Workshop Discussion concerning Dance Dramaturgy of Aging

Dated April 3, 2022, during Research Meeting at Senshu-do Hall

Translation by Miho Tsujii

Nanako Nakajima
I’d like to first hear from Mengfan Wang in Beijing about your observations from the past three days.

Mengfan Wang
This was my first time to participate in a workshop of this kind. It felt like I was peeping throughout the whole process, and during the process, I slowly gained a sense of physical connection, even though it was hard to connect on the first day, and because of the technical problem with low audio volume. Once everyone started presenting and workshopping on solo-basis, I gained a sense of physical connection. Instead of trying to understand everything, I tried to take in what everyone was doing and saying as expressive forms. I was able to develop a sense of connection by capturing the overall feel of voice and sound. I could tell the manners by which everyone was trying to convey to others.

It was very important to me this time to learn how aging is understood and practiced in the world of traditional art in Japan. I was also able to also learn the forms of aging found in performing arts. In China, in particular, such is not accepted or practiced.

Overall, the sessions resonated with my physical sensations. I was able to capture the experience physically rather than in my head. Since I did not present anything myself this time, I was able to see your processes. I found them very beautiful, especially the process of how workshops have evolved into presentations and final solo sessions. I also found that the space was well-suited. I was not present in the same space, but I was gaining understanding through a sense of space. Such was my experience.

Nakajima
You have mentioned earlier that aging cannot be found in performing arts in China, as we do in Japan. Can you tell us about that?

Wang
Especially after the cultural revolution, a generational gap has significantly widened over traditional arts. Notably, a complete gap exists between traditional and contemporary arts, hence, I have never had an opportunity to learn about traditional arts. Traditions can still be found in small cities and provinces. But if you are in a big city like I am, it would be very hard to access it. I have developed an interest in traditional Chinese arts through Japanese traditional performing arts, so I have had to go around to get to this point.

We are in a situation, where information would not be available, even if you try to seek an elderly master. It is very sad, but this is the reality. Among my generation, my friends in theater and dance have no interest in them. I personally believe that even if I cannot access Chinese traditional arts tangibly, I could still access the spirit of traditional arts. I hope to access Japanese traditional performing arts through as many opportunities I can have, so that I can learn from them.

Naoto Moriyama
There was an international student at this university more than 10 years ago. The international student was from Mongolia in China. She was born into the family of traditional dance. Since her father was a dance master, I believe traditions still remain in such ways among ethnic minorities, but she mentioned that there are fewer and fewer of them. I am not sure what has become of them now. It’s been more than 10 years. Overall, everything will probably be centered around the Academy.

Wang
Dance Academy is in place, and the dance that we study there is far from folk dance. If I want to learn folk dance, I need to go to regional areas and learn from the people in the regions. I have never thought of doing that myself, but I find it interesting.

Nakajima
How was it for you, Hirai-san?

Yuko Hirai
I have discovered many things in this workshop. At the same time, the power of this space affected me very strongly, which I believe has shaped my takes. This time, I had a stronger sense of bodily entry, compared to joining zoom discussions. Therefore, I have found fundamental elements, such as breath and rhythm, rather than to simply think about aging. It gave me an opportunity to rethink how time, breath, margins, ideas and rhythm, as discussed, relate to behaviors. I would like to also think about how to capture any new values or aesthetical attractions in moments when you see a dance of someone who does not give you any sense of background.

The sensations of each person’s spectacles from today’s presentations are remaining with me. Also, filming was particular to this workshop. It was as if everything is fiction. How we are here yet are not here. It was a peculiar sensation and a stance of neither being an audience nor listening to a lecture. A third eye was present. The fact that the workshop would remain in the form of footage speaks to the theme of aging, as if moments would remain, though everything would age tomorrow.

Nakajima
Yes, I was thinking about providing a sense of misalignment through filming. It’s about distance with something other than self. It may be about the gap between the spoken line and the body. I was watching and thinking about the possibility of maneuvering to separate the sound and the image or connecting what has been separated to another, using a medium other than the body. Of course, this can all be done through performance, but it is possible to re-arrange in another form through filming.

Naoto Moriyama
You have mentioned the power of the space. Hirai-san, what was it like to shoot your presentation outdoors?

