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- Convenors:
-
Shinko Kagaya
(Williams College)
Hiroko Miura (Musashino University)
Mika Haikawa (Japan Womens University)
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- Chair:
-
Shinko Kagaya
(Williams College)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Performing Arts
- Location:
- Lokaal 5.50
- Sessions:
- Saturday 19 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
When a performing art is faced with crises, how does it overcome challenge and survive through generations, and what kind of transformations must it go through and why? This panel explores these questions from three cases of Nagauta, the Kanze School Taiko Performers, and Kadozuke Performances.
Long Abstract:
When a performing art is faced with crises, how does it overcome and passed on to a future generation, and what kind of transformations must it go through and why? These questions will be considered through three separate cases:
1) The first paper explores how Nagauta (traditional chanting accompanied by shamisen) survived through the challenges of the post-Meiji Restoration era by modifying its lyrics, by focusing on a widely accepted collection, Tsuyu-no-kotobumi, published in 1875 (Meiji 8).
2) Focusing on the management style of Kanze Motoki (1845～1924), the fourteenth head of the Kanze school taiko performers, the second paper analyzes how Motoki overcame the turbulent Meiji period when most of the Nōgaku (Noh and Kyogen) performers lost their patronage.
3) The third paper explores how elements of folk performing arts, nurtured by local community, can be transmitted to the future generations by focusing on the extinct world of Kadozuke (congratulatory-at-the-gate) performance.
Through these explorations, the panel hopes to reveal various aspects of organic transformations in different art forms, and inquires how and in what way such transformations nourish and make possible the succession of each art form into the future.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 19 August, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
What does the extinction of a folk performing art which has been nurtured by a local community suggest to its local residents and beyond? Has its need died out, or is it being fulfilled by a substitute? This paper explores how those performing arts can be passed on to future generations.
Paper long abstract:
What does the extinction of a folk performing art, which has been nurtured by a local community, suggest to its local residents and beyond? Has the need for such performances died out, or is it being fulfilled by a substitute? Trials to revive folk arts closely connected to indigenous life can be seen not only in performing arts, but also in other art forms, both tangible and intangible, such as dance, theatre, architecture, etc., in and outside of Japan. These trials to rejuvenate old or extinct art forms may have some latent potential, and also may reveal a global desire to connect to a one’s own past. Unleashed from its former purpose and geographic milieu, can such an art form find new purpose and new relevance in this age?
This paper explores these questions through focusing on manzai, one of the kadozuke performances. This once popular but now dying artform, may be able to be revived by transforming it into a completely new form, while still acknowledging the core essence from its extinct predecessor. One such example is Yokote-manzai, a classical celebratory narrative performing art that died out towards the end of the 20th century. Before its complete extinction, Shibata Minao (1916-1996), a composer, musicologist, and music critic, found interest in it, and based on the actual performance of the last inheritor of this narrative art, created a communal theater piece called “Manzai-nagashi”. Through this creation, the forgotten and extinct world of Yokote-manzai has been scored and theatricalized, and periodically breathes new life. Another new art form, “Heisei Akita Manzai” (New generation-heisei-era akita manzai) comes from the musical band, Aragehongi, formed in 2007. The leader, Masafumi Saito, hopes that his pieces will convey “something like the indigenous spirit or soul” in a new way.
Paper short abstract:
Focusing on the management style of the Kanze school taiko performers, this paper investigates Kanze Motoki (1845～1924), the fourteenth head, who overcame the turbulent Meiji period when he and other Nōgaku (Noh and Kyogen) performers had lost their patronage.
Paper long abstract:
In the Edo period, Nōgaku (Noh and Kyogen) was the ceremonial art of the bakufu. The Meiji Restoration (1868) collapsed the bakufu, causing Nōgaku performers to lose their patronage, and their opportunities to perform greatly declined as a result. The Meiji Restoration is considered to be the worst crisis to Nōgaku in all its history. Among noh-hayashi (music ensemble) players, taiko performers suffered the most, since the taiko is included only in three quarters of the about 240 standard Noh plays, and its performers had less opportunities to perform. Kanze Motoki (1845-1924), the fourteenth head of Kanze school taiko performers overcame this crisis.
Motoki was in his late-twenties when he succeeded his father Sakichi as the head of the Kanze school taiko performers in 1872, and remained in the position until 1924, which spans the modernizing periods of Meiji and Taisho. He had a progressive mindset as seen in the publication of Kanze-ryū taiko tetsuke (Kanze School taiko music notation) in 1910. Also, due to his basic performance skills of taiko and from his knowledge about Nōgaku that he had acquired in the former Shogunate era, he was respected as an elder who had thorough insight about the past. These points reveal that Motoki, in his processes of managing the school, tried to conserve the inherited custom, but at the same time worked to modernize it. By looking into his performance activities and his management style of artistic transmission as head of school, these accounts help to clarify the measures he has taken for the school’s survival and recognizes his overall accomplishments. However, the full extent of his impact are yet to be known.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation examines how Nagauta (traditional chanting accompanied by shamisen) survived through challenges by revising its lyrics while focusing on Tsuyu-no-kotobumi, a collection published in 1875 (Meiji 8). ts, Nagauta
Paper long abstract:
Since Kabuki was run by private capital, the impact of the Meiji Restoration to it was small compared to other performing arts such as Nōgaku (Noh and Kyogen) which lost patronage of the bakuhu who were previously dominant during the Edo Period. Thus, the Kabuki performances continued, but were faced with orders from the Meiji government to change the content of their lyrics.
In both February and April of 1872 (Meiji 5), the Meiji government issued two notices to Kabuki related groups. They requested that the vulgar lyrics in Nagauta (traditional chanting accompanied by shamisen) be replaced by stories with a more educational approach that would be tolerated by aristocratic and foreign audiences. To respond to that request, Nagauta composers partially corrected vulgar wordings and errors. Tsuyu-no-kotobumi, a revised addition of the Nagauta lyrics was published by Nagauta performer and composer, Kineya Kangorō, the 3rd in 1875 (Meiji 8). Later in the 1880s, another revision of the Nagauta lyrics was conducted by one of the Meiji government agencies, Ongaku-torishirabe-gakari (the division of music investigation). During the Sino-Japanese War in 1939, yet another revision was conducted by the Nagauta-kakyoku-shingikai (inquiry commission of Nagauta lyrics). However, Tsuyu-no-kotobumi was the only revised lyrics that become widely accepted. As stated in the explanation of Tsuyu-no-kotobumi, this is probably due to its strong efforts to revise the lyrics so as to most accurately replicate the original musical phrases. Nowadays, Japanese public broadcast agencies also revise discriminatory terms to inoffensive ones, but only informally. Through reform, war, and conflict, Nagauta has survived.