Parque de Bletchley

The legend wants that the Japanese theater comes from a spectacle given by the gods to make leave Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, the cave where it had taken refuge. Hearing songs, the goddess left her hiding-place and discovered the other gods dancing in the middle of Guirlande S of flowers. Since, thanks to the theater the world cannot be any more definitively plunged in darkness.

Various forms

The dramatic art Japan traditional board is interpreted exclusively by men, it combines the Théâtre, the Danse and the Chant. It is extremely delicate to differentiate them, at least in their traditional forms. One can however detect the principal element of each one of his disciplines.

Theater

Kabuki, epic and popular.
Bunraku, puppet theater
No, lyric
Kyôgen, joke

Dance

Buto, contemporary
Buyo, traditional
Shosagoto, dance of Kabuki
Odori, folk drama

Music

Hayashikata, song specific to No
Ondo, local folk anthem

Origins

Well after the divine legends and religious dances which, as in all the cultures, posed the foundations of the dramatic rites, well before the Kabuki and the No, ancestral forms which survived until our days; in Japan of the 10th century, dramatic forms emerged from the Sarugaku , the “dances of monkey”. It was a mixture of Théâtre of fair, with improvisations and Masque S, and of Sangaku come from the Chinese Théâtre. These plays, resembling sometimes Commedia dell' arte or our medieval jokes, changed little by little to arrive at the 14th century at the Sarugaku-No-No , form dramatic more “noble” which made it possible to the Master Zeami to form traditional No such as one knows it still today. With, for the comic characters and parts Kyogen, of the more or less strong reminiscences of the ancient popular jokes.

Then, at the 17th century, the female Sarugaku is metamorphosed in Kabuki, female him too. But the critics of the time, in 1630, prohibit the women from going up on the boards. To interpret the feminine roles the troops employ young beautiful young men then, but in 1652, one does not authorize any more but with the men of ripe age to interpret the female characters. It cannot be realistic question of probability any more, it is necessary to make believe on scene for a reality transposed of the character, it is necessary to find a way of stylization, of symbolization, so that femininity is not any more to see but, like it says Roland Barthes in the Empire of the Signs , that these interpreters of the “female style”, these Onnagata, have a femininity with to read .

With the hinge of the {{XIXe}} and 20th century, Japan opens then towards the occident, after three centuries of enfermement voluntary. Europe discovers the orientalist fashion and just Japan with its culture and develops the business world with the Western one.

The Japanese theater in France

In 1900, at the time of the World Fair, Yakko Sada makes its first appearance in France, and becomes one of the high-speed motorboats of the spectacles of Loïe Fuller. It introduces with its troop Geisha and the samurai a manner of Kabuki adapted to the Western taste, and causes a revelation inter alia at André Gide (which comes to see six times of continuation the spectacle), Isadora Duncan, Adolphe Appia, Gordon Craig, Meyerhold, etc

In 1911, Lugné-Poe puts in scene a part “japonisante” at the Théâtre of Work, the Love of Kesa of Robert d' Humières. In 1924, Jacques Copeau tries to assemble authentic No, Kantan , but the experiment stops with the repetitions and will never be played. In 1927, Firmin Gémier makes go up by Japanese, with the Théâtre of the Fields-Elysées, a part of Kabuki translated into French, the Mask ( Shuzenji monogatari ), with decorations of Fujita and in which he plays. Then, perception in France of the Japanese theater comes also, and perhaps especially, of the reflections of Paul Claudel, which is ambassador of France in Japan of 1921 with 1927. He consigns his impressions on No in 1929 in the black Bird in the rising sun and gives this definition: “The drama is the advent of something; No is the advent of somebody”.

Then in 1948, Jean Dasté tries to him also the experiment with the Comédie of Saint-Etienne while assembling a part of the son of Zeami, Sumidagawa .

In the Years 1960 three Japanese artists, having individually followed all a traditional formation, do each one on their side the choice to be exiled of Japan to come to make modern theater in France.

Yoshi Oida, after having worked with the sulfurous Mishima, in particular in its setting in scene of Salome of Oscar Wilde, became a dominating element of the team of Peter Brook, with the Théâtre of Puff out North. It contributes to the rise of the contemporary theater, and finds being a current Japanese figure of the Western theater.
Shiro Daimon, turned to the Buto, Japanese modern dance resulting from the drama of Hiroshima, and creates the Fœ dance . It also organizes training courses of traditional theater in France and in Japan, and is intermediate certain traditional big families of No, Kabuki or Kyogen.
Junji Fuseya, after having begun in Europe under the label Japanese MIME , the shape of the French actors to his original technique. In a theatrical marriage free-Japanese, it combines elements of the ancient Greek Théâtre, bases Western dramaturgy, and elements of the Japanese tradition, for a timeless and oecumenical art.

In the Years 1970, the Festival of Nancy directed by Jack Lang and the Théâtre of Orsay directed by Jean-Louis Barrault become the privileged places of reception of Japanese traditional troops, and the French public discovers also the Buto with Kazuo Ono and Min Tanaka. Since, almost each year a form or the other of Japanese spectacle occurs in France, and this in prestigious places, like the Théâtre of Châtelet, the Théâtre of the Fields-Élysées, the Théâtre of the City, the Festival of Fall, and of course the Festival of Avignon. Starting from 1980, with the opening to Paris of the Theater of time, of many arts centres free-Japanese is born, and the public can also discover young creators, separately troops confirmed like Sankai Juku. Lastly, in 1997 created in Paris the House of the Culture of Japan which accommodates all the year of the Japanese artists.

See too

Ebizo - Jakuemon - Kabukiza - Onnagata - Tamasaburō - Ukon Genzaemon - Zeami - Decorations in the Japanese theater

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