Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

66 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYsought to rethink and transgress the borders of modernJapan, not by embracing the preserved forms of noh andkabuki found in the national theaters but their sacredand shamanic origins.Hijikata Tatsumi, the founder of the post war Japanesedance form, butoh, rejected his ballet training andreturned to the mud and earth of his village in northernJapan to discover the Japanese body that came from thatsame earth stripped of the artifice of centuries of courttradition. His dance of darkness had a profound impacton the young creators of the angura movement. At thesame time, his partnership with contemporary dancerKazuo Ohno created work that drew on both darknessand light. Both had experienced first hand the horrorsof the Pacific war. Hijikata danced “with my dead sisterin one half of my body.” Ohno had the memory of hisyounger sister dying of hunger in his arms.They returned the dead to their rightful place on theJapanese stage and this communion with the deadand this giving voice and movement to those whohad suffered horribly was a powerful return to themetaphysics of noh theater.At the same time, Ohno’s Christian beliefs wereapparent, as were his globalist interests. His seminalwork Remembering La Argentine, a tribute to theArgentinean singer/dancer, was hugely influential,expressing empathy to a person of a culture andtradition across the globe. Nationalism was rejected. Inplaying that role, Kazuo Ohno was transformed into LaArgentine and the universalist, humanist nature of artwas revealed.When Nietzsche called for the establishment of ametaphysical theater capable of healing the existentialproblems of his time, he provoked a revolution inWestern theater, prompting people like Yeats, Artaud,Brecht, Genet and Ionesco to make a new theater.They responded by borrowing from ballet and opera,scrutinizing accounts of myths and rituals in traditionalsocieties, and ransacking the theater traditions of Asia(Karampetsos 1995).In the 1960s, contemporary Japanese theater wasgrappling with the same existential problems and theangura movement’s return to investigate the pre-modernwas a natural response to a global malaise. However,because of the rupture between traditional theaterand shingeki, many of those in the angura movementhad little knowledge of traditional theater. Some intraditional theater attempted to cross the divide.The 1960s saw pioneering work between traditionaland contemporary artists. There were casualties—KanzeHideo was expelled from noh for his involvement inleftist angura theater—but a movement had begun 7 .The global reach of Western scholarship did much topromote the understanding of the role of traditionaltheater. Stern criticism of modern theater arose. Thisimpulse came not only from Japan—it was a globaltheater phenomenon. No longer was the drama orspoken word seen as the central element in theater, withthe actor merely an embodiment of the playwright’svoice. This was concurrent to theater movements inEurope where the Living Theater movement was seekinga new form by questioning the nature and purpose ofart as entertainment for consumers. Theater traditionswere being questioned on a global level. During thisprocess of questioning, the essential structure oftraditional theater such as noh and kabuki, especially theperformance style and concept of the body, became thecenter of attention. Western theater makers flocked toJapan to watch traditional performing arts. Shingeki hadbroken with tradition, insisting, “Don’t dance, move.Don’t sing, tell. (Odoru na ugoke. Utau na, katare.)”Now this was questioned. Theater was recognized againas the body dancing in space and the voice singing.Samuel Beckett wrote that his plays were written to be“sung.” Zeami’s treatises to actors, his 14 th century FushiKaden, had advocated the same thing. Beckett was a hitin Japan. The global movement of people and ideas wasapparent and enriching.Contemporary TheaterIn Sumbawa Donggo owns a horseIn Jakarta Donggo buys a bicycleAjip Rosidi, Indonesian PoetContemporary theater makers in Japan today continueto seek a balance between their modernity and theirtradition. Setagaya Public Theater was founded byangura stalwarts, Black Tent’s Makoto Sato and MatsuiKentaro, to be a theater that would seek to restore thebalance in Japanese theater by reconnecting to thebedrock of Japanese tradition. One Setagaya program,the Contemporary Noh Series, invites establishedplaywrights to interpret anew noh theater. This seriesattempts to go beyond the form of noh to its dramaturgyand metaphysics.Elsewhere, playwright Sakate Yoji, who did his thesison Zeami, owns to not being as interested in Zeami’stheories of performance as his stories. However, his playsall contain ghostly elements. Sakate’s most famous play,Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows