Dear Sensei #2

Dear Sensei,

Coming to TTT to study Noh was to enter a bamboo forest. We don't have bamboo forests in the USA; so it looks very unfamiliar. It is dark and a little frightening - yet seductive in its mystery. There are 3 paths through the bamboo. They diverge, then criss-cross, then come back together. One path is more physically challenging than the others. One has puzzles we must solve in order to proceed. Another reveals exquisite images and places of worship along the way. Sometimes it’s hard to see the paths. We (Wen-Hsuan, Num, Meyu, and I are all there) trip over sections or stray into the forest. We have doubts and fears that we will be able to unveil any of the secrets of this forest. The sound of chanting leads us back and sometimes beams of moonlight break through the trees and illuminate a part of a path, and we feel encouraged. We proceed closer to the chanters. The paths come to a clearing in the bamboo with four pillars at its corners. It is bathed in soft light, and our focus concentrates on the chant and the four pillars. Now the chanting is behind us, and we step, suriashi, to the dai sho mae. We feel that reassuring tweak on the bottom of our hakama. Our fears dissolve, and we begin to dance shimai. Meyu and Num stamp with the keenest joy, and Wen-Hsuan and I fly above them. Then I find myself alone, outside of the bamboo forest, and realize I only caught a glimpse of it and that the paths led so much farther. I sigh with regret but resolve to send you some of my best and brightest students to venture into the bamboo forest.

Arigato gozaimashita.

Kate

Dear Sensei #1

Dear Sensei,
Num and I spoke of how we regretted not being able to understand Japanese. We didn’t want to miss a word of your wisdom and stories. I wish I could tell you in Japanese how much I appreciated your efforts on my behalf.
You never failed to urge us to take care of our health and to get rest. Yet, you were working long hours during the day and then coming to TTT at night with barely time to eat between. I worried about you, Oe-san, when you were suffering from a cold and when your voice would break as you chanted for us again and again. You showed unbelievable endurance and inspired us not to get lazy. Tamoi-san, you explained to me how in Noh theatre, one does everything – not just acting. You took care of the costumes, drove the cars, supported your fellow actors, and always had endless energy to give to our training and to answer our questions. After a performance that left you mopping the sweat off your brow, Katayama-san, you always had the time to give us the okay sign and to include us in your triumph.
I miss training with you all more than I can ever express. I loved those moments when I’d hear “Dai sho” or ‘So so so so so so so” or “Better!” However, I realize now that I also miss the tap of your fans on my elbow when it drooped or on my wrist when it curled in. I miss your reminders to “left stop sumi” and “kakeru not nejiru”. I relish the memories of when you shared laughter with me over my mistakes and how thrilled I was when another piece of the puzzle seemed to fall into place. I miss Oe-san’s tips on which muscles to use and which to relax, Tamoi-san’s creative exercises to teach a new concept, and Katayama-san’s use of imagery. I miss the sound of your voices chanting and the sound of the drum rhythms you added to some of our keiko. I miss watching you demonstrate, and I miss shadowing your movement.
I wish there were 3 of me to give to my students. I came to Kyoto wanting to be the student I would like to teach and the actor I would want to direct. I left Kyoto wanting to be the teacher who places a robe of feathers on the shoulders of the next generation and shows them how to fly to the moon as my 3 master teachers did for me.
Arigato gozaimashita
Kate

Our sensei rock!!

