81010041

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‘Be a costume hanger’: the aesthetics of imperial bugaku dance of Japan

‘Be a costume hanger’: the aesthetics of imperial bugaku dance of Japan

English (英語)

国際文化学研究 : 神戸大学大学院国際文化学研究科紀要

49

83*-103*

神戸大学大学院国際文化学研究科

2017-12

2018-02-05

This paper explores aesthetics of dance and the practitioner’s perception of body. Bugaku is the imperial court dance, which was brought from Asian continent to Japan by the eighth century and has been preserved until today. ‘Bea costume hanger’ is an instruction that a senior musician (dancer) of the imperial palace gave to his disciple in regard to how a dancer should perform on a stage. By analyzing this instruction, together with other verbal explanations given by the imperial musicians, this paper examines the aesthetics of bugaku, particularly focusing on the category of hiramai, which is a calm and slow group dance repertoire in the bugaku, rather than hashirimai, which is more active. The analysis found three possible meanings for ‘be a hanger’; 1) A ‘hanger’ could indicate an ideal posture in the pattern of ‘hiraku (spread arms)’; the shoulders, elbows and hands should be arranged in a straight horizontal line, like an emon-kake hanger. 2) ‘Be a hanger’ could be interpreted to suggest that the movements of hiramai should be rendered naturally, simply, and in an orderly manner, stripped of an ‘artificiality’ or ‘fluttery’, ‘effeminate’ style; 3) In hiramai ,each dancer is expected to ‘erase’ personality and lose creativety and thus a perfect synchronicity in posture and movement of all dancers is importantly valued. These orientations suggest that the choreography and performing style of hiramai are designed to display the gorgeous bugaku costume at its finest.

紀要論文