$Unique_ID{bob00372} $Pretitle{} $Title{Japan On Stage} $Subtitle{} $Author{International Society for Educational Information, Inc.} $Affiliation{Embassy of Japan, Washington DC} $Subject{japanese dance film japan number yose rakugo manzai movie works} $Date{1989} $Log{} Title: Japan Book: The Japan of Today Author: International Society for Educational Information, Inc. Affiliation: Embassy of Japan, Washington DC Date: 1989 On Stage Recent trends In recent years Japanese choreographers have composed a number of adaptations of Western works, including Faust and Carmen, combining techniques of Japanese classical dance with those of Western dance. Though such efforts are still in the experimental stage, they have begun to liberate female dancers in particular from the rigid restraints on expression imposed by traditional Japanese dance, introducing a bolder, more expansive kind of movement. Western dance, which is widely studied and performed in Japan, has not only influenced but also been influenced by Japanese classical dance. Examples include The Kabuki, a ballet version of the kabuki classic Kanadehon Chushingura by Maurice Bejart of the Bejart Ballet Lausanne, and flamenco adaptations of such standards of the kabuki repertoire as Dojoji and Sagimusume. Modern dance The history of modern dance in Japan dates back to 1912, when the Teikoku Gekijo (Imperial Theater) invited an opera director and dance instructor from the United Kingdom to teach in Japan. Among the instructor's students, a few went on to form the nucleus of modern dance in Japan. Buto, Japan's original contribution to modern dance, emerged in the 1960s and now enjoys considerable popularity in North America and Europe. Founded by Hijikata Tatsumi, the innovative genre is carried on today by such dance troupes as Sankaijuku and Byakkosha and by Ono Kazuo. Vaudeville The Japanese have a single category that comprises the comic genres rakugo and manzai, storytelling, jugglery, and similar native forms of vaudeville-type entertainment. These are called yose entertainments, after the intimate Japanese-style vaudeville theater where such entertainments are commonly performed. In the past most yose theaters seated the spectators on tatami mats in Japanese-style wooden buildings, but the urbanization that swept Japan after World War II has left little trace of the traditional variety hall; today many of them take up one sections of a modern concrete building. In March 1979 a traditional yose-type theater was set up in Tokyo's National Theater as part of a campaign to preserve and propagate the traditional performing arts subsumed under the term yose. Performances, mainly of rakugo, are held there 20 days a month. Rakugo Possibly the most representative form of yose entertainment is rakugo, a traditional Japanese style of comic monologue. The performer, known as a rakugoka, customarily dons a kimono, sits on a square cushion, and uses only a fan and hand towel for props. The monologue begins with a prologue known as the makura, which sets the stage for the story itself and winds up with a punch line known as the ochi. Because most rakugo monologues date back to the Edo (1603-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) eras, when the form developed and reached its peak, much of the content reflects an entirely different life style from that with which today's listeners are familiar, and as a result traditional rakugo has lost some of the broad-based popular appeal it once enjoyed. In response to this trend, a number of performers have applied themselves to the creation of new stories more in tune with contemporary living. Manzai Another popular standby of yose entertainment is manzai. This form of comic dialogue evolved out of the customary New Year's performances by itinerant entertainers, who feted the occasion with singing and dancing and, later, witty repartee. Since the 1930s manzai has captured wide audiences with its comic duos who appear in Western garb and banter cleverly on themes drawn from contemporary daily life. In Osaka manzai at one time even eclipsed rakugo as the main attraction in the yose program. With the advent of television, moreover, manzai readily adapted itself to the medium, changing day by day as it incorporated music, slapstick, and other elements. Other yose entertainments Two other representative yose genres are kodan, or storytelling, and naniwa bushi, a kind of narrative ballad also known as rokyoku. Though these genres once enjoyed a high degree of popularity, their moralistic Confucian message does not often fall on receptive ears in this day and age. Nonetheless, the romance of sewa kodan and the musical qualities of rokyoku still strike a responsive chord in many. Such light entertainment as jugglery and cutting elaborate shapes out of paper remain part of the standard yose program, providing diversion between acts of manzai or rakugo, but unfortunately a lack of successors is threatening these genres with extinction. Film The decade of the 1950s marked a golden age for Japanese film, with annual attendance at movie theaters peaking at 1.1 billion in 1958. The artistic quality of the period is evident in such works as Kurosawa Akira's Shichinin no Samurai (Seven Samurai), Ozu Yasujiro's Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story), and Mizoguchi Kenji's Ugetsu Monogatari (Ugetsu), all of which won both national and international acclaim. The advent of television in the 1960s triggered a rapid decline in the number of moviegoers, and the popularization of videos in the 1980s has led to a leveling out of this number at a relatively low level of 150 million. The combined total of foreign and Japanese releases in 1987 was 370, with the number of foreign films exceeding Japanese by a ratio of two to one. Changes in the world of Japanese film Though the golden age of Japanese film appears to have receded into the past, the Japanese movie industry has managed to keep abreast of the times by introducing various changes. For example, as the number of moviegoers has declined, there has been a rise in the number of small movie theaters with a capacity of around 300 people. Unlike the movie theater chains that show the same movie simultaneously in several cinemas and cities, these small theaters present a film in only one cinema in each of a few cities. Appearing in response to the proliferation of videos and the diversification of individual tastes, they concentrate on showing worthwhile films that are not commercially viable for larger cinemas and are not widely available on video. This phenomenon inevitably has led to the creation of new distribution channels and the establishment of small yet original distribution firms and movie theaters. A related development has been the organization in the 1980s of several international film festivals in Japan, the largest being the biennial Tokyo International Film Festival, which was first held in 1985. These festivals are popular because they enable movie buffs to view important films from around the world that are rarely shown on other occasions. The festivals tend to be concentrated in Tokyo and other major cities, but recently smaller cities also have been getting in on the act. The Yufuin Film Festival, which is held once a year in Oita Prefecture, features new works by contemporary Japanese directors. A new generation of directors As in the United States, television stations in Japan have been playing an increasingly prominent role in film production in recent years. The 1986 box office hit Koneko Monogatari (The Adventures of Chatran) was produced mainly by a television station. This trend has boosted the number of opportunities for producing films, which in turn has led to the emergence of a new generation of directors characterized by their unique ideas and visions. The receptiveness of the Japanese audience to a broad range of works and the diversification of their interests have helped to support the activities of these directors. Among them, Itami Juzo, who began his career as an actor, has achieved much fame both in Japan and overseas with such works as Marusa no Onna (A Taxing Woman) and Tampopo (Tampopo). Faced with the difficulty of obtaining the necessary capital for production and the reality that only a small number of works eventually become money-earners, many of these directors try to increase the opportunities to show their works by participating in foreign film festivals. Consequently, some of them have gained more recognition abroad than in their home country.