Hirai
It was great, especially after having eaten lunch outdoors, since we had shared a space outside of this workshop room. Yesterday, Kodama-san talked about the shape (of the branch each is holding) and the mountain ridge afar, which got me thinking. I wonder if it is possible to speak about both a moment that is cut off from something that truly embodies a long span of invested time and what we feel from the dance this time as the same.　

Moriyama
The mountain ridge is the point, so it was important to be there and be with the mountain ridge and the space together.

There is something I could not say in my lecture yesterday. That is when the feelings I want to control is misaligned from the body, that does not necessarily wind up in a negative story. Rather, it can lead to laughter and humor, which I understand constitues significant elements of contemporary theater.

Their most immediate examples are silent movie comedies by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. For example, Chaplin wears over-sized shoes. In other words, he being a wonderer socially wears clothes that do not fit his body. Silent comedians show how laughter or humor arises at moments of misalignment. This had a significant impact in contemporary theater and cultures. If I were to conclude my brief presentation today on this note, it would not have been interesting. So I played the ending sound of Chaplin’s “Limelight” as the background of my talk and gathered a few texts that had drawn my attention. Among the five texts that I introduced was Simone de Beauvoir’s quote “don’t say not to talk about aging!” Her way of being angry was interesting, so I picked this quote. I struggled to decide on the order of where to introduce Junichiro Tanizaki’s “Diary of a Mad Old Man.” If I were to bring his quote to the end, that would set my conclusive tone. So I introduced it in the second in line, as a way to bring about moderation after de Beauvoir, but what the protagonist says in Tanizaki’s quote is in a sense quite strange. I believe it relates to humor.

I am over 50 years old now myself. I haven’t experienced any aging yet in significant ways, but small-scale aging is probably becoming bigger-scale now. I can almost hear the footsteps of aging coming close to me. When I think about the kind of old man I want to become, the (protagonist’s) attitude especially his honesty with his desire is a way of being, even if I don’t necessary want to be exactly that way. Then, Ken Shimura’s “Hen na Ojisan (the weird uncle)” I also introduced talks about “ordinary things.” In a research meeting like this, a conversation tends to get difficult. That’s why I introduced this text.

The very last text was a writing of my own from yesterday. I thought to conclude the session with my own words. Big aging and small aging. Whether you can call “small aging” aging is prone to discussion. But I shouldn’t forget that aging involves a significant change in a person’s life. I want to think about small aging because I want to be sensitive to small aging. This must be a sign of aging itself. Or perhaps it’s about losing something. What if we consider that in itself as a kind of aging? Although a loss may occur in many areas, what you gain from the experience may balance things out, so a loss is not purely negative. I also believe that aging isn’t necessarily about losing youth.

Finally, let me share my thoughts about the workshop. Hirai-san’s workshop was very interesting. It felt to me as if it was a balancing act. I was moving by taking a balance, which allowed me to relate to my image of aging. I had to regain the center of gravity, if the branch touched any point, and feeling all such things connected me. That was fun. But “big aging” must be a lot harsher, so it’s hard for me to feel like I understand it. Perhaps the fact that I am confronted with small aging is a self-reflection itself.

Nakajima
There are many forms of laughter, such as smiles and chilling laughter, but hearing from Dr. Moriyama allowed me to think about the possibility of connecting them to a more grand, festive sense of joy. It’s not about making someone laugh but bringing joy to an occasion. Takabayashi-san, how was it for you?

Koji Takabayashi
If you place a Chinese character to the term laughter, it would be “笑い” (“warai” = may also be read as “eragi” an old language for laughter, also referring to a genre of dance offered in sacred occasions). When you say “warai,” it may sound like “Yoshimoto Shinkigeki” (Osaka-based comedy group), but it isn’t. The definition of the word is different. It is rather an expression of joy. In Noh, there is no dance form for laughter. There is no need for that. The face of Okina is not laughing. It is just a soft peaceful face. But it looks as though it has a smile. That’s the heart of it. The issue is with how to sing about that laughter. The vocalization method is totally different. What’s most necessary is to have this joyous delight, which cannot be expressed in modern characters, whether it is “warai” or “eragi.” Once you have that, everything shall be supported by the heart of it. This is what Okina embodies.

Nakajima
You have talked about the footworks in Noh dance. How is Noh vocalization different?

Takabayashi
The basic vocalization may be that of Okina. However, there lies no negative emotion in any ways. It’s entirely forward looking, only positive emotions. That’s laughter. It’s the heart of joy. What Okina ultimately demands is to be entirely stripped of any human animal-like emotions. When you can do so, you will be able to do everything naturally. This may not sound reasonable, but you must bestow joy at the source even in the moment of sorrow. When you look at how this may be manifested in the dance form, there is no twist in any Noh form. Twist exists in other genre, such as theater, but not in Noh. I believe that leads to the heart of Okina. No animal emotion is shown. But there are dance forms that manifest emotions. It’s very contradictory.

Moriyama
That must be why the laughter of Chaplin and Keaton are distinctly different from the laughter of Okina. The former is closer to “laughters in despair.”

Takabayashi
To put it simply, Noh entirely denies any animal feelings. Outside of Noh, personal emotions are openly demonstrated towards people. Noh represses all of that and pursues only laughter.

Moriyama
The difference might be whether the presence of god or faith is present. Whether it’s Chaplin or Keaton, the premise is the lack of god. Despair never disappears, but balance is in place. The infinite condition is that the balance cannot be kept forever, which probably comes from the lack of god.

Nakajima
One major issue that the theme of aging inevitably confronts is death. As a research, it would be regarded as a major omission if you do not address it, but the Japanese context is slightly different. In this workshop, I was actually contemplating talking about “soku-shin-butsu (self-mummified monk).” I even brought a deck of “soku-shin-butsu” card game with me. I was hoping for us to play it together, but I gave up on the idea because the rules were so difficult. Originally, the theme of “soku-shin-butsu” was presented to me out of butoh, but some aspects of it resonated with the theme of aging, perhaps, in considering “soku-shin-butsu” as an embodiment of death.

Aging is not necessarily a pathway to death, as set forth in the Christian context of death. Rather, it could be a “culmination” including reincarnation and rebirth. “Soku-shin-butsu” encompasses the concept of “nyu-jo” (Buddhist enlightenment or monk’s death), which is not considered to be human death. It is said that a Buddhist monk becomes “soku-shin-butsu” to enter deep meditation. On the other hand, the theme of aging is always considered to be a process leading to death in Europe and the U.S., where aging cannot be discussed without discussing death. Death is considered to be the final point, and aging is to serve that point.

Takabayashi
It is the same in Buddhism. You cannot go to a paradise unless you demonstrate good deeds in this world. In Christianity, one also goes to heaven by following the rules. The idea is the same. That’s why I think that the true god that presides in etheric realm is the same in Christianity, Buddhism or Islam.

Moriyama
I think the process of death is an atheistic idea. In other words, in the Christian way of thinking, the final judgment awaits after death, and not after death, so there is the question of whether you will be resurrected at that point. In that sense, I think death is one process, and the idea that the process of aging leads to death itself is atheistic.

Takabayashi
Religion makes you fear afterlife in order to make you believe in the religion. I don’t think of death in that manner. I think of it as analogous to going to sleep. It doesn’t matter where a person once dead goes. Then why would you fear death? What is death? It’s just the end of breathing. If you can think this way, you wouldn’t need a religion.

Moriyama
In that sense, the fact that negative emotions are attached to death in the view that positions death as the end attests to the fact that religions are remaining.

Takabayashi
The moment of death is unknown to the person. It’s strange to harbor fear for what you don’t know. You just don’t what goes on beyond that point. I do not fear the world after death, because I play Noh. Because I have been ghosts. There are two types of ghosts in Noh. The ghost that comes in the form of lifetime, and the ghost that is truly suffering in hell. I have experienced both. So I have no fear of death.

Nakajima
Is that feeling close, for example, to consciousness and unconsciousness? As if there are times when you can control it and when you cannot, at a place of distance from your consciousness.

Takabayashi
Zeami has terms for consciousness and super-consciousness. I believe that it is not possible to dance without super-consciousness. It is not possible to dance when consciousness is at work. It was in his later years that Zeami started speaking of this. I believe super-consciousness is important. Since Noh is not a real world, it is absolutely impossible to perform it with the consciousness of present.

Miho Tsujii
In a sense, we may be witnessing a negotiation between modernity versus ancient Okina and Roujo (aged woman as a dance genre). Roujo does not represent proximity to death. Rather, the figure plants seeds and imbues life for us. Okina also serves to imbue life. Do their existence at the brink of death bring about eternity or continuity of life, as they perform what will give life? In contrast, modernity or contemporaneity perhaps assumes an end at some point.

In that context, Kodama-san in his contemporary movement expression, tries to move something in all earnestness, while being moved by things. Hirai-san, who is a contemporary dance practitioner, facilitated a movement where you are moved by a branch on your finger, while negotiating relationships with something farther out. People who practice different genres were extending and shrinking different senses. That was quite astounding to observe. In addition, Mengfan was joining at a distance from China. She was participating even though she couldn’t be present in space. Yet, she was earnestly involved in everything. The occasion enabled unique vectors of time and space in fluidly.

Nakajima
China and Japan have very different ways of thinking about death and aging given their linguistic and cultural differences. They were culturally closer before but have significantly diverged since the cultural revolution.

Moriyama
Changes take place fast in China. If there is a generational difference, you are completely different. Therefore, it often becomes useless for children to hear what their parents say.

Takabayashi
For example, the way I taught my son Noh is different from the way my son teaches my grandchildren. I attribute it the current of time and don’t say anything. We just need to be able to do the same at the end of the day. After a while, it turns out to be similar. I compare it to mountain climbing. There is only one summit, whether you climb from the front or the back. There is no need to say that the road taken is wrong. If what comes out is one, you can reach the same summit.

To ignore parents is unacceptable to me. It used to be one of the good Chinese customs to respect parents. Many commonalities exist between Chinese and Japanese cultures. First, both peoples have shared ethnicity and similar ways of thinking. Therefore, there are cultural commonalities. Compared to European or U.S. culture, Chinese culture is closer to Japan. If you deny this, your country will tumble.

Kodama
I am glad we had a chance to move together. It was interesting how (in my workshop) the body was moving while speaking, and a part of me that was speaking existed, yet its body was transforming. I had a sense of doing a “performance.”

Takabayashi
What I do is polar opposite. I simply make efforts to stay still. We deny the body from moving naturally.

Kodama
When you talked about form, I thought about its connection to aging. You cannot preserve a form without actually experiencing it, and even when you are to stage a piece, you can only teach certain things such as timing orally. I also found a link between the idea that what does not get recorded is important on one hand and the importance of the necessity to record.

Seeing Takabayashi-san move, I found super-consciousness at work, how the body moves before consciousness kicks in, rather than to think then move. There, I thought I saw a glimpse of what had accumulated in the body. I was moved by that. This may be an abstract comment, but I feel that the question of whether we can keep a distance from aging is important. I believe it is possible. I believe that’s the power of art and culture.

Nakajima
What does it mean to keep a distance?

Kodama
It’s about feeling a gap in relation to aging. When I was young, I was not very interested in aging. I felt a gap there. But when I began to be aware of my own aging, I was no longer able to maintain a distance from aging. I believe “true” art emerges from there. I find that process interesting and meaningful. Such a process exist that would not emerge without a gap.

Moriyama
Kodama-san, do you ever feel that you are aging?

Kodama
I do somewhat now. I think aging is quantitative. When you visit a hospital, because you find that something is not right, the hospital would tell you the value of something that is bad. But a felt aging is different. The awareness of something not being right itself to me is symptomatic of aging. To me, whether it is possible to maintain a distance from aging or not and the actual process of becoming aware of aging are critical from performance perspectives.

There is one more thing that Dr. Moriyama said about a gap between one’s own voice and the voice of others. If the old model is to conquer the gap, perhaps contemporary theater or contemporary dance allow the natural course of things and shows the gap. Before that, there is a way to reconcile the gap. But I think that is only possible by taking a distance.

Moriyama
I realized this time by revisiting aging that this is a very delicate issue. For example, in China, even while generational perspectives have changed so drastically that people no longer know what to share with one another, aging would definitely come to everyone’s doorstep. Nothing is more equal and rarer than aging in the sense that anyone would be visited by it.

But that is why the differences in one’s environment are so significant. Physically, no one can escape the eyesight from deteriorating and hearing from being impaired. But how you accept it depends on the environment that you are in. People may appear to be taking a condition completely differently at first glance, but there may be a connection. In that sense, aging could serve as a connecting link between different generations, regions, countries and times. But if you don’t treat the link carefully, it becomes banal and fixed as an idea. There are things that you can only see by treating the subject in a sensitive manner.

