First Rehearsal for "Takarazukushi"

Ima-san talks to saki-san and I for two hours about the meaning of Takarazukushi, and the various themes connected to it. She also has pictures of the theater and a calendar of rehearsal dates.

But the moment that strikes me now is when we are in the studio, and Ima-san asks me about my parents, and what my mom thought of Obake Yashiki.

Me: Ummm... she enjoyed it?
Ima: chuckle
Me: Maybe because she is American, but she didn't understand why people are nude.
Ima: I don't think anyone was nude during obake yashiki ...
Me: I showed her pictures, too.
Ima: Well, I don't think a lot of people understand that.

And then what she says next, poorly paraphased and translated by me, is that nudity is a removal of modern dress, nudity is a return to the primal, nudity is beauty...

Me: So, it is to forget the ages?
Ima: Not to forget, but to tap into the memory bank of the body.
Me: oh.

It makes me wonder what is in the memory bank of my body. White imperialists, coming to the new world, farming in South Carolina, and enslaving their brothers? Or even further back, English royalty, dining on whole pigs, beheading traitors, and laughing at the commoners who cannot afford a loaf of bread? Every time I have heard of a native american on my mom's side of the family, or possibly a black woman on my dad's side, I clutch to the idea that maybe I have roots for how I have felt my whole life. Being born into advantage does not make one a bad person, but I have never felt like the dominant, the majority. Maybe I can take it even further, back to ancestors roaming Europe, fighting to stay warm and surviving on game and walking through the wilderness. And not that it is strict. Ima-san once said that the materials that make us up have been around since the beginning of time. Maybe I can remember it all?