But the real stars of the recital were our sensei. All the sensei performed a piece either at the beginning or the end, but our sensei also supported others. Oe-san chanted for Wen-Hsuan as she did her shoulder drum solo. All three Noh sensei chanted in accompaniment for the drum sensei. Then they performed their own shimai and chanted for each other. Tamoi-san did a warrior dance from 'Ebira' that took our breath away. Although we had seen him demonstrate steps and kata many times,and of course he demonstrated parts of the role of the snake ghost from Dojo-ji, we had never seen Tamoi-san play a full shimai. Our gentle sensei looked so fierce! We were thrilled! Katayama-san performed a poignant dance of a woman mourning her husband's infidelity ('Izutsu')as Tamoi-san and Oe-san moaned a soft utai. The power of Katayama's stillness and the low moaning intensified the depiction of her grief. Then Oe-san took the dai sho mae and EXPLODED as a demon. The whole stage (his home turf!) shook as he stamped and leapt around the stage. At the end, he jumped in the air did a 360 and landed with a deafening crash! I think everyone in the audience was panting by the end! We rushed backstage to meet our masters and to prepare for the final act - and unprecedented event of amateurs (us!) assisting in a chorus that a professional (Katayama Shingo Sensei!) would dance to as a god foretelling the future of the emperor ('Kuzu kiri'). This was the utai we had struggled so much to learn. (see Post "Feeling Competitive" August 1) We bowed to each other backstage and walked out to take our places - women in front, men in back. Katayama-san entered, we took our fans into our laps as he began the utai - "Hereupon, his sacred presence manifests itself" - Katayama-san stood, and I desperately wished my arms were long enough to reach forward and tug his hakama pleats into place, but they naturally fell into place anyway - why? - because our sensei is perfect, of course. All our sensei ROCK!

Dai sho

My classmates and I pose for pictures together between rehearsal and the recital and take several on Wen-Hsuan's polaroid camera that we could give to our teachers with a small gift. We write our messages to our sensei - too little space to express all the gratitude I feel. Meyu and I temporarily shed our hakama. We run through the utai again with Num and resolve to perform it louder still! We are re-hakama-ed by our dresser. As Meyu and I practice walking suriashi in the hall, Oe Sensei comes out, asks us to turn around to check our look, nods and starts to return to the dressing room. I whisper after him, "Oe Sensei!" He turned. I mouth, "Karakarakara'" and make 'twinkle' fingers to remind him of the image he gave me for Hagoromo. He finally grins at me! Now Tamoi Sensei comes out into the hall, and Oe-san gestures to him that we look fine. Always vigilant for unforeseen glitches, Tamoi-san comes to check for himself. He speaks to Meyu. "Tamoi-san wishes to re-tie your hakama." "Dozo," he asks permission. "Tamoi-san wants you to take them off and start again." I drop trou. My sensei kneels, centers my hakama and turns me back and forth as he expertly pulls the straps into place. Oe-san and Tamoi-san demonstrated dressing Katayama-san on the very first day, and I feel absolutely no embarrassment at this ritual - only gratitude that my pants wouldn't fall off onstage! The tightening of the straps focuses my center of energy around my gut - just where all the sensei had said it should be from the start! Standing kamae suddenly feels natural- Note to self: wear a tight sash around your gut when practicing. ... We wait. Meyu and I are getting nervous. "What do we do?" she asks. "I just know I'd feel better if I could wait near sensei," I say. So we poke our heads into the men's dressing room, and our sensei wave us in. Oh, our sensei look resplendent in their white kimono and gray hakama! Like small children saying their prayers, we gratefully sit seiza side by side on the tatami mat floor with our eyes meekly lowered. Our sensei laugh. We laugh at ourselves. It relaxes us. Sensei lead us out to prepare for our entrance. Tamoi Sensei tells Meyu to tuck my yukata down into my obi. I straighten the extra fabric and Tamoi-san gives my hakama one last pat into place. I try to calm my breathing. Suddenly, Meyu grabs me, "Kate, what's the first line?" "What, of the utai?" "No, Tamoi-san wants to make sure you remember your first line." "Ah tsu ma aa so bi no," I sing softly. Tamoi-san smiles in approval - He's right. If you can just get through the first line, everything else should fall into place. I grin back. We kneel. "Onegai ita shimas" If it pleases you. They leave me in the darkened backstage. I hear Meyu's voice strong and clear, and I imagine her dancing among the sakura. She exits. I rub her shoulder and enter. I take my place at the dai sho mae, kneel, open my fan and sing. I rise and feel Oe-san's comforting tweak at the bottom of my hakama. The audience disappears, and I see only the center post behind them and the four pillars as if through the mask. It's over before I know it, and we exit and kneel and bow to each other. "Arigato gozaimashita" Thank you for all you have done. We go out to watch the others perform. The Nihonbuyo dancers are beautiful, flirtatious, graceful, and stunning. The Kyogen actors make me laugh all over again at the jokes I have heard several times, and I marvel at the incredible challenge they had memorizing full scenes, lines and movement, and komai chants and dances as well! We head to the cast party, and I sit next to Katayama Sensei. ARGH! Why can't I speak Japanese so that I could tell him what this experience has meant to me??? An interpreter leans in to me and tells me that I looked great onstage. I thank her and tell her how hard my sensei worked to teach me. Katayama-san gestures to me and says, "Dai sho something something." (The dai sho mae is the first place an actor goes to begin a dance) The interpreter gasps in delight, "He says 'This one is first place.' He says you worked so hard and improved so much." I improved because my sensei worked so hard with me because I was such a disaster! My greatest goal for this evening's recital was to make my sensei proud. They are ichban (number one) dai sho.

