TREASURED ARTS HOW TO
TREASURED ARTS PROFESSIONAL

We take comfort in seeing both the good and the evil in humanity. And while you might not call his works “literature”, they really do seem to resonate with Japanese people. He wrote tales of ghosts, love, and revenge. The kabuki playwright, Tsuruya Nanboku IV (1), lived through times of chaos in the late Edo Period. Now I get a sense of chaos and confusion. It seems to me that the flow of Japanese literature was interrupted by the Second World War.

TREASURED ARTS PROFESSIONAL

The time when there were professional teachers in the cities was long ago, during the pre-war era of literary culture. The joy of reciting Japanese is something that seems to be very rare these days. In this way people and the arts were interconnected. Ordinary folk became the ones to carry the arts forward. Some of these young ladies ended up becoming professionals themselves, as did some of the young gentlemen. In those days, young ladies preparing for marriage would take lessons in dance, tea ceremony, flower arranging, that sort of thing, while young gentlemen might learn gidayu or ko-uta(traditional ballads). That term is probably obsolete nowadays, though. We used to have the expression, “machi no shishōsan”, professional teachers of the arts, who could take on apprentices and students. One of Bandō Tamasaburō’s best-known roles, the play was made into a film in 1995, which Tamasaburō both directed and starred in. Actually, lots of well-to-do young gentlemen used to come to the women’s gidayu! Tenshu Monogatari ( The Castle Tower), a play by Izumi Kyōka. Tragically for me, those six years passed by so quickly! After that I suddenly became really busy, but I still tried to find time to continue at least some of my lessons.įor instance, I used to go to a teacher at the Bunraku-za puppet theatre for gidayu, but also to a teacher of onna-gidayu, where women perform. I carried on like this, I guess, until I was around twenty. I used to set off at around ten in the morning and finish just in time to get to the National Theatre by quarter past five, when the evening performance began. The classes I’d been taking for my own enjoyment, I had to start over, practising and practising, to acquire the skills of a professional.ĭance, shamisen, the kabuki instruments, gidayu, tea ceremony, ikebana, piano… Sometimes I even went to two different teachers to learn the same thing. The training is going to be very tough – nothing like the lessons you’ve been doing up until now.”įrom that point I began training in earnest. I remember my adoptive father saying, “From now on you’re going to be a professional. When I was fourteen, I received the stage name, Bandō Tamasaburō V, and was adopted by Morita Kan’ya XIV. Then, when I was three or four, I started taking dance classes in earnest.Īt around the age of six, I became apprenticed to Morita Kan’ya XIV, and made my theatre debut when I was seven. According to my parents, my favourite part of what I suppose nowadays we’d call rehabilitation therapy, was when the dance teacher would come to the house to work with me. I contracted polio when I was eighteen months old.

TREASURED ARTS HOW TO

Somehow I seem to have been moving about with a fan or a tenugui in my hand long before anyone taught me how to dance. As soon as I could walk, I began moving to music. Once these are completely mastered, the physical expression of an idea comes naturally, unconsciously.įor me, dancing was instinctive.

This ability stems from the fundamental kata, the basic forms. The skill to communicate this just as smoothly as if one were speaking.

Performance is having sufficient skill to convey the very heart and soul of a character.

Treasured arts