Nanka Youkai- a Japanese Ghost Story

Okonomiyaki Lunch with Nanka Youkai Actors, Nobu-san and Naomi-san

The Obaachan (The Grandmother, played by Nobu-san) is wearing traditional dress of Kimono and kneels on a small wooden platform which is dressed as a room in her tiny house. She has been kneeling that way for about twenty minutes now, waiting patiently for the 150 or so small children to settle on the floor in front of the playing space. Whether in Japan or Australia, it never ceases to amaze me how many kindergarten children you can fit into a relatively small room- they are so tiny!!!

Sound fills the space (from everywhere it seems) and the show begins with the forth wall being broken by the Obaachan who addresses the children. “Konnichiwa” she says. “What beautiful faces you have!” and the children beam up at her. The Obaachan then reminisces about the games of her childhood and introduces us to some of the unusual things that happen in her house. Little furry characters appear from nowhere (the show is full of beautifully executed magic and illusion), we are introduced to a magical mirror, and then we hear the voice of her long lost imaginary friend calling her. The sound design is an integral part of this show and helps to create a full sensory experience as little speakers placed around the room produce ghostly sounds. Early into the show I jump with fright when a speaker placed right behind me produces an eerie sound that takes me by surprise.

Eventually, the voice of the long lost imaginary friend cannot be ignored and the Obaachan disappears through the magical mirror into a strange world (where we meet a magical shop keeper). It is here that Obaachan finds her imaginary friend in a tragic state of paralysis, because it has been so long since she has played with anyone. So the Obaachan, together with a strange shop keeper play game after game after game with the doll like imaginary friend until she is moving around, free as a bird. They play Kakurembo (Hide and Seek), Daruma (Statues)…the list goes on and on and this culminates in a slow motion movement routine, which together with magical illusions and sound created the most moving theatrical experience that I have ever had in an in schools show.

The show finishes with the Obaachan packing up her belongings into a cane basket, which she straps to her back and exits the room through the audience, holding her characterisation through to the very end.

The first time I meet Nobu-san out of character I am surprised to see how young she is- her characterisation completely fooled me. Not only is she a beautiful actor but like all the best actors, she is a great devisor and created this work on the floor with director Ken Nakajima (the man with the midas touch). And with the sound designed by the marvellous Tomokatsu Magario (who also designed the sound for Nan-de Man and Furato Burato) I am not surprised that Nanka Youkai is indeed a masterpiece.

A New Model for In-School Touring

Tobe! Hikkouki

As a performer, I am usually filled with dread when I arrive at a school to do a show and we are lead to the gymnasium. They are vast spaces not dissimilar to empty aeroplane hangers; too big for little shows and often over- filled with children. The poor performers often end up at one end of the gymnasium, over articulating and projecting to accommodate for the terrible acoustics, over acting to reach the children at the back. However, since arriving in Tokyo and seeing how Kazenoko play these spaces, I will approach them completely differently from now on.

While in Tokyo, I get to see a number of Kazenoko’s larger scale works for primary school children- and the first is titled Hans (A Japanese adaptation of a Hans Christian Anderson tale). There are about three hundred children in the audience but all have a perfect view because rather than stage the show at one end of the hall and have the children at the back miss out (as is so often the case in school performances in Australia) this production is to be performed in the round. The large round stage sits about half a meter above the ground and four catwalks shoot out, dividing the stage into quarters, to the edges of the auditorium, creating wings for the actors to make their entrances and exits from. “How long did it take them to set this up?” I whisper to Kumiko, conscious of the fact that a big part of the job of performing in schools is the ‘bump in’ and ‘bump out’ of the set. Kumiko tells me that they have been at the school since six o’clock this morning. The time is now eleven am. This is a hard working troupe.

The children are thoroughly engaged and at one stage, some of the children start cheering “Hans! Daijoubu da yo! Dekiru yo!” (“Hans you can do it! I’ll be alright!”). And the climax of the piece has the audience screaming with delight as a twelve -foot tall ghost (puppet) swings over the heads of the children, close enough for them to reach out and touch it!

My trip to Tokyo is also perfectly timed to see preview performances of Kazenoko’s latest large scale creation for primary schoolers, Osana Boshi no Utatta ne (Song of the Little Star) and a work that has been in repertoire for 20 years now, Tobe! Hikouki! (Fly! Aeroplane!). Both shows were in re-rehearsal in preperation for their up and coming tours to Hokkaido and both are designed to play to audiences of up to 700.

