[Ame-no-uzume-no-mikoto] hanging [round her] the heavenly clubmoss
of the Heavenly Mount Kagu as a sash, and making the heavenly
spindle-tree her head-dress, and binding the leaves of the
bamboo-grass of the Heavenly Mount Kagu in a posy for her hands, and
laying a soundingboard before the door of the Heavenly
Rock-Dwelling, and stamping till she made it resound and doing
as if possessed by a Deity, and pulling out the nipples of her
breasts, pushing down her skirt-string usque ad privates
partes. Then the Plain of High Heaven shook, and the eight hundred
myriad Deities laughed together...
(The door of the
heavenly rock-dwelling. Kojiki. Translated by Basil Hall Chamberlain
(1919))
Uzume‘s dance, as reported in the Kojiki (712), is
seen as one beginning of theatre in Japan. Through her erotic
and grotesque dance she brought Sun Goddess Amaterasu back out of
her heavenly cave and the night turned into daylight again.
Uzume‘s retainers the Saru-me (monkey ladies) are the mythical
ancestors of Sarugaku (Monkey plays), the old term for Nô and
Kyôgen.
In the third year of the Japanese festival OHAYÔ,
JAPAN! we will make an adventure travel under the festival
motto „Wonder“ to monkey dances, talking puppets and other
„curiosities“.
This festival is also a contribution to the
great anniversaries of Leipzig in 2009: we not only celebrate
20 years since the political change in East Germany and 600 years
since founding University of Leipzig, but as well 100 years of
rediscovery of the former secret writings of Seami Motokiyo
(the most important actor, aesthete and theoretician of
Sarugaku no Nô) and 140 anniversary of the Leipzig Museum of
Ethnology (which was the first of its kind in Germany).
We
invite you to an exciting and innovative Programme, in which – as
good tradition of the festival OHAYÔ, JAPAN! – contemporary and
traditional theatre arts are encountering.
As in the years
before, there will be workshops, in 2009 a Kyôgen dance workshop and
a Nihon-buyô workshop (Kabuki-dance), in which you – and also
your family – will have the rare chance to gain own experience
in the (learnable) secrets of Japanese Performing Arts.
In
cooperation with the German-Polish Cultural Project Panipanama we
will present a Japanese - Polish Visual Art Encounter with the
Photographer Murakami Masakuni and the painter and
sculpturist
Kata Adamek.
We hope you are going to enjoy our „Wonder
(unplugged)“!
The festival is led and curated by: Tom
Grigull, M. A.
It will be supported by the City of
Leipzig / Department of Culture, the Bunkachô (Agency for
Cultural Affairs) in Fiscal Year 2009/10, the EU-JAPAN-FEST and the
Polish Cultural Institute.
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