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- Convenor:
-
Katherine Saltzman-Li
(University of California, Santa Barbara)
Send message to Convenor
- Stream:
- Performing Arts
- Location:
- Torre B, Piso 2, Sala T6
- Sessions:
- Friday 1 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
We reexamine ideas regarding the conveyance of social messages in three Japanese performing arts, considering structures of creation that impact what can and cannot be communicated to an audience, as well as creator-audience communication within a range of temporal, social, and cultural conditions.
Long Abstract:
Shively wrote about the efforts of the bakufu to control Edo-period kabuki and the effects of these efforts, and others have written about the strictures of censorship and political and social limitations in the performing arts. Our panel reexamines ideas regarding the conveyance of social messages in performing arts across the modern/premodern divide. We consider structures of creation that impact what can and cannot be communicated to an audience, and the ways in which creator/performer-audience communication can occur within different temporal, cultural, political, audience, and performance conditions. We pay particular attention to formulas and methods of creation that facilitate understanding between practitioners and audience in performance, and we consider the interconnection between changing audience composition and ways in which social issues can be addressed. These issues are considered through related topics in three different performing arts: kyōgen, kabuki, and naniwa bushi.
Julie Iezzi discusses a new kyōgen she is directing at University of Hawai'i. She addresses the practical experience of creating and producing a new kyōgen that has as an aim "[rekindling the] satiric power of kyōgen as a tool for social change." She grounds this discussion in an examination of post-WWII shinsaku kyōgen as a force for social criticism.
Katherine Saltzman-Li examines the shift from the cooperative playwriting system of Edo-period kabuki to the single author playwriting of Meiji/Taishō kabuki and the effects this shift had on the delivery and reception of social messages. In Edo-period plays, responses to the social environment emerge in suggestive and coded ways, in contrast to a more direct approach at the start of the modern period.
Alison Tokita presents on performance-audience interaction in naniwa bushi, a "neo-traditional genre of musical story-telling that emerged as Japan was modernizing in the Meiji period," and the nature of recent naniwa bushi audiences. She discusses performance conditions and formulaic phrases that contribute to performer-audience communication. She also reports on the results of an audience survey she conducted in 2013 and her observations on changing audience social composition and behavior.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 1 September, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
An examination of performance-audience interaction in the musical-storytelling genre of naniwa bushi, through discussions of performance conditions and formulaic phrases that contribute to performer-audience communication, and of the composition and nature of recent naniwa bushi audiences.
Paper long abstract:
Naniwa-bushi is a neo-traditional genre of musical story-telling that emerged as Japan was modernizing in the Meiji period. Although it reached it greatest heights of popularity between 1900 and 1950, it still continues to attract new audiences and performers today.
Its typically small intimate performance space encourages a close interactive relationship between performer and audience. The audience responds with applause after most sections of sung narrative during the piece. It is still not uncommon for appreciative shouts to be heard, and occasionally money wrapped in paper is thrown or taken up to the performer.
Furthermore, the close relationship between performer and audience is built into the form of the piece. The opening section of sung narrative directly addresses the audience, announcing the title of the piece, and humbly asks for tolerance of a poor performance. The piece closes with an apology for a bad performance and for not finishing the story properly. Such formulaic phrases reflect the oral origins of the art with active communication between audience and performer.
It is usually believed that the shrinking naniwa-bushi audiences consist only of aged people with low levels of education, losers in Japan's economic miracle who cling to outdated values of giri-ninjō and a nostalgic Japanese sentimentality. A survey of audiences in Tokyo and Osaka carried out in 2013 tested these assumptions. The survey results will be reported and supplemented by my extensive observations of audience behavior, and changes in recent years.
Paper short abstract:
An examination of the shift in kabuki playwriting from Edo into Meiji and the effects on the delivery and reception of sensitive subjects, with consideration of changing participants, processes, and social/cultural/political spheres.
Paper long abstract:
In the middle of the Edo Period, a systematized process of kabuki play preparation was carried out by a group of kyōgen sakusha, or playmakers. The group was organized into a hierarchy that consisted of top-level men, who in collaboration with top actors worked out the theme and organization of plays and then wrote highlight scenes, as well as less prominent contributors who did anything from writing sections of the plays to preparing publicity billboards. While the top man of the group read through the separately-written play sections for consistency, this system meant that a variety of voices and contributions combined in the preparation of play material.
One of those "contributions" came from government regulations on allowable material and the possibility of play suspension if contravened. Knowing the limitations on addressing social and political themes, methods of bringing sensitive subject matter to the stage were put into practice and group self-censorship also shaped plays and the incorporation of social and political commentary.
When the Meiji period began, there was a lift on old regulations, and at the same time new kinds of men began to write plays. No longer trained and mentored through the in-house, life-long, behind-the-scenes apprenticeship system, these were often prominent men in the cultural (and often social and political) sphere, who were educated in a new world and who were being taught and allowed to express ideas as individuals.
In this paper, I examine the shift from the cooperative playwriting system of Edo-period kabuki to new circumstances in the kabuki playwriting of the Meiji and Taishō periods. I question the effects this shift had on the delivery and reception of sensitive material. In Edo-period plays, responses and views on the social and political environment emerge in suggestive and coded ways, in contrast to a more direct approach at the start of the modern period. This shift is based in changing participants, processes, and social/cultural/political spheres, and as a result, an evolving contract between those on or behind stage and their audiences.