On the night of Sept. 12th, I was given the opportunity to witness the YOHAKU performance showcase in Memorial Auditorium. The event featured a dynamic fusion of traditional and contemporary Japanese arts, including Kyogen comedy, live calligraphy, contemporary dance, music, film and visual art.
YOHAKU translates from Japanese into English as “empty space”, although the meaning is not as negative as one would think. This empty space is simple and beautiful, yet fleeting— a tribute to the Japanese spirit of Zen. While scanning the alluring art forms that, to my eyes, had no connection to the title, I was confused. The initial thought was, “Is this going to be typical contemporary interpretive art?” It was not.
Student Julisa Williams next to Matasaburo Nomura XIV, star and creator of Busshi. Julisa Williams | The Montclarion
The award-winning Film Bonji, directed by Naoko Ukibe, was the first to intrigue me. Inspired by the folktale, “Hoichi the Earless,” it follows a Biwa-Hoshi, a blind, lute-playing monk, who is invited by spirits to play in front of a dead emperor’s tomb. The spirits are shown to be pale and like smoke, a white empty space, clearing, wishing to get revenge.
As a precaution, the head priest of the temple writes a sutra on the monk’s head, but overlooks his ears and as a result, the spirits rip them off. However, this doesn’t stop the Monk from playing. It is as if the monk plays the instrument out of spite. Blind and now deaf, the action to continue gives his instrument more meaning, more serenity and probably even more importance to his life.
The next piece was just as engaging. Lingering Emotions, by calligrapher Hiroko Watanabe, an interesting display of her penmanship techniques. As the audience watched Watanabe, she looked like she struggled to move the brush, like a robot trying to go against its programming. She placed her pieces up in strange towers. While I tried to figure out what it was she was trying to do— an optical illusion perhaps— I soon realized that there was no such thing.
Even more strange was the observation that I, as well as perhaps the rest of the audience, tried to make sense of her performance, tried to see the bigger picture. But, there was no “picture,” it was simply art, and our inclination to find meaning from the mundane can often obscure our perception of it and how beautiful it can really be.
The contemporary dances by Yukari Yaku, Unryu (cloud dragon) and Jicoo (A traveler of time and memory) took hold of me, captivating my attention as they depicted a struggle to grasp onto the past, trying to fill the empty space with something intangible.
At times I could even feel my eyes start to tear up. Her performance asks the audience with a face of despair and arms reaching out: “How do you fill this empty space?”
Many other art pieces followed, but the main event, and what I was anxiously anticipating, was the Kyogen performance Busshi by Matasaburo Nomura XIV.
Kyogen, a style of comedic theatre, dates to the Nara period in 8th century Japan. Developed alongside Noh, another classical Japanese form of musical dance-drama, Kyogen plays create comedic mimicries of the ordinary.
Busshi, translating to Buddhist sculptor, follows a countryman traveling to the city to buy a Buddhist statue. He finds a con man, self-proclaimed as the only authentic Buddhist sculptor in town. Through unique intonation and simple but effective humor, the countryman catches the con man in his act and chases him for deceiving him.
It felt more than simple comedy. Traditionally an intermission between the more serious Noh plays, the Kyogen theatre performance felt like the perfect way to finish off the entire YOHAKU showcase, a breath of fresh air to complete the entire line of performances.
The actors in Busshi take their bows. Julisa Williams | The Montclarion
For anyone to fill and make meaning of this empty space is to accept and reflect on moments such as those ordinary aspects of life. The mundane parts of life may be filled with the likes of dance, art and music, but that isn’t the goal that these performances were trying to achieve.
I believe the goal was for the audience to take in and absorb the art within everyday life, and in Producer Chikako Cocachi’s words: “The viewer becomes an active participant in the art.”
