Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY63Performance as release and harmonyOn the level of myth, this episode’s structure ofmisidentification followed by the revelation of his truenature is typical of many archetypal myths concerninga disguised god.However, it is also the dramaturgy of noh theater. Innoh theater, especially mugen or dream noh, the poorboatman or the mad woman in the first half of the playreveals him/herself in the second half as a true, morepowerful transformed self. The dead can speak, notbecause they are not dead but because they are merelyhidden or transformed. The performer or shaman allowsthem to reveal their true selves.In this sense, noh theater is a purification rite and itsperformance is an exercise in recognition and correctidentification that allows release and harmony,recognition and joy. The goddess is lured out of hercave. Once you can see past the form, the invisiblereveals its true nature. Within everyone is somethingsacred. “Even the head of a sardine can be god.” 4 This isa deeply subversive and democratic concept.Moreover, in noh theater it is the dead, thosewithout authority—those without historical or socialdominance, who have lost the war—who are given theright to tell their story and recall their version of events.Noh privileges not the victor but the voiceless and theinvisible. All noh plays put the deceased and voicelessfirmly in the centre of the narrative.However, the irony of many traditional art formsis that once they occupy the privileged position ofa classical or state form, they no longer clearly playthis role. The privileging of form over philosophycreates a rigid, unchanging art form that is used bythe state to give validity to their position as guardiansof these forms and of society. It no longer speaks forthe voiceless and invisible in contemporary society.Business and tourism benefit, too, from this fixed formand tradition is seen as something to be protected fromoutside threats—globalization, modernity and evencontemporary art—which may attempt to change theform and content of such traditions and make them less“Japanese” and therefore less easily feminized, availableand consumable.The louche origins of kabukiIn this paper I would like to offer the suggestionthat threats to traditional culture in Japan, Indonesiaand elsewhere do not come from globalization andmodernity except insofar as that modernization haschanged humanity itself and insofar as globalization haschanged the dominant discourse.Rather, I would like to examine the threats from thosewell-meaning folk who seek to preserve. Those who seekto freeze and control culture in order to validate someother, often nationalist, agenda often lay the blame atglobalization’s door. They regard culture and the arts asa “moral resource” and want to lift it to lofty heights,forgetting the low, often mischievous, origins of theateras well as its complex, syncretic history.Those who want to preserve tradition as something tobe consumed like a national dish forget the sacred andspiritual origins of dance and theater. Those who seek tofreeze tradition forget that tradition is evolving. For itsevolution to continue, it must die and be reborn. The roleof the state has often been to preserve “the vanishing” inorder to make claims of cultural authenticity, hegemonyand superiority while the contemporary artist seeks tocritique and to destroy in order to create a new disorder.This tension is an ongoing historical one of resistanceand refusal and out of this new theaters are made.A brief look at the origins and history of kabukiillustrates this. According to tradition, kabuki wasfounded in 1603 by another Shinto priestess—Okuni.It acquired the defamatory name kabuki, meaning “toincline” or “bend,” as these women transgressed socialboundaries. From its “prostitute kabuki” origins, kabukiactors were social outcasts, “beggars of the riverbed.”Although fiercely suppressed by the shogunate, kabukiwas the artistic means by which commoners couldexpress their suppressed emotions under such restrictivesocial conditions. In this way, kabuki was contemporarytheater.Kabuki borrowed shamelessly from bunraku noh,kyogen, popular ballads, fiction and legends. Whenwomen were forbidden to perform, kabuki perfectedthe art of the male impersonator or onnagata. Whateverchallenges were thrown up, the lively, open art formcalled kabuki adapted to and adopted them to ensure itssurvival. The arrival of Western boats and Western artintroduced perspective to kabuki sets as well as changesin make-up and props. Stories, too, changed with newcharacters ranging from foreign sailors to Jesuit priests.People flocked to the kabuki theater to catch up on thelatest trends and fashions as well as the latest gossip andstories affecting the community.Today in the classical preserved world of kabuki, theword kabuki is written with the Chinese charactersAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows