kyogen.htmlTEXTJyWsÿÿÿÿ"|²ÛoŒ²Ü™Z MONTHLY NEWS - January 1999: Who Says Kids Won't Perform Traditional Plays?

MONTHLY NEWS
January 1999

Who Says Kids Won't Perform Traditional Plays?

Six schoolkids in Nara Prefecture have taken up the challenge of performing kyogen, Japan's classical comic theater, as an after-school activity. In early December, they gave their first performance in front of children from many different schools in the region.

Kyogen are comic plays that are traditionally performed between noh dramas. The form evolved, as did noh, during the fourteenth century from a performing style called sarugaku. Its humorous depictions of life in feudal Japan have entertained audience for centuries.

The students are all sixth graders attending Kasuga Elementary School in the village of Yamazoe. They started learning about noh and kyogen in 1997, after the school was designated by the Ministry of Education as a model school to promote education in traditional arts and culture.

Six students indicated they were interested in actually performing a kyogen play. They set up a club and started practicing in April 1997, with the advice of Yataro Okura, a top kyogen master.

The six students fromed three pairs, each learning a different kyogen play: Iroha, Shiburi, and Hana Arasoi.

"It took a long time to get used to the performing style, since I couldn't sit on the floor in the formal seiza position and couldn't say the lines well," recounts Yukari Nishi, who performed Iroha. "But as I practiced, I became more and more interested in this traditional performing art."

The students memorized the lines without the aid of written scripts--they simply listened to cassette tapes of their instructor over and over. They practiced during their spare time at school, watched videos of the play, and listened to the tapes at home. They eventually memorized not just their own lines but also those of their partners.

Yukari teamed up with Konomi Nomura in Iroha. Wearing traditional costumes, the two girls performed the comedy without a hitch, eliciting great laughter from the audience.

The play is about an older brother who tries to teach his younger brother the poetic iroha syllabary. The older brother tells his sibling to repeat everything he says, and the younger brother starts parroting everything, even lines like "That's fine. We're finished now. Go home and take a rest."

Konomi, who played the older brother, said, "The thing I like best about kyogen is that it takes me to a completely different world. I want to keep practicing it and do better next time."

Photo: The students prove that even the young can enjoy Japan's old performing arts. (Asahi Shogakusei Shimbun)


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