In re-reading this months later, I have at last tumbled upon the meaning of Katayama-sensei's compliment. The Dai sho mae is the place on stage where the shimai dancer begins. In that poetic ambiguity and layering of meaning of the Japanese language, Sensei was letting me know that, although I had done well, I was still at the beginning - a lovely lace to be at my age. The journey begins.

My classmates

My classmates have become my dear friends. Wen-hsuan comes from Taiwan and studies Japanese culture at the University of Kyoto. She plays the koto and composes her own music. She took the Noh class last year and has been a source of good advice throughout this course. She chose Hagoromo because she wanted to dance a feminine piece this year. (The image of her in a samurai dance last year is so incongruous with her tiny, delicate form and sweet voice!) We consulted each other often about our shimai, and I loved how she floated around the stage in the Hagoromo mask. Meyu is a dancer and teaches communication through movement to junior high students using the Feldenkrais method. She has danced with a butoh company, and transforms into Kagetsu onstage. She speaks English very well and often explained something to me or translated for me. She is tall and thin and has a charming, anime-like lock of hair that falls over her forehead. Meyu, like me, often reacts out loud to new information from our sensei. That comes as a relief to me because I had been afraid that mm-hm, ohh, and ahh might be a breach of protocol. Sometimes I think sensei might have been tougher on Meyu than they were on the rest of us because she is the only native Japanese in the class. Maybe they just wished to give her extra support because she had to miss several classes in order to go to her job. Maybe they saw more potential in her because she really is so very good. Num is my English-speaking buddy. He is from Thailand but was educated in the UK. He is earning his PhD at Exeter University and is basing his thesis on this experience. Num's boyish features belie his experience and mature commitment. He teaches acting at a university in Thailand and has danced butoh and appeared in several productions and commercials. I love that Num takes pictures of food like I do, and he gives me recommendations of where to eat! I have become so attached to my classmates and hope that we will always stay in touch. They are all young enough to be my children, but I see them as my guides and my superiors in experience and talent. I was lucky to get into this class with these people.

