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- Convenor:
-
Elizabeth Oyler
(University of Pittsburgh)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Michael Watson
(Meiji Gakuin University)
- Discussant:
-
Susan Matisoff
(University of California, Berkeley)
- Stream:
- Performing Arts
- Location:
- Torre B, Piso 2, Sala T6
- Sessions:
- Thursday 31 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
This panel explores extratextual dimensions of the Tale of the Heike, illustrating the work's function in mapping and preserving historical memory. We address metatheatrical dimensions of performance practice and the performative role of cultural heritage sites emerging in response to it.
Long Abstract:
This panel explores the impact of the fourteenth-century war narrative Tale of the Heike on cultural memory from medieval times to the present, focusing specifically on extratextual dimensions of the work. As one of the most influential works in premodern Japanese culture, the Tale of the Heike was born as a sung text narrating the events surrounding the Genpei War (1180-1185). From its creation in the medieval period, the tale's many episodes served as inspiration for oral and written legends, texts meant to be read, noh plays and other forms of theater. The episodes also left a profound imprint in other contexts, suggesting the fundamental cultural significance performed by the tale beyond the articulation of an important historical narrative.
Our intent is to shift the focus of the Tale of the Heike to other kinds of performativity associated with the work. The panel opens with a presentation exploring secretly transmitted pieces of Tale of the Heike recited tradition and their role in recasting the devastations of the war. Why were pieces classified as secret, and what was the cultural significance of learning, preserving, and performing "secret pieces"? The second looks at Earless Hōichi, one of the most famous Heike-related legends, its genealogy, and the way it dramatizes epic performance of the tale in a story about a reciter. What are the motivations for turning the reciter into the subject of narration, and how does that affect the meaning of his custodianship of a vital historical narrative? The final presentation addresses monuments and artifacts related to the Giō episode, exploring how cultural heritage sites associated with the tale appeared around the realm, becoming not only commemorative locations associated with the dead, but also agents who could mobilize that status to economic or political ends. Together, the presentations engage the way the Heike stories become the canvas upon which ever-shifting expectations and interpretations can be drawn.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 31 August, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the heritage sites connected to the "Giō" episode found in Yasu-shi, Shiga Prefecture. Here a complicated narrative involving the dancer Giō was developed in the Edo period to reinforce claims over the ownership of an irrigation canal central to local agriculture.
Paper long abstract:
Statues, graves, monuments, and landmarks of many kinds, ancient and modern, are found in every corner of Japan. They commemorate the life and achievements of historical figures such as military and religious leaders as well as fictional characters from literature, theater, and local legend. Giō and Hotoke, the fictional heroines of a Tale of the Heike episode, are connected to multiple graves that bear their name in various parts of Japan, as well as temples and sites of the houses where they supposedly grew up. Through the existence of heritage sites fictional tales become real, three-dimensional, almost historical. By establishing heritage sites, several towns have appropriated the story of Giō and Hotoke and used these heroines for their own purposes, whether to stimulate the local economy, to reinforce a local identity, or to compete with nearby towns.
This paper explores the heritage sites connected to the "Giō" episode found in Yasu-shi, Shiga Prefecture. Here a complicated narrative involving the dancer Giō was developed in the Edo period to reinforce claims over the ownership of an irrigation canal, central to the local economy based on agriculture.
As local authorities keep the sites alive with careful maintenance and people keep them relevant by visiting them and displaying images of them on the internet, we can say that through the heritage sites, these characters and contemporary society enter into relationship with each other.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation focuses on the "Initiates' Chapter," one of three secret pieces of the Heike biwa repertoire. It discusses both thematic and structural elements of the piece within the context of secrecy and custodianship of historical memory.
Paper long abstract:
The "Initiates' Chapter," or Kanjō no maki, famously creates a specifically Buddhist ending to the most famous variant of the Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari), the Kakuichibon. Recounting the story of Kenreimon'in, the most important Taira survivor of the Genpei War, its focus on her unique status as a nun who has achieved enlightenment, it situates the entire narrative of the Heike within Buddhist space and time outside the arc of historical time. A secret piece in the recited tradition of performance of the Tale of the Heike, it is one of a very small number of pieces sharing this rank, conferred on them because of their articulation of a set of thematic concerns conveyed both in their narratives and their complex musical structure.
This presentation explores the Kanjō no maki's thematic connections to the three "Greater Secret Pieces" of the Heike tradition: the Chapter of the Swords, the Chapter of the Mirrors, and the Doctrinal Debate, all of which, like Kanjō no maki, represent conclusions to the greater narrative, and which also, Oyler argues, do so through creating very similar narrative trajectories, despite their differing subjects and world views. Oyler explores connections of these pieces to each other, and their relationships with both the Kakuichibon and other Heike variants. What does it mean for these works to be secret pieces in the recitational tradition, and how might the existence of such a hierarchy of pieces shape the Heike's role as a placatory text?
Paper short abstract:
The story of Miminashi Hōichi is well known thanks to Hearn's famous anthology Kwaidan (1904). Discussing previous versions dating back to the Edo period and local variants still pertaining in rural folklore, Brisset tries to explore this story as a form of reception of the Heike epic.
Paper long abstract:
The story of Miminashi Hōichi (Earless Hōichi) is well known thanks to the narratives gathered by Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo) in his famous anthology Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904). However, it is possible to find some previous versions in collections of ghost stories (kaii-shū) dating back to the first half of the 17th century. The protagonist, Miminashi or "Earless Hōichi," has other names in earlier collections: he is Mimikire (Ear-cut) Hōichi in the Collection of Strange Stories to Enjoy while Resting (Gayū kidan) published in 1872, and as Mimikire Dan'ichi in folklore. The story of Mimikire Dan'ichi appears to have been recited by the so-called biwa hōshi performers at the end of medieval period, and spread largely throughout Japan where folklorists like Yanagita Kunio recorded some local variants still pertaining in rural areas in the beginning of the twentieth century. Although it has received popular attention, scholarship has not focused fully on the fact that it dramatizes one of the core issues of epic performance (the intricacy between the narrative utterance and its enunciation). In her talk, Brisset analyzes this issue and tries to explore the Miminashi Hōichi story as a form of reception of the Heike epic.