Osana Boshi no Utatta ne (Song of the Little Star) features a cast of eight and is possibly the most ambitious piece of theatre I have ever seen staged for children (sans lighting and multi media). However, director Ken Nakajima, working with his actors, a brilliant composer and oodles of imagination, has skilfully adapted this tale from a children’s book for the stage. Full of images and characters that are indeed, out of this world, it tells the story of a sleepy little boy who loses his mum and dad and travels to a distant planet to rescue them. Full of flight and fantasy, like Hans, this work is designed for large audiences in large spaces and features a revolving stage (which is turned by the actors themselves- no machinery) masks and a giant puppet (created out of poles and swathes of material).

Tobe! Hokouki! (Fly Aeroplane!) utilises the stage of the school gymnasium and features the addition of a long catwalk like stage, not unlike those seen in Kabouki. The actors move about on top on the stage and underneath it, popping out of man- holes unexpectedly to create great excitement amongst the audience.

I believe that theatre companies in Australia can learn from the Japanese in-schools touring model. This is not to say that there is not still a place for smaller, more intimate shows that can tour to Kindergartens and Pre-schools. However, when it comes to primary schools and high schools, we should be more imaginative in our staging and spend a little more time in the bump in and bump out so that the show can be enjoyed by a larger audience. I need to stress at this point that this does not mean larger casts, but it might give the theatre companies a little more freedom to start employing casts of up to four again, instead of the current restriction of one or two.

Inturn we can create a more efficient touring model, in which the tours are shorter, the audiences are larger and inturn more revenue is generated. This model makes a lot of sense particularly in a country like Australia, where we sometimes travel days to get to the next town.

However, audiences don’t magically appear and this is where we can also learn from Japan. Theatre Companies in Japan offer their work to schools on a one off buy in basis. For example, for a three person show the cost is approximately $2200 Australian Dollars. It is then up to the school to gather the students together to make the ticket price as cheap as possible. Inturn, schools work together and with the wider community to attract an audience.

The current in schools touring system in Australia relies heavily on subsidy and charges schools per student (the current cost for a show in Queensland is $6). This has inturn created a culture of complacency amongst school teachers in Australia who might book a show visit their school but it will only be shown to the grade nines because they are the only ones studying that unit at the time. So shows travel long distances to perform to one hundred kids in a school that has a potential audience of 700.

Funding for the Arts is particularly needed in a country like Australia because our population is so small. However, we can learn a lot from Japan, whose Arts Organisations receive less government funding than ours and many are forced to survive soley on ticket sales (Interview with Yukinori Ohno, Vice President, Assitej Japan Centre, 26. 08. 09).

Churchill Fellowship Part Two- Kijimuna Festival

As part of the Fellowship, I had the chance to spend ten days in Okinawa City at The Kijimuna international Children's Theatre Festival. I saw heaps of shows, met lots of artists and producers from all over the world and got a great taste of traditional Okinawan Culture.

This clip includes a taste of a physical theatre/ clown duo called GABEZ. They are excellent.

Churchill Fellowship Part One- KYUSHU

This is a little movie I have made of my time on Kyushu (the south island of Japan) with Kazenoko Children's Theatre Company.
Footage includes:
Furato Burato Kagoshima Tour
Clown Workshop with Kazenoko Kyushu
Yamagasa Festival
Translation Routine at Kodomogekijou Conference
Nan Nan Nan-de Man Nagasaki Tour

Koganenomi, The Golden Bean

Tsutomu-san's One Man Show

Once again, I am met today by Kumiko-san who is acting as my guide while I am in Tokyo, escorting me to a wide variety of Kazenoko shows all over town in a wide variety of spaces (from community halls, to school gyms to tiny kindergartens). I am always relieved to see her familiar smiling face when I make my way through the exit gates of the destination train station, after following the complex directions to get there, which usually involves changing trains at least three times and traveling up to an hour on crowded carriages through busy stations.