Kodama
Perhaps aging is not necessarily a taboo because it leads to death. Aging itself is universal, and death itself is universal. Of course, most of the time, death comes after aging, but both are separate events. It is also not right to deny that death comes after aging. It is important to treat each separately, and art and culture can do so.

Moriyama
Unless we rid ourselves from the preconception of aging as a process that leads to death, we would not be able to consider the possibilities of thinking about aging and death separately.

Nakajima
Sometimes, you cannot separate your age from your thoughts about aging. Your age is often coupled with a positive or negative bias toward aging.

Takabayashi
I am 86 years old now. Naturally, I am old. But there is a reason why I am not afraid of aging. My father died at the age of 69. So, I have always looked to the predecessors who had spearheaded ahead of me up to the age of 69. Once I had surpassed 69, there was no one to look to. Therefore, I have no fear now in growing old. It would have been somewhat different, if I had seen my father live through age 80 or 90.

Once I had reached that age, I decided that I simply had to keep going without thinking about what would become of me when reached that age. That’s why I say that my life now is an excess. After surpassing my parents’ age, the rest is an excess. It’s an excessive period of life, therefore, there is no need to think too deeply about it. You just need to live naturally, and you would die, when you are supposed to die. Then you develop the idea that aging is natural, so you cannot forge it.

Moriyama
Nowadays, since our parents’ generation live long, we have a high chance of seeing our parents age. If we see a parent fear aging so much, the child may also develop that fear.

Takabayashi
But in the end, I believe it depends on your consciousness, that is, whether you have the intention to surpass your level of consciousness, rather than whether you find people around you who live long.

Moriyama
It depends on the kind of elderly person, and the way you think about it.

Nakajima
In the world of traditions, older persons are your seniors on your path. As discussed in our previous research meeting, the presence of Yachiyo Inoue of Kyo-Mai dance was very significant as the head of a system called the Inoue School. It is also important to establish connections between generations, so that young disciples can respect the older disciples. If a disconnect with the generation that follows is formed, resistance towards aging would emerge. It seems that many of the communities that learn from predecessors tend to enjoy longevity.

Tsujii
There is an English expression that says “it takes a villager to raise a child.” There is wisdom about aging. A culture where people can gather and share wisdom can create a very good space like the one we are in now. It’s important to unfold wisdom about how to handle life from the moment of birth through old age not only on stage but across different social space.

Kodama
When it comes to aging, I think it is important to reach a stage where you recognize “I can’t do this and that anymore,” then move on to think about “how to dance from now on.”

Moriyama
There is the issue of what to do, when you are disabled from your support. If you are a dancer, it would be to be disabled of dancing. You might finally need something, when you feel that you no longer can be yourself.

Nakajima
It is also connected with Samuel Beckett’s work and Gilles Deleuze’s discourse, but I think there is an interesting connection between the impossible and the possible. I think the opposite of what you can do is not what you can’t do, but what you don’t do to enable it.

Takabayashi
Yes. It’s also about not doing what you can’t do. Many things happen because you try to do something that you can’t. You feel old at such moments. If you don’t do what you can’t do, you won’t feel the pain, so you won’t feel old. But you must be aware of what you can’t do. If you are aware of it without a shame, you would be just fine not doing what you can’t do.

Kodama
I found it interesting when I heard Takabayashi-san mention that you don’t do any warm-ups in Noh. I wonder if it relates to how you don’t do what you can’t do. Warming up to prepare to do what you can, and warming up to do what you can’t do are different. With Noh, I got the sense that all of that is incorporated into practice, and that you simply start the performance and gradually build up.

Takabayashi
It’s hard to work until you reach a point where you can simply do it. What do you think is the scariest when you get old? It is to become unaware of what you can’t do. If that happens, you must retire. But if I think back about my own retirement, I can say it requires a tremendous level of determination. Only those who truly can do it know there are things you can’t do. If you want to stay active as a professional performer beyond the age of 70, you can simply do what you can. Just because you can’t do it due to aging does not mean that you can if you try. You need to be able to distinguish that.

I have had some good learning this time. This year, I am celebrating “beiju” a landmark 88th year birthday. I am lucky to have such an interesting experience in this year. Thank you.

Nakajima
Thank you all very much.

END