Encounter

Stage: cherry and basswood

Actors: cherry, ebony, holly, maple, red oak, walnut, white oak

Kumiko Pattern: diamond grid with a variation of the zakura (cherry blossom) pattern   

You may experience the piece in various ways: for example, by yourself, perhaps with an imagined partner facing you, or with another person sitting across from you. There are many ways to do this.  Here are a few possibilities to get you thinking. You might:

• Look at the piece as a whole and examine its component parts. 
• Touch the stage, support columns, foundation and the actors. 
• Imagine a process for placing some actors on the stage. If you are partnering with another person, you might discuss how to proceed. You can alternate actor placement with your partner or place them independently and simultaneously. 
• Add, move or remove actors in response to your partner’s action or when you wish. 
• Stop placing or moving actors when the scene is set as you and your partner wish it to be.  
• Take some time to reflect on what you have experienced.

The cherry blossom has played a long and influential role in Japanese culture. The cherry blossom festival is a significant cultural event in Japan. It is celebrated when the blossoms are in full bloom and just begin to fall. Watching an individual pinkish-white blossom separate from its tree and fall to the ground is a bittersweet experience that reminds us of the fleeting nature of existence. Most Japanese art forms strive to evoke these sensations and use them to clarify and deepen an understanding of what it means to live in harmony with our nature. 

Encounter is designed with several references to the Japanese Nō theater tradition. While it can be experienced without reference to Nō, your experience may be richer with some background. Here is a brief summary of important Nō references.

References to Nō Theater

Nō theater has ancient roots in Japanese culture, probably originating in the Shinto shrine dance rituals of the 12th century. Scholars have estimated that several thousand Nō plays may have been written with only 230 plays remaining in the repertoire. Nō fuses dialogue, narration, poetry, music, dance, masks and costumes. In several plays, notably Zeami’s Saigyōzakura, the cherry blossom plays a central role.

Kenneth Yasuda begins his collection of Nō masterpieces and commentary with this paragraph: 

Nō is the ancient Japanese theater whose multiple dimensions echo and reinforce one central aim: the baring of a soul. That soul may have the form of a human or a god. It may have the trappings of good or of evil. It may be famous or previously unknown. It may be living or long dead. Whatever, it will be stripped to a core that each person may touch with intimacy. [Yasuda (1989), p. 1]

The antecedents of Nō theater were codified, elaborated and nurtured to blossom by the Shakespeare of Nō theater, Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443). Zeami composed about 90 Nō plays and wrote extensively on the aesthetics of Nō, the lifelong training of Nō actors and theatrical production. 

Zeami believed that the flower was the essential metaphor that guided every aspect of Nō. The entire life cycle of the flower from seed or bulb to delicate blossom and decline was the life cycle that a Nō should follow:

Zeami insisted that anything be sacrificed in order to produce the “flower” that is the aim of the drama. This flower is both an aesthetic principle and the “soul” of the actor or the character or the play, and it is, beyond that, a spiritual quest. Every element of the play, every gesture, must be devoted to producing the flower. [Yasuda (1989), p. 5]

The main stage of a Nō theater was typically square, open on three sides and raised above the ground with a long covered walkway leading to it. A pine tree was painted on the back wall. Four posts at the corners provided an orientation to the actors who wore large and stylized masks that often severely limited their vision. A Nō play begins and ends with an empty stage except for the image of the pine tree.

For an excellent introduction to Nō theater and to read about a dozen significant plays in the contemporary Nō repertoire, see Kenneth Yasuda, Masters of the Nō Theater (1989). Yasuda also includes a Nō play he composed to commemorate Martin Luther King.