As we make our way on foot through the street to the venue, I ask Kumiko to tell me a little about Koganenomi. It is a one man show performed by Tanaka Tsutomu-san (who, incidently, is brother of Kumiko’s husband, Tanaka Tooru-san, who is also a Kazenoko performer). I am puzzled as Kumiko explains that the design of the show involves a puzzle…I wonder to myself whether or not I have understood correctly. “What kind of puzzle?” I ask, but I don’t understand Kumiko’s explanation. It doesn’t matter because I know I will see it for myself, soon enough. I move onto the content of the work itself. “Is it a folk tale?”, I ask. Kumiko answers, Koganenomi means ‘The Golden Bean’ and is a tale created by Tsutomu-san about a carpenter who is struck by lightening and looses his memory. He visits a doctor and is told that the only thing that will help him to get his memory back is a golden bean. And so he journeys to find it and meets some interesting characters along the way.

At this point in our journey, we come across a Dango stall (rice balls on sticks), they smell so delicious that Kumiko and I both stop and look. Kumiko buys Go-Hon (five sticks) to take as an Omiyage (Thank you present) for Tsutomu-san. Then, as though we had not stopped at all, Kumiko explains “Tsutomu-san made up this story for his children, and he has four of them so it grew and grew over the years”. I wonder how a performer manages to feed four children, and ask Kumiko what his wife does, “She works in the Kazenoko office”; I am discovering that Kazenoko really is one big family.

KOGANENOMI- SHOW DESCRIPTION

Tsutomu-san steps out from behind the flat playing a trumpet like a clown (he is not very good at it but is trying very hard…and so the audience loves him and wants him to succeed). Then he starts to experiment with the mouth piece of the trumpet and the funny sounds it makes and starts to attach other found objects to his mouth piece. First a long pipe, then a big plastic bottle and a watering can. The children are delighted and thoroughly ‘warmed up’. It is now time for the story to begin and the ‘puzzle’ is revealed!

It is a large (1 x 1.5 meters) hand painted, wooden puzzle, containing all the characters and set items that Tsutomu- san will expertly tell the Koganenomi tale with. They all fit together perfectly, creating a spectacularly colourful puzzle. Tsutomu-san animates the pieces one by one, like puppets to paint the large stage pictures (for example, when the carpenter is struck by a lightening bolt) and then turns into the character himself to act out the more detailed pictures (facial expressions, reactions and delivery of text). This way he can play the entire cast of the story in a light manner where by he jumps from the role of story teller/ puppeteer to actor.

The content of the story is very much like a Rakugo routine in that it is filled with comic characters, routines and word plays and has no moral but is purely for the sake of entertainment. After travelling the land, meeting all sorts of interesting characters from dancing girls to a group of babies to a very hungry Sumo Wrestler, the carpenter finally finds the golden bean, eats it and his memory returns. But it doesn’t end there, with the help of the audience, Tsutomu-san places all the pieces of the puzzle back together. He plays naïve beautifully and sincerely and pretends not to know how it goes back together. This opens up communication with the audience and the children instruct Tsutomu on what goes where. He expertly manages the children so that all have a chance to input and the interaction itself becomes a comedy routine with Tsutomu-san playing off the various unexpected suggestions expertly like when one little girl said, “Put the Sumo-san on top of the babies!”, Tsutomu-san responded, “But if I do surely I will squash them!”.

“And now, for the second story!” announces Tsutomu-san. I am surprised- will he be able to hold the attention of the audience for another tale? We have already been sitting for forty minutes- in my experience in Australia this is normally when we are in the last five minutes of the show, then the performers take some questions from the audience and then pack up the show. Tsutomu gets everyone to have a stretch and then we count down from ten while he prepares for the second tale. A flat is moved downstage and from here, each time Tsutomu-san emerges from behind that flat, he is wearing a different mask in a different characterisation. He now tells the children a traditional folk tale of the Kitsune and the Tanouki (the Fox and the Racoon). Not only do the Fox and Racoon feature in this tale, but also a clever mosquito and an Oni (The red faced, long nosed monster that appears in many traditional Japanese folk tales). The stand out performer, however, in the telling of this tale is not Tsutomu-san, who expertly jumps from playing Monster, to Fox, to damsel in distress, but the little girl that is invited from the audience to play the mosquito. Tsutomu asks her to give a Jiko-shoukai (Self Introduction) to the audience and then carefully introduces her to the mosquito mask (a funny looking thing with bulging eyes and a long beak, which he has made himself). The mask sits on top of her head so we can see her delightful, smiling face the whole time that she helps Tsutomu on stage. She giggles the whole time, while expertly following his instructions, which include sneaking up behind the Oni and biting him on the bottom!

