TV series "Don't rush the galaxy"
"ART Kabuki" stills image source / ART KABUKI Project
The online exhibition "Lost Performances: Records and Memories of the Coronavirus Disaster and Drama" held by the Waseda University Drama Museum Image source / Waseda University Drama Museum official website
◎ Li Ling
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has swept across the globe, has endangered precious lives and caused a recession. Neighboring Japan's transportation, newspaper, catering and retail industries are immersed in the ocean of deficits, and the stage performance industry is also in debt due to several suspensions. According to statistics from PIA, Japan's largest online entertainment ticket sales company, live stage performance revenue as of the end of October in 2020 was 130.6 billion yen, compared with 629.5 billion yen in the previous year 2019, 80% of the performance revenue disappeared, and focusing on a troupe may be grainless.
"Don't be in a hurry"
Since 2020, the Japanese government has issued three emergency declarations, calling on people to do their best to avoid going out and reduce external contact. The third emergency declaration, which lasted from the end of April to the end of May 2021, is now further postponed to June 20 due to the unstable epidemic situation. The Japanese government's epidemic prevention policy stipulates that restaurants close at 8 or 9 pm, and alcoholic beverages are not allowed to be served at dinner, and the requirement for ordinary people is always to call for self-discipline and self-control and stay at home as much as possible. There is a Chinese word that appears frequently in the anti-epidemic measures sentence, called "don't be in a hurry": "Please avoid going out without hurrying", "Please control the movement after 8 pm", "Please cooperate to avoid traveling abroad without hurry". What is "don't be in a hurry"? This makes the rest of the Kanji circle feel vague but meaningful. "Don't be in a hurry" = "Not the most necessary", not the most urgent thing, which means to simplify the trajectory of life as much as possible, and compress the necessities of life consumption within the range possible.
For more than a year, this word has been visible on TV news and newspapers along with Japan's anti-epidemic slogan, but unexpectedly it has touched the introspection and thinking of some people: What is "not urgent" in life? What are the things that are urgent and urgent? Are cultural activities, which are often understood as entertainment, automatically classified as "don't be in a hurry"? Is the consumption of culture and art by human beings included in the minimum necessities of life?
The four remaining joint trade unions and rakugo associations in Tokyo said in a joint statement that performances are "necessary for mass social life", and they will take necessary measures to prevent the epidemic, reduce the number of seats in the audience by half and then open as usual, and will not comply with the government's requirement to "adopt performances without audiences". The banquet is a popular popular culture in Japan's Edo period, and the small theater garden performs rakugo (stand-up comedy), manga (cross-talk), talk (similar to storytelling in storytelling), including singing folk songs, magic, juggling and other small programs, which are favored by nostalgic uncles and aunts. The garden is generally a Japanese-style building, with lanterns hanging from the eaves and advertising boards with the names of artists and the title of the performances erected at the door. The internal venue of the theater is small, the inside is paved with tatami, the price is very close to the people, you can bring your own food and drink to sit and watch for half a day, the rakugo master is close at hand, and a folding fan in the hand can shake the whole field. The theater garden in the corner of the city has accumulated oral art and various miscellaneous arts of the pre-modern heritage, and it is facing closure if it is not open for business, but now even if the rakugo master wears a mask and continues to tell jokes and stories to the neighbors, it is long overdue and unsustainable. In May this year, the Rakugo Association held a press conference to say that the Rakugo performing arts are facing an existential crisis and hope to receive financial assistance from all walks of life.
