On Dance
JACOBS, LAURA
On Dance EXQUISITELY ORIENTED BY LAURA JACOBS TENSION, momentum and modulation, the "primary colors" of dance, make movement meaningful even as it unfolds in an unfamiliar artistic...
...The physical scale of the productions, however, projects a sense of slowness and deliberation...
...His virtues were most apparent in the scene where the tragic hag dances joyously under the moon at the prospect of redemption...
...But in Yoshitsune Senbonzakura the six Ladies-in-Waiting who took the stage with lanterns to search for the noble Tadanobu's double were breathtaking and mysterious...
...Dressed identically in purple, advancing with the same tiny steps, they almost formed an abstract pattern...
...instead, they face the audience and illustrate their intentions with traditional poses...
...Although Kabuki, an all-male Japanese theater form that originated in the 17th century, includes both rhythmic speech and music as principal components, its meticulously stylized, carefully executed dance elements are what generate dramatic force and allow universal communication...
...Both of these virtuosic roles were played by the company's star and director, Ennosuke III, a mercurial, if rolypoly, master...
...Employing less outward movement than any other actor of the evening, his intense, expectant eyes, set in a cameo-pale face, disclosed an inner gaze trained on some ethereal realm far from his troubled mortal life...
...The two pieces performed at the Met are based on classic tales...
...Neither work this visit had a detailed portrayal of a young heroine...
...Without this exquisite contrast between finely sculpted emotions and monumental setting, Kabuki would become little more than a court tableau or costume party...
...I was reminded of this during the September 6-12 engagement of Ichikawa Ennosuke Ill's Kabuki company at the Metropolitan Opera House...
...Ennosuke's ancient woman/demon interpretation was more elaborate, displaying a consummate technique at the beck and call of a supple imagination...
...They also isolate the figures on stage, making us aware that Kabuki is an art centered around the individual...
...The delicacy of her hands enchants us into forgetting that they have done a demon's bloodthirsty work —until the revelation of a broken promise bursts upon her and those lyrical hands convulse and twist themselves into claws of rage...
...Ichikawa Danshiro, Ennosuke's younger brother, deserves special mention for the episode in Kurozuka where the demon turns his legs to jelly as he tries to flee from her wrath—it was like seeing your own worst nightmare come to life...
...His quick changes (he drops through a trap door as one and pops up across the stage as the other hardly 30 seconds later) are the stuff of Houdini...
...Indeed, the characters rarely look at each other when they talk...
...Its stories balance themselves on moments of extreme visual and psychological tension...
...Heavy, almost mountainous costumes—brocaded court kimonos, boxy religious robes, layered and beaded warrior garb—give all the actors a larger-than-life appearance...
...Nowhere have I seen actors so powerfully locked into the space they inhabit, and thus into the present...
...Kabuki performances tend to be long, but they tell fast-moving stories full of violence and confrontation, punctuated by stretches of suspenseful introspection...
...Such an impeccable congruence of image, rhythm and purpose can only evolve out of a long, carefully cultivated tradition...
...Exotic and strange, Kabuki shows us that beautiful forms speak a common language...
...On Dance EXQUISITELY ORIENTED BY LAURA JACOBS TENSION, momentum and modulation, the "primary colors" of dance, make movement meaningful even as it unfolds in an unfamiliar artistic purpose...
...At the same time, their faces hold expressions of delight or pain like masks...
...By hindering movement the costumes have the effect of choreographing it...
...Nevertheless, each "lady" was herself— distinguished by a tilted head, the drape of a skirt, a slight swaying motion here, a raised eyebrow there...
...His round face more readily expresses cleverness and glee than stern grandeur, so in Yoshitsune Senbonzakura I enjoyed him more as fox than as warrior...
...Yoshitsune Senbonzakura—a puppet play adapted to Kabuki in the 18th century—concerns the betrayal of trust in a royal family, and presents a loyal warrior, Tadanobu, who is actually a fox disguised as a man...
...Kurozuka—drawn from a Noh drama —has an old hermit woman reverting in a moment of fury back to her true nature as man-eating demon...
...Wearing their giant robes with hems that fold under their feet, the men glide formidably across the stage...
...Equally unforgettable was the handsome Nakamura Shinjiro as the doomed hero Yoshitsune...
Vol. 72 • September 1989 • No. 14
