"Hajitomi ~ Holding a service for flowers" at Kanze Nohgakudo

I was very lucky to have a chance to enjoy "Hajitomi" at Kanze Nohgakudo in Shibuya. Mr. Kazutada Tusda, a noh player, must have chosen this noh play, being conscious of the limited number of days to be able to use that stage as the nohgakudo is shceduled to close in March, 2015, and to be reopened in Ginza in 2018. Hajitomi" means a type of window that requires supports to keep it open. See picture below. It's one kind of "hajitomi."

Story: When a monk was praying for the flowers he had used during his 90-day training, a woman appeared and said she lived in Gojo by way of introducing herself to him. She offered a white flower of Yugao (bottle gourd) and disappeared. In the Tale of Genji, Gojo is the place where Yugao and Genji made love at her residence for the first time but she unexpectedly passed away next day. Being perplexed, the monk went to Gojo and noticed a house with hajitomi. The spirit of Yugao then appeared from the house. She reminisced about love between Genji and her and danced until dawn. When the monk awoke, he wondered if all the things I thought I had seen was a dream or a real.

Yugao on the stage put on three layers of thick white kimono lobes over a light peach color (or light salmon pink) hakama. It took me a while to become aware of how big Yugao really was, and probably shortly after that, I was drawn to the stage; that is, to me, she came to life on the stage. I had been unable to relate to the masked figure before that. Amazing things were that Yugao walked right in the direction of where I was seated and I felt myself being eye-to-eye with her, three times. Those were incredible moments, leaving me profound impressions.

Mr. Yoshikatsu Tsukuda's kakegoe or cries were rich in expressions and I believe that I owed to him that I was able to enjoy Hajitomi so much. He is an okawa or otsuzumi player. He controlled his cries as he liked and expressed all sorts of feelings and the stage's sentiment by changing his cries' lengths and tones. He sometimes ended his cries slowly or hurriedly up, other times sharply down or in a tapering manner and some other times flatly with sharp cuts or whispers. Due to the effects of those cries, I felt I saw fogs coming in against the backdrop of the silhouetted Mt. Arashiyama, which was mysteriously illuminated by moonlight from the cloud-covered moon. I saw Yugao dance through half-blossomed foliage of plum trees.

Pic above is from here. In this picture, Yugao is wearing red hakama but at the Kanze Nohgakudo, she worn the light pink one. The picture below is Kanze Nohgakudo before the performance began.

"Faster" and "Carmina Burana” at New National Theater Tokyo

David Bentley - I've never had an opportunity to see his choreography. So I went to New National Theater Tokyo to see his pieces.

"Faster" is Bentley's recent work commemorating the 2012 London Olympics. It tuned out to be a disappointment. It lacks something to inspire audience. Moreover, dancers looked more like participating to a junior high school's athletic event than a dance on stage. As an audience, I was unable to create a relationship with what's going on on the stage, and as a result, I felt restless and uncomfortable (Why I'm here?) during the whole performance.

I was looking forward to the second piece, Camina Burana, although I didn't know much about the work except that it was accompanied by singing.

After the goddess of fate's dance at the very beginning, 3 female dancers in white long dresses　（liked the dress) appeared from the stage left. When they reached about the middle of the stage, I noticed their body lines were a bit weird. So I sat up in my seat and looked closely at around their waists. I realized the characters were all pregnant and in the eighth month at least. They sauntered along the laundry line stretching in the length of the stage and against the darkness of the background. Pregnant bodies dancing, which was totally unexpected but natural and interesting. That's when I wished there had been subtitles in Japanese for audiences.

A snapshot from the New National Theater Tokyo home page.

Counter tenor, Jun Hagiwara's voice was clear and beautiful. I have heard at least three counter tenors in San Francisco, but his was the best so far. I'm not sure whether or not he can project his voice sufficiently in the San Francisco Opera House, which is twice as big as New National, but I wish he would give a try to leap onto the world stage, by auditioning outside Japan.

Chorus was good. Their voices were young, energetic and straight-forward, but after for a while, it gets kind of boring. Monotonous. I felt exactly the same way, when I listened to "The Tale of Hoffman" a few months ago. The New National Theater Tokyo's chorus seemed to be lacking the depth and breadth of voices, which the SF Opera chorus is blessed to have. It may be because the SF Opera chorus doesn't have retirement policies. So the members can stay until they decide to leave. The US Constitution bans age discrimination except for special cases. Hence there's more diversity in voices in the SF chorus. It seems to be working as an advantage for them, allowing them to express human feelings in depth and breadth.

It's sad that Japan's age discrimination in job has some consequence for artistic expressions.

I learned from the video shown after the performance that Mr. Bentley had choreographed "Prince of Pagoda" for the New National Theater Ballet. The preview reminded me of Kenneth MacMillan so I'm interested in seeing the piece.