Rakugo ~ 落語

Every year, most Japanese high schools will attend some kind of performance at the end of the year, whether it be a concert, musical, or play. Last year we saw a musical love story about a mentally-challenged girl with a twist endng (sort of like Sixth Sense). This year, my school went to see Rakugo, or traditional Japanese storytelling, at the Takasago Cultural Center, a large performance hall close to our school campus.

Rakugo (落語) has a long history, and to be honest, I didn't know much about it before I found out we would be going to see it. It's actually a form of verbal entertainment, sort of like stand-up, where the storyteller ("rakugoka") sits ona little stage and tells a story from his seat. It's always comical, but they can get really complicated and he is only allowed to use a paper fan as a prop. The best comparison I can make to American culture (since we do not have strong roots in the storytelling tradition in mainstream culture) is Saturday Night Live, but without the costumes. Rakugo is usually performed by one person who takes on the personality of different characters, always including dialogue, whether it be an animal or celebrity, to tell a story.

Each performance begins with traditional music being played, with a distinct song for each actor (sort of like the Mickey Mouse song for Mickey Mouse if he were a performer). The music is played on a small taiko drum, tied together with string, a large taiko drum, and a traditional Japanese guitar-like instrument called a shamisen. I have seen the shamisen before (which looks a lot like a banjo but sounds like harp), but the most shocking piece of information I gained from the trip was learning that the small instruments are made out of cat, yes CAT, leather and the larger ones are made of DOG. Before you react, let me assure you people don't really eat these animals like they are sometimes stereotyped to do and