I discover that this level of audience interaction, is deeply rooted in the Kazenoko telling of stories. I recall that Yuko-san also invited a volunteer from the audience to help her with the ‘Paper – play’ part of Asobo. Afterwards, Kumiko-san tells me about Ni Tasu San, one of the early Kazenoko ensembles (that Tsutomu-san worked in) that toured small scale shows around to kindergartens. The stories that the ensemble told were invariably folk tales and always incorporated children from the audience as volunteers to play different roles.

After the show I have a chance to talk with Tsutomu-san again and thank him for the performance. I ask him if this is a particular style of performance in Japan (through the animation of the puzzle) and he tells me proudly that it is his own invention. And goes on to passionately describe that he was taught by his Sensei that there is no use in doing what someone else is already doing, be original! I am a little surprised because I had assumed that in Japan, the art lies in learning exactly how it was done and always has been done, perfecting that and then passing it on. It seems that this is only the case in the world of the Dentougeinou (the traditional arts), and the world of contemporary theatre has a completely different approach. I am relieved because it is in line with my mission in the arts, which has always been towards the creation of new work, for a new audience.

As Kumiko-san and I leave the community centre and make our way back to the station through the streets of Habarigaoka, we both have an unspoken understanding, that on the way back to the station, we will stop at the little stall on the side of the road and buy a Dango each. They are warm and delicious. When we board the train we find that we are not talking about theatre (as we usually do) we are talking about food and realise we are still hungry. We feel like the Sumo-san from Tsutomu’s play who eats rice cake after rice cake but is still hungry. We decide to change trains at Asakusa where we head straight for big hot bowls of Ramen. Full of food and inspiration, we say goodbye. Another great day with Kumiko-san!

http://www.kazenoko.co.jp/infantwork/newfolder-19/
(Visit this link to see images of Koganenomi)

ASOBO!

I am met by Kumiko-san of Kazenoko Tokyo at Keiyoutama Center Station, the home of Sanrio Hello Kitty Land. But today we are not here like the thousands of others, to say hello to Kitty-chan, we gather with a small audience of mums, dads and children to see a presentation of one of Kazenoko Tokyo’s oldest shows, Asobo. It is a special show today, presented for the ‘Family Support Centre’, an organisation which provides care to families who are experiencing hardship.

I have tried to read up on the show (with is a challenge due to the fact that my knowledge of Kanji is limited to about 200 characters…and there are approximately 30 000 of them!). However, I was able to establish from the flyer that it is a one woman show, utilising found objects (which are readily available in any house hold, for example: newspaper, dustpans and cardboard boxes) for play. Hence the name for the piece Asobo (Let’s Play).

Before the show, I ask Kumikio- san about Yuko-san, who will be performing the work today. “She is a powerful woman”, Kumiko says. I take this on board, I assume Kumiko means a powerful performer, but as I hear more about Yuko- san, I begin to understand the depths of her powers. I learn that Yuko was part of the Kazenoko ensemble which existed in Tokyo about 25 years ago (around the time that the company structure grew to incorporate different ensembles in different cities around the country). At the time, everyone in Yuko’s ensemble started having children and weren’t able to tour around as widely as they had in the past, but still wanted to create work. And so they began Chisai Gekijou (The Little Theatre), which still tours, to this day.

Chisai Gekijou began in a living room, where Kazenoko’s theatre makers gathered their children and newly born babies together and created small performances for them, using anything they could find around the house. As their children started attending kindergarten, the ensemble were able to start presenting the work they had developed for their own children, to other children who attended kindergartens and primary schools in the area. Soon they toured the show more widely but as Yuko’s children got older, she felt the need to challenge herself and her theatre making techniques further. Yuko-san took on a kindergarten -teaching job in the countryside, a long way from Tokyo and it was here that she developed her solo work, Asobo.

Asobo could be described as Yuko’s entire body of work which exists in two parts. Today I will see Part One.

