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- Convenors:
-
Katherine Mezur
(University of California Berkeley)
Ken Hagiwara (Meiji University)
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- Chair:
-
Helen Parker
(The University of Edinburgh)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Performing Arts
- Location:
- Lokaal 5.50
- Sessions:
- Saturday 19 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
Performative dream cultures: travelling terrains of consciousness
Long Abstract:
Performative dream cultures: travelling terrains of consciousness
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 19 August, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
The proposed paper will examine how dreams are represented in Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) ’s bunraku plays. Through this argument, I will investigate theatrical treatments of dream space in bunraku, thereby indicating the ecology of imagination in Japanese traditional theaters.
Paper long abstract:
In the first half of the paper, I will summarize how dreams were treated in Japanese culture. As a matter of fact, Japan is rich in the literature of dreams. One of these figures fascinated with dreams was Myōe (1173-1232), a Buddhist high priest who constructed the Kosanji Temple near Kyoto. He is known for his record of dreams collected over 40 years. After a summary of the Japanese “dream culture” before the modern period, I will discuss the theoretical problem regarding the difference between the record of a dream per se and its representation on stage, because the latter is evidently an artifact, a kind of rhetoric for storytelling.
To elaborate the problem, I will discuss how dream space is conceived in the plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725). Chikamatsu “modernized” bunraku in the late 17th century in the sense that he introduced characters who exhibit their will, in contrast to those who were obedient to destiny in early bunraku. In accordance with this shift, while dreams in old plays were a vehicle for oracles, in Chikamatsu’s they function as spaces for virtually realizing the desires of the characters. In The Later Battles of Coxinga (1717), the hero’s son, who longs to see his father’s land, flies over from Taiwan to Japan in his dream. The fulfillment of wishes in Chikamatsu is visualized as the insertion of another illusion on stage. Thus, in the latter half of the presentation, I will propose a working hypothesis to investigate theatrical treatments of dream space in bunraku, thereby indicating the ecology of imagination in Japanese traditional theaters.
Paper short abstract:
I analyze michiyuki – travel sequences – in two “mad women” Noh plays arguing that depictions of travel and landscapes create symbolic language which articulates the protagonists’ frantic wandering as a metaphor for Buddhist Path while simultaneously subverting the very expectations of the Path.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on the religio-philosophical framework within which it operates, Japanese Noh theater is known for pieces exploring issues of Buddhist attachment and desire which keep their protagonists in the vicious cycle of suffering. A category of Noh plays known as Onnamonogurui – “mad” or “crazed women plays” – presents this attachment as an obsession that leads the shite – Noh play protagonist – into mental and spiritual disintegration. A typical Onnamonogurui storyline focuses on the parting of the female shite with her lover or her child, a loss that then propels her on a compulsive journey in a desperate hope for reunification. That way, the woman’s gurui – “madness” – her mental and spiritual bondage, is enacted through her torturous sojourn. The narrative of the search, the travel sequences, the depicted landscapes, create an evocative symbolic language which articulates the protagonist’s frantic wandering as a metaphor for a spiritual struggle through the maze of human suffering, with a hope, though not a guarantee, of a release and enlightenment.
The proposed presentation examines how this symbolic language operates in the concrete examples of Noh plays Hanjo and Sumidagawa, the former a narrative of the courtesan Hanago as she wanders the province in search of a lover who had seemingly abandoned her, and the latter a story of a grief-stricken mother searching for a son who was kidnapped by slave traders. My discussion explores the ways in which the contending forces of stasis and movement, mental disintegration and spiritual insight, desire and release, converge in the narratives of travel to subvert the expectations of a proscribed path to enlightenment, by anchoring the protagonist in their desire and suffering rather than countering them. The jilted lover and the bereaved mother, thus, gain deep insight into the nature of their pain, which is communicated to the audience through performance of the travel metaphor.
Paper short abstract:
Much has been discussed about the status of dream in noh theatre, but less is known about its treatment in kabuki. The proposed paper will discuss how dream is represented in kabuki theatre, especially in Tsuruya Namboku IV's famous play Yotsuya kaidan (The Ghost Stories at Yotsuya, 1825).
Paper long abstract:
My concern lies in the representation of dreams in 19th century kabuki, which reached full maturity with such playwright as Tsuruya Namboku IV (1755-1829). Traditionally, dreams in the Japanese theaters had been related to divine revelation, or a message sent from god(s). In early bunraku (bunraku before its "modernization" by Chikamatsu in the late 17th century), for example, the dream was a commonplace device used to transmit the Buddhist or Shintoist deities' wills. Chikamatsu made use of dreams in some of his plays, but this dramaturgical device is related to theatrical devices such as spectacular scenery changes. In Chikamatsu as well as contemporary kabuki plays, the dream was a tool for making illusions on stage.
It was Namboku IV's famous play Yotsuya kaidan (The Ghost Stories at Yotsuya, 1825) where dreams assumed a different aspect from foregoing kabuki plays; in the final act, the degenerated hero Iemon marries a beautiful woman in the countryside, finding happiness. It turns out, however, that she is the ghost of his wife, Oiwa, who has died in misery after having been mercilessly abandoned by her husband. The entire scene is Iemon's dream, and awaked, he is further tormented by Oiwa's figure. While the scene was conceived to feature a rapid change of roles from a beautiful woman to an ugly ghost, played by Onoe Kikugorō III, it tells of Iemon's ambivalent attitude toward Oiwa, or the hidden unconscious, if we are to use modern terminology. Such dramaturgy of casting another light on characters through the pretext of the dream is also found in plays by Kawatake Mokuami (1816-1893), while they are apparently constructed on naked realism.