In the face of the ever-present fatal public health crisis, people must of course abide by the corresponding anti-epidemic norms, but those who have been suspended or sacrificed also need to be recorded, because the countless micro-streams are exactly what every individual is all about. Naoki Ayayoshi, a former winner of the Wasagawa Award, wrote a TV series to describe the lives and questions of ordinary people during the epidemic, called "Don't Rush the Galaxy", which began airing on Japanese television stations in July 2020 and caused a lot of discussion. The story tells that a small bar "Galaxy" run by a couple is about to close down under the influence of the epidemic, and this small piece of precious space that has relieved the stress of regular customers after work will soon disappear, and the owner of the shop is full of doubts: "Isn't our life not in a hurry?" ”
The filming of this TV series coincided with the most tense period of the epidemic in Japan last summer, all stage performances and film shooting and production were called off, and 70% of the production team was generally hired by temporary groups, and like the actors on the stage, the staff could not live without work. In order to document this special situation, Naoki Yoshiyoshi and director Tsuyoshi Inoue simultaneously filmed a documentary on the production of the TV series, including asking a doctor to come to the crew to guide the filming process on how to prevent the epidemic and how to stop work every 30 minutes for ventilation and disinfection. The staff, makeup artists, and prop designers involved in the filming are also as precarious as the characters in the play, and they are also chatting: "Do you say that you are not in a hurry to shoot a TV series?" "The camera alternates between the short in the parents of the small bar and the empty night in the real curfew, and I don't know which one is more real. Naoki Yoshiyoshi said that the reason why people write about small bars is because these small bars are spread throughout the streets of Japan, and there are more convenience stores than convenience stores, and they are the emotional link of urban life. The name of the small snail-like bar "Milky Way" symbolizes that there may be an invisible grand world hidden in the trivialities, and human beings need the guidance of the stars, or they may rely on only faint light to live alone. To express this all-encompassing world, which does not necessarily have an answer, is precisely the value of literary and artistic creation that deserves to be defended.
"Lost Performance"
Japan's traditional arts industry was also in a depression after the epidemic. For example, In case of Kabuki, Japan's Shochiku Corporation suspended performances at its Kabuki-exclusive theaters from March to July 2020, and some theaters were open for only one month throughout the year. Such a long suspension of performances is extremely rare in the history of kabuki's modern performances, except for the U.S. air raids on Tokyo during World War II, which blew up Kabukiza, and also goes back to the turmoil of the Meiji Restoration and the period when the shogunate banned the play in the Edo period. In the 1920s and 1930s, Shochiku acquired and merged several Kabuki theater gardens and exclusive artists one by one to reorganize the effective Kabuki commercial performance business model. Kabuki repeatedly performs traditional plays with a 400-year-old history as a classical drama, and on the other hand, it is good at innovating endlessly. Looking at the world drama scene, almost no other classical drama can perform as high-intensity performances as Kabukiza, which is performed 25 days a year for 12 months a year. Of course, this is not only the victory of the wonderful traditional performing arts, but also the triumph of the capital chain under the baton, and behind the applause is the bitterness of the overwork of the cast and crew.
Founded in 1931, Kabuki middle and lower class artists organized and formed troupes to resist the unfair distribution of income and the industrial hierarchy, who accepted the influence of proletarian ideology and planned to establish a democratic Kabuki troupe with equality for all, and even tried to live together under collective ownership. The Forward Seat Theatre Company visited China in 1960 and performed several performances. Among the entourage was a prop master named Fujilang and Bingwei, who also provided props services for Kabukiza, and while exchanging and learning with the Peking Opera cutting master, he lamented in his diary that Chinese actors could actually have two or three months to go to other places to collect wind, and when they returned, they calmly choreographed new plays. He was extremely envious of The Chinese system and respected art, and felt very sad that he had no leisure to sell his life.
60 years have passed, and today, the epidemic has suddenly pressed the pause button on Kabuki, just like a fast-running person suddenly stopping his pace, and it is easy to fall down due to insufficient blood supply. Originally designated as the year of Kabuki's lavish jubilee, 2020 was the most eye-catching celebration in the traditional arts industry from May to July: Ichikawa Kailaozo inherited the name of the 13th generation of Ichikawa Tuanjuro. In the history of Kabuki, the name Ichikawa Tuanjuro began in the 17th century, and successive artists not only created the performance style and artistic norms of Edo Kabuki, but also became the artistic authority of the kabuki, and his family and name were like the kings of the Kabuki family system. The 12th generation of Ichikawa Tunjuro died in 2013, and his son, Ichikawa Shinnosuke (teenager), Ichikawa Kailaozo (youth), and Ichikawa Tuanjuro (maturity), died in 2013, and his son Kailaozo was tempered to the moment when he was about to ascend to the throne of glory. At the beginning of 2019, Shochiku publicly announced the celebration of the Tokyo name-calling performance and tour in various places from May to July 2020, symbolizing that the important cultural events that will follow the Kabuki performing arts will inevitably become more enthusiastic in the Olympic economy. But it backfired, and the COVID-19 pandemic ruthlessly destroyed all plans, and the Olympics had to be postponed.
