Hisa and Hikaru Uzawa - Japanese Noh theatre
Hisa and Hikaru Uzawa perform the second half of Atsumori, a Japanese Noh play by Zeami Motokiyo, which focuses on Taira no Atsumori, a young samurai who was killed in the Genpei War.
Performance begins at 32:05
Introduction by Cody Poulton (professor in the UVic Pacific and Asian Studies Department) and Hikaru Uzawa.
Heike and Atsumori
Atsumori, is based on an earlier text, the Heike monogatari or Tale of the Heike, a medieval war tale that took its final form in the late fourteenth century. The Tale of the Heike presents a somewhat fictionalized account of the civil war that ended the aristocratic Heian Period in the twelfth century and ushered in the system of warrior rule, under shōguns, that would last until Japan’s modernization in the nineteenth century.
In particular, the Tale focuses on the Heike (or Taira), a family of warrior-aristocrats who rose to great heights politically but then fell swiftly from grace when their growing power began to threaten the imperial throne itself. Pursued by the Minamoto, their great rivals at court, the Taira fled the capital (now the city of Kyoto) in great haste in the early autumn of 1183, and were attacked and pursued from encampment to encampment until their final defeat in battle in the spring of 1185.
The episode adapted into the play Atsumori occurs during one of these attacks, when the Taira camp on the shore at Ichinotani, near modern Kōbe city, had been overrun by the Minamoto. The Minamoto had accomplished this by launching a vertical assault from the near-impregnable cliffs behind the camp. The startled Taira fled to their ships, in order to escape by sea, but not all of them made it to safety. The Tale of the Heike describes in great detail the deaths of several prominent members of the Taira on the beach at Ichinotani, one of whom is Atsumori.
Atsumori was just sixteen years old at the time of his death. His position as grandson of the Taira family head meant that he was a high-ranking commander of the Taira forces despite his youth, and thus a valuable target for his foes. The Minamoto warrior who ultimately takes Atsumori’s head, Kumagai, faces a moral dilemma in so doing because he sees Atsumori not as an enemy general but as a youth the same age as his own beloved son.
The Noh Atsumori
The Noh play Atsumori provides a sequel to the events described in the Tale of the Heike. The Minamoto warrior Kumagai has become the Buddhist monk Renshō, while Atsumori’s ghost, consumed by resentment at his early and violent demise, still haunts the site of his death. Renshō performs an exorcism of sorts, in order to ensure the ultimate salvation of Atsumori’s soul. This process involves a dream-like recounting by Atsumori of the circumstances of his death, which forms the dramatic high point of the play. In this sense the play is typical of Noh plays about warriors, who are often depicted as being in posthumous torment after their deaths in battle, able to be soothed and saved only by the intervention of a sympathetic monk. The strong influence of Buddhism seen in Atsumori is also a frequent feature of Noh plays, as is the intermingling of past and present, and of the spirit and human worlds.
Recorded at the Phillip T. Young Recital Hall at the University of Victoria (UVic), Canada, on September 19, 2019.