RI Japanese Theatre Notes

Tadashi Suzuki:

Movement and method of acting

• Fundamental Theories
• To act, one must have a point of view
• For acting to begin, one must have an audience
• To sustain acting, an awareness of the invisible body is required
• Goals for the actors
• Understand the different ways in which the feet contact the floor
• Breathe through the nose
• Send the energy through the floor onto the ground when stomping
• Keep the upper body free, but strong
• Be constantly focused an aware
• Lose yourself in fiction
• Keep the lower body constantly enraged and powerful underneath the center of gravity to support the breath and vocal instrument
• Ten ways of walking: Stamping Shakuhachi
• Standing Statues
• You move from a standing pose and you freestyle
• Sitting Statues
• Different relationship to the floor
• Activity
• Trying out the ten ways of walking
• The philosophy of Tadashi Suzuki
• The rise of modern Japan
• World War Two
• Effects of the Atom Bomb
• United States Influence
• Capitalism
• Globalization
• Movement into the 21st century
• Resistance to change
• Modern Japanese Theatre
• Globalization and Culture
• Decrease in communication, decrease in Theatrical Appreciation?
• Non-places
• Welcome to the West!
• Culture Extermination
• Rules of Society
• Theatrical Spaces
• The Village of Toga and Theatrical Space
• Form of Silent Protest
• Artistic enlightenment outside of the capital
• Dynamic Locations
• Outdoors vs. Indoors
• Audience and Actor Relationship
• Creating the feeling of "Home"

Japanese Underground Theatre (Angura): 

• Underground Theater
• 1959-1980
• Response to Shingeki Theater
• Anti-American Sentiments
• History
• Old Theater Kabuki
• New Theater Shingeki
• World War II
• Implications
• Conformity to Ideals
• Realism fo Stanislavski
• Humanism
• Proscenium Stage
• Adaptation of Western Plays
• New movement of the ARts
• Against the renewal of the Japanese American treaty in 1960
• Zengarukan student led organization
• Violence
• Rodosha Engeki Hyogikai
• Working People's Theate
• Major Angura Groups
• Kurotento or the Black Tent Company
• Jokyo Geikijo or the situational theater by Kara Juro
• the Tenjo Sajiki of Terayama Shuji
• The Tenkei Gekijo or the theater of transformation
• The Waseda Shogekijo or Waseda Little Theater by Tadashi Suzuki
• Later named as SCOT
• Rituals: Relations
• Kara Juro
• Karawa Kojiki
• Kabuki Theatre
• Rituals: Historical Impact
• The Fight for Independence
• Shingeki
• Selling out
• Western Ideals
• Against our people
• Philosophy
• Counter Cultural
• Search for Meaning, Search for beauty
• Oto Shogo
• Passivity
• Life is journey from Birth to Death
• Distance audience to give them perspective
• Silence, Stillness
• Kara Juro
• Rejected the traditional western stage
• Beauty of the Human  Spirit
• Flexibility in appreciating beauty
• Terayama Shuji
• Day to Day routine is meaningless
• More Intense and Meaningful reality
• Transcendent experience for audience
• Tadashi Suzuki
• Discipline of mind and body - centre
• Choice
• Battle on with the pride of the defeated
• in the battle, you will find meaning

Noh Theatre: 