ASOBO SHOW DESCRIPTION

We sit on cushions on the floor, there is also the option of chairs behind the cushions. Many of the ‘big people’ occupy these. I, like most of the audience, sit staring at the simple set in anticipation; it consists of three, large black boxes. Yuko is no where to be seen. I am looking forward to her performance immensely. The children range from the ages of a two to 10 years old. Most are accompanied by parents who sit with them or on the chairs behind. One mum sitting amongst the cushions is nursing a sleeping baby, who later, half way through the performance starts to cry but is expertly calmed by her mother’s breast milk. This is the first time I have ever seen breast feeding in public in Japan.

I love watching the audiences at chidren’s theatre shows almost as much as the productions. After all, the pure and sometimes most unexpected reactions of the children are SO entertaining. My favourite at this performance is the reaction of a little boy in the front row who, I assume, must spend a lot of time with his Grandfather; because whenever he is surprised he yells “HORA!” in a deep and husky tone, not only as though he is imitating an Ojiisan (a grandfather) but using an expression that only the Ojiisans employ.

A hand shoots out from behind the black box in centre stage, the audience is captivated, the fingers on the hand count down from 5 to 4, to 3, and by this stage the audience is chanting to “GO!”. We are focused on the hand that entertains us for the next five minutes. The hand, of course, belongs to Yuko-san who is indeed, a captivating performer. Captivating enough to hold her audience for about twenty minutes of ‘hand play’, twenty of ‘paper play’ and the final twenty through ‘cardboard box play’. The cardboard box play, developing into the telling of a beautiful folk tail about a baby elephant (made of a cardboard box, a cardboard trunk and dustpans as ears) that dresses up for his mum by exchanging his various body parts (trunk, big ears, tail) for the unique body parts of other animals (the lion’s main, the monkey's tail, the bird's wings etc). In the end, after showing her new acquisitions off to her mum who reacts with much warmth and laughter, the baby elephant happily returns everything to its rightful owner and so ends the tail….I mean tale! A simple story with a beautiful message, expertly told using puppetry with found objects.


The time flies by, the audience is captivated the whole time, Yuko-san, demonstrating her experience through the ease with which she interacts with the wide variety of children in the audience throughout the show. After the show, I turn to Kumiko and ask, “How long did that go for?” and she informs me “One hour, twenty minutes”. I am astounded. Of all of the children’s theatre shows that I have performed in, in Australia, the longest is fifty minutes, because at about forty minutes, the children start to get restless and lose focus, and it is hard work to hold them until the end. I decide to put it down to the power for Yuko-san. But I have a feeling that I will discover, as I view a wide variety of Kazenoko Tokyo shows over the next couple of weeks, that the power of Yuko-san and dedicated theatre makers like her, involved in the company, the creation of its work and its performance, that Kazenoko shows are tried, true and of a very high standard.

http://www.kazenoko.co.jp/infantwork/newfolder-21/
(Visit this link to see pictures of the show)

To Translate or not to Translate...

The Kijimuna Festival in Okinawa is the only international children’s festival in Japan and works from all over the world are presented here. This year sees shows from France, Italy Austria, Taipei, Bulgaria, Croatia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, Denmark, Sweden, England, Germany, Australia, Japan and ofcourse, Okinawa. Whilst Okinawa is part of Japan, it has a unique culture, heritage and language and hence, is always referred to independently as Okinawa or “Ryuku” (its traditional name). In total there are 46 shows presented over ten days, which is a mammoth feat for an annual festival with no full time staff.

As a Japanese -speaking actor and theatre maker, I have a strong interest in fostering opportunities for cultural exchange between Japan and Australia in the future. And I believe that many shows that are made for children and young people in Australia, should consider touring to Japan. For this reason I am interested in seeing how companies attending the Kijimuna festival from overseas, adapt their work for a Japanese audience. Whilst non- verbal physical theatre like Echoa (A fusion of Dance and Percussion from France), Surprise (Dance and Movement from Austria) and The Day His Watch Stopped (Masked performance from Korea) do not require any adaptation, there are many that rely on heavily on text and thus, must make at least a small attempt to ensure that the words are understood but without artistically compromising the work.