In August 2020, Kabukiza reopened its doors to welcome visitors, but as the final account report of the listed company, Shochiku Co., Ltd. lost 9.8 billion yen in a consolidated loss of 9.8 billion yen from March to November, and there was no turning point in 2021, and the Kabukiza Theater lost 322 million yen in February this year, and it is currently optimistic that the deficit will shrink to 18 million yen by February 2022. Kabukiza is a Kabuki-exclusive theater for Shochiku, which acts all year round, and Shochiku's Tokyo Shimbashi Dance Hall, Osaka Shochiku-za and Kyoto Minamiza did not have monthly plays to perform, making the situation even worse under the impact of the epidemic. The theater was shut down, the cast had no salary, and the lower cast, in particular, had to go to odd jobs or deliver food.
An artist's icebreaker
Some conscious young and middle-aged Kabuki actors are aware of the time and space caused by the disaster to stop performing, and give them unprecedented opportunities to create, and only at this time can the mark of the performance career make this period a new artistic milestone. 30-year-old Kabuki Dankaku Nakamura Yutaro and 28-year-old Otami Yukin created an alternative "ART Kabuki", both of whom are from a Kabuki family, and Taro Taro is also a Japanese dancer, Ryu Ikuyo Moto (the leader of the traditional art genre), and his father is the clan of Kiyomoto, who has been practicing art for many years, and has been known as "Kiyomoto Eikoto", and it is rare for an actor who can act and sing professionally.
These two young artists, who are good at singing and dancing, combine traditional musical elements such as Kabuki performances, Japanese dances, koto, Tsugaru Sanshin, Flute, Taiko, and Pipa to create a wonderful comprehensive performance. "ART Kabuki" is performed and filmed on the stage of the shrine, which can be viewed online for a fee and also released in theaters. The film begins with a subtitle – "What makes us continue to perform?" In an interview, Taro said that the non-routine nature of the epidemic has made him think about what daily performance activities are for, and he feels that to link the uncertain future, it is necessary to make efforts in the present, expressing that an actor's exploration of the world of performance is never stopping. It is easy for the right close to the actor to answer that it is easy to continue to perform so that people who have seen or not seen Kabuki are interested in us, and they will enter the Kabuki Theater in the future, and also make Kabuki more diversified.
During the epidemic, online live concerts and concerts have become a popular trend in cultural performances around the world, and Kabuki achieved the first online paid broadcast in July 2020 in 400 years. In the past, only NHK, a state-run television station in Japan, broadcast videos of Performances of Noh, Kyogen, and Kabuki on the last Sunday night of each month, but if you wanted to see old plays, you had to go to the theater to buy tickets. The first online version of the play is called zoom version of "Zhongchenzang", the starring actors perform on different stages, just like the network conference on ZOOM software, and at the same time rely on synthesis technology to create the same stage look and feel. The play was broadcast in five installments and cost 4,700 yen, which was comparable to the theater's cheap third-class ticket price, and there were 1,100 pay-per-viewers, about the same as half of the seats in the Kabuki-za theater. It is said that on the day of the broadcast, the signal was sometimes not smooth, and there was a small talk noise accidentally mixed in, and the photographer also photographed the stage staff, accompanied by interesting tidbits, Kabuki took an innovative step in its history.
It is difficult for Chinese audiences to understand why online live broadcasting is difficult, and the well-developed network and convenient policies limit our imagination. But in fact, this is related to the protection of copyright and the traditional model of commercial operation. In May, the Japanese government submitted a bill to the Diet to amend the Copyright Act to simplify the process of streaming television programs on the Internet at the same time. Since live television and network transmission are two different copyright procedures, the approval of online versions is slow, and sometimes even causes the program to be unable to be broadcast live. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the opening up of Japan's copyright law, and the Japanese government is also stepping up efforts to promote traditional cultural programs into multilingual online videos to promote Japanese culture to countries around the world.
The Waseda University Drama Museum collects information on stage performances that have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, records the disaster of stage art in Japan, and conducts online exhibitions. The exhibition is titled "Lost Performances - Records and Memories of the Coronavirus Disaster and Drama", and its promotional images are a thick pile of performance leaflets, which were originally printed and ready to be distributed everywhere, although they lost their original purpose, represented the rush, loss and efforts of countless people behind them, becoming a material form of witnessing this extraordinary social memory, worthy of attention and worthy of being recorded in history. How drama records this huge and complex world, and how it constantly changes its form in the world, seems to be our own eyes.