• Brief history
• During the Nara Period (710-794) 14th century sangaku was imported to Japan from China
• Pantomime, actrobatics and magic, music and dance
• Over the course of 600 years, arts shaped and develeoped
• Nambokucho period
• Noh was created
• Hard to mark official starting date
• Kan'ami
• First to write and practice Noh
• Zeami
• Most well known practitioner of Noh
• Kan'ami's son
• When his father died, he was entrusted witht eh responsibilities and leadership of his father;s za
• Wrote new plays as well as dialogues on the creation, existence, and ideals behind Noh
• Characteristics
• Combines elements of dance, drama, music and poetry
• Written in the fifteenth or early sixteenth century
• Recreates famous scenes from well known works of Japanese literature. Not a dramatic reenactment of an event but its retelling
• Scenes are all actual spots in Japan, usually in the provinces
• Buddhist beliefs influence Noh theatre
• a person could not find spiritual release even after death if he is still possessed by some traumatic experiences of the past
• Zen Buddhism and Noh
• Japan bery much influneced by religion
• Prominent during Zeami's time
• Hana (flower)
• the relationship of the audience to the actors and stage where they perform
• feeling of perfect balance, mystic suspension in time
• "To know the meaning of hana is the most important element in understanding Noh, and its greatest secret"
• actors must train for years with the masters
• symbolizes Divine Presence
• Staging
• Heavens
• Bridge from heaven to earth
• The four pillars are the directions so the actors know where they're going
• Tree in the back
• Japanese Pine tree
• Common tree
• Simple tree
• Buddhist ideas of simplicity
• Movement
• Within each noh there are sections with names like kuse or kiri
• chorus and musicians play together in rhythm while the shite dances
• Basic Kata
• The basic movement patterns of noh
• Shiori
• To express sadness or grief
• Sashi
• Uses the fan
• Vocal Techniques
• Utai
• Vocal
• Performed by the Shita and students
• Keept the story moving
• Ji-utai (chorus) sing to movement/shita's thoughts
• Can sing in 1st person, not characters
• No set pitch
• Sings as one boice, no harmonies
• Based on a 7-5 syllable count sung over an 8 beat measure
• Three different types of matched rhythms
• 2 types of singing style
• Strong singing
• non-pitch oriented singing

Kabuki Theatre: 

• History
• 400 years ago
• Bright vibrant colors
• Origins of the Kabuki Stage
• Dry Riverbeds of Edo
• Izuno No Okuni
• Pre-Kanbun Era
• Crude backdrops
• Bare Noh stages
• Marketplace Culture
• "Scribble-Scrabble" art form
• Kanbun Era
• More complex performances
• Legitimacy of Kabuki develops
• Introduction of Hanamichi and the pull curtain
• Hanamichi = Flower path
• Crude backdrops
• The first Theatres
• Bofuku government's allowance
• Stone and wood materials
• Rapid development
• Different types of design
• Standardization of Hanamichi
• Development of Keren
• Seri
• Trapdoors
• Keren
• The revolving stage
• The first of its kind, invented in Japan
• Was man powered by workers called "Anaban"
• Wasn't electronically powered until 1911, when the Imperial theater was unveiled.
• It's first use was the 1758 during the finale of the play, Sanjuseki Motome Mesume
• It was used as a trick to cahnge scenes by the "divine power" of one of the characters.
• Lights up set change "Akaten"
• Seri (Trap door)
• Developed in the Kansei era
• Allowed actors to make dramatic introductions onto the stage
• It was originally man powered through the use of a rope and pulley system
• Was electrified in the 20th century
• Modified Seri for the Hanamichi was the Suppon
• Chunori (Wire Flying)
• Reserved for characters with magical abilities
• Adds on to the stage magic that a character can possess
• Traditionally, an actor doing chunori, starts out on the junction where the hanamichi meets the stage and then ascends to the audience seats that are on the third floor
• Used to be done with rope
• Makeup
• Simple white makeup
• Black makeup
• Wig, oil, and oshiroi (white paint)
• Used to highlight characters
• Earliest form of spotlight
• Commonly used in Wagoto or soft style Kabuki
• Destroys features
• Rough Style
• Telling action hero stories and for action comedies, folk tales
• Clothes and makeup were very ostentatious and loud
• mie
• Kumodori
• The makeup technique and symbolic meaning to the makeup in the Aragoto style of Kabuki theatre
• Belief in yin and tang, provide symbols to the face.
• Symbols
• The belief in yin versus yang
• Red is yang and is the color of youthful protective anger
• Blue is yin and the color of bottled and resentful anger
• Green = the ethereal and godlike
• Purple = the rich and the noble
• Each streak represents something specific to the character and so the actor may change but the makeup doesn't.
• Oshiguri
• Little ritual where they would put their face on a piece of fabric then they'd have a memento