One of the ways that this can be done is through the use of a translator. In the case of Goodbye Mr Muffin (from Denmark), the artists chose to present the work in Danish and to share the spotlight with a Japanese Translator who, rather than translating the entire work, acted as a narrator who sat side of stage a provided occasional narration as though reading from a story book and because the piece was highly visual (featuring a little puppet guinea pig), this suited the piece to a T and was all that was needed.

In the case of The Overcoat (an award winning piece from Bulgaria), however, even though the actors do not speak or understand Japanese, they learnt the entire script in Japanese and presented this to the audience. Whilst the audience really appreciated this attempt (and showed their appreciation in VERY warm acclamation at the end of the show), the fact of the matter was that the intonation was so strange that at least 50% of their dialogue made little sense and may as well have been presented in Bulgarian.

Some shows, on the other hand, could have attempted a little more to employ Japanese language. La Baracca from Italy presenting two shows at the festival Under a different Light and Looking at the Sky; both were movement based shows for 1-3 year olds that only used a little language (just simple words here and there). Mostly, these words were spoken in Italian, but occasionally, the actor had made the effort to learn the word in Japanese. There is no doubt that when a word was offered to the audience in Japanese, you could feel and hear a response from the children. In many ways, shows such as these are perfect for travelling the world, because they do not rely too heavily on language, however, when a word is included, it is generally because it is very important and with just a little more effort to learn these in the language of the host country, the power of these words would not be lost on the audience.

Based on these examples, it can be concluded that a reception of a piece for an audience of children is heightened if it is presented in their language, but not to stretch the actors beyond their ability or the artistic integrity of the piece will be damaged.

Kazenoko Theatre Company are masters at adapting their work for an international audience and have a policy to always use the childrens’ mother tounge. I believe they have developed a model of best practise, which is very thorough and whilst it changes depending on the work, it involves working with a translator for many months leading up to the tour. Sometimes a whole work is performed in the other language, sometimes words and phrases here and there. Sometimes the piece is translated many times whilst on tour adopting words from the local dialect of each town it visits.

Takagaki-san of Kazenoko Tokyo explains, “Not every word in a play needs translation (Nor would their actors be capable of performing fluently in English). Theatre communicates with its audience in many ways other than language alone; through the design, semiotics, the physicality of the actors, the emotions conveyed, the rhythm and of course through the connection with a live audience and the actions and reactions that feed from that.”

I recall a beautiful conversation that I had over a lunch of Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pizza) with Kazenoko Tokyo actor, Kumiko Itoo last year, about her experience in adapting Chisai Gekidan (Small Theatre) for Canada. “Through the process of translating a piece, on the floor (on your feet in the rehearsal room), you realise that many of the words that exist in the piece are not needed, for example, you realise that you are saying something to the audience that is already explained through action.” This strikes a chord with me “The power of theatre!” I say! I am feeling inspired both by the conversation and by the most delicious Okonomiyaki that I have ever tasted! Kumiko explains that this process boils the language of the play down to its essential meaning. This inturn effects the piece positively when it returns to Japan, many of the superfluous language remains discarded and the piece continues to evolve.

Kumiko goes on to describe the experience of performing Chisai Gekidan for a Canadian audience. “We were so surprised by their reactions! They reacted to different parts of the piece (compared to a Japanese audience) and in turn, those parts of the piece grew and took on new meaning. Then, when we returned to Japan, the reactions to the evolved piece were different again. It was a great experience for the performer because you had to be in the moment, ready for anything.”

We go on to have a conversation about the importance of honesty in Children’s theatre. We both relate to this as performers and share stories of being told, loud and clear, by audience members, if they didn’t believe us. Furthermore, Kumiko points out that they must believe the story and the justifications for the actions of the characters on stage. We both agree that this is why we love being involved in the making of theatre for children, because of its integrity.

It is this integrity that theatre makers need to take into the rehearsal room when creating work for children and also when adapting it for a non-English speaking audience. Put yourself in the shoes of the children of the country in which it will be performed and follow your piece through their eyes and in their language and adapt the piece accordingly. And as Wolfgang Schneider, President of ASSITEJ International pointed out at the forum on Theatre for Children (Kijimuna Festival, 3rd July 2009) “Do not give them the children’s menu like in a restaurant which is half the price and half the portion!” Or as Clause Mandoe of Denmark who performed “Waiting for Mr Muffin” explained at the same forum “You can never fool an audience of children. If you think you can you are only fooling yourself.”