Dress rehearsal

The big day arrived at last. I finished my packing because we were told that the after-party party might go all night. Our rehearsal would go all afternoon, and the Noh class was last on the docket. The Noh women and Kyogen women shared a dressing room, and with much help from my fellow performers and Tamato-san, our translator, I dressed in my yukata. Then I amused my cohorts by curling my hair with a curling iron and spraying it into place. There's my halo, Oe-sensei (karakarakarakara!) A dresser arrived from Kyoto University to get us into hakama pants. Mine were a gray gold and shimmered. Now we wait. Jonah-san told us to find and greet our teachers - even if they were changing clothes, and after the delights of the last class we were anxious to see them. Tamoi Sensei and Katayama Sensei looked glad to see us too. Oe Sensei was quiet and solemn. This beautiful theatre belongs to his family. Perhaps his reticence was to remind us to focus on the performance and not to disgrace them.... Our turn for rehearsal came, and our sensei first took us out on stage to talk about the space. Then we exited the stage through the little door, knelt and bowed to each other and said, "Onegai it shimas". All three sensei were providing our chorus. What an honor to have them all supporting us onstage! Meyu went first, and I patted her shoulder as she headed through the little door. Wen-hsuan and Num had run out to the audience watch our rehearsal and take photos. They too were a major source of support, but I started to get nervous anyway as I listened to Meyu's opening chant. What if I flubbed up? What if I disappointed my sensei after all their patient teaching? I closed my eyes and mentally visualized the stage as it would have looked through the tiny eyeholes of the Hagoromo mask. I focused on the last class and all the classes and whispered my opening to the chant. Ah tsu ma aa so bi no ka tsu ka tsu ni. I am a beautiful heavenly maiden, a beautiful heavenly maiden. I calmed. I heard the last note of Meyu's shimai. The little door slid open and she came through, gave me a quick smile, and I emerged onto the Oe stage. I took tiny steps to the dai sho mae, knelt slowly and almost without a wobble, opened my fan and sang. My gut muscles contracted, and I slowly rose and wondered if anyone could see my fan quiver. Then the oddest sensation came from behind as Oe Sensei tweaked my hakama pleats into place. It was comforting - like a non-verbal, "We have your back, kiddo." I danced, stopped on the wrong foot at sumi, let it go, see the moon, nejiru away, kakeru back, gather my focus, catch the wind, the treasures rain down from the heavens, gather them up and offer them to the audience, pull my wing over my chest, let it flap, soar across, turn and tilt down to see the sky, sea, and earth, swoop to the earth, nejiru away, kakeru with energy forward and build speed to the first pine, switch fan grip - no, don't grip but relax your hands - turn slowly and circle to the dai sho mae, look to the waki pillar, the sumi pillar, nejiru to the front and disappear from sight in the clouds. Close fan, rise, exit calmly. Our teachers called us out for notes. Katayama Sensei smiled and through the interpreter said, "No big changes." Rapture!! Then he proceeded to make several small changes. Still happy, I realized I had come to value the corrections as much or more than the praise. I exited to the backstage and caught Tamoi Sensei's eye. "Left stop sumi," I said ruefully. How many times had he had to run that part with me in my early classes? A slight smile played on his lips. "Left stop sumi," he nodded.

The last class

I wish I could put the pictures at the end of this post. You have already seen the incredible gift our sensei gave us tonight. Humor me, though by letting me do the big build up. It started with our sensei realizing that we still hadn't practiced in hakama, and that it would be very difficult for the Kagetsu actors to stamp in only their yukata. So they promptly took off their own hakama and dressed Meyu and Num. Love hath no greater sensei than he who will drop trou for a student's costume! Now properly dressed, we ran through everything in order. We bowed to our singers "backstage". We entered through the little door. We did our shimai and received notes. Finally, we sang the chant for Katayama-sensei as he danced. (He had to retrieve his hakama for that.) So we then met in the "backstage area", and Katayama-san told us that we had performed and that we had learned a great deal and done very well. So we were going to end the class now. My heart fell. It had hardly begun! Then Katayama-sensei said that Tamoi-sensei had something else he wanted us to do. 'Okay,' I thought, 'Maybe we're going to spend some time talking about the performance of Dojo-ji. I can be happy with that.' Tamoi said that we had worked very hard and that we had achieved more than they expected. That, as we knew, shimai are not a full Noh play, and therefore, we would not be wearing a Noh mask. However, they wished us to have the experience of how it would feel to move onstage in a mask. So they had brought a Kagetsu mask and a Hagaromo mask for us to put on - as well as a very special Noh fan that would be appropriate to use. I gasped and started to cry. Katayama-san laughed. We were all so grateful - I think they knew that we knew what a big deal this is. Amateurs don't get to act in the masks or touch the fans. We weren't even allowed to photograph the mask exhibitions. It was a tremendous gift. I took the Hagaromo mask by the string holes, raised her above my head and bowed to her, then turned her around and held her to my face. Tamoi-sensei tied the strings tightly and guided me to the dai sho, the starting position. They told me not to kneel because this was no longer a shimai but part of a Noh play. I began my dance. It is very hard to see through the mask holes, and we didn't have real pillars - just stools at the corners; so I flubbed a couple times, but as I got toward the end of the piece, I relaxed and let the mask take over. I realized that my face had fallen into her expression, and I felt like I was flying. Katayama-sensei was singing, and Tamoi-sensei made the sounds of the drummer and drum. I felt their support and that of my classmates. Each of us, in turn, had our moment to glimpse what a Noh actor experiences. What magic. What communion. What a gift.