parts outside of hand or head gestures, and it moved gracefully between neutral and lower levels.

Because of watching Richard Lomax's "Palm Play," a documentary made in the sixties about indigenous dances' use of showing or obscuring the palm and Lomax's reductionist explanations about the cultural significance of the gestural choice, I was curious about the use of the hands. In "Palm Play," Lomax briefly states how indigenous dances in Japan often conceal the palms in kimono, and then some explanation I cannot remember about what that means. In the first few dances, done by "human beings"(no mask), their palms are always hidden either by the object they are holding or in the sleeve of their kimono. Even when they were holding an object, most of their hand would be in their sleeve.

Due to the simple movement and hidden palms of these dances, it is a shock when the first masked man (a god) takes the stage and reveals his palm, fingers stretched, in a movement curving in front of his head. If the dancer is not purposefully showing his palm, it is concealed- often by holding the end of their sleeve in their palm, as in the picture on the left.

The character of the dancer completely changes when he is wearing the mask - he looks straight ahead into the audience, instead of looking a bit shy like the unmasked men. He moves his head in a primal and inhuman way, quickly and slightly inclining it from side to side. The dance was so viscerally exciting that the men around me could tell that I was jazzed about it . "Subarashii" one man commented to me, meaning "wonderful." When I sat down, another man informed me that dancing with the mask was difficult, because the dancer has no peripheral vision. I didn't even think of this trouble, as I was moved by the different energy and excitement of the masked dance. After each masked man did a dance, another dancer, biting a green leaf, returns the mask to the shelf behind the stage and does a ceremonial shinto clap and bow. The masks represent the gods and are the gods, and their essence seems to infuse the dancers when they wear them.

There is so much meaning that i do not understand. Different props and clothing accessories mean nothing to me. As does the painting on the ceiling, or the words that the men sing. And my own questions arise: why do many gods have blonde wigs? Why is this dance, including the roles of female goddesses, all danced by men?

As the night progressed, the dances of the gods became more energetic and the human being dances more repetitive. When it was almost dawn, the action on stage was recognizable: Amaterasu (in the picture below-right) performed a dance, and the story of her hiding in the cave was enacted. Her emergence from the cave was well-timed with dawn, since she is the sun goddess, and the world was plunged into darkness until she came out. I will research more about the stories and symbolism of the dances and make a Kagura Story post.

Watching the dances analytically fizzled out after about Hour Four. When there is over 15 hours of continuous dancing, who cares if their palms are showing or not? It's really not important. What is important is the community event centered around these shared stories and traditions. So, on to the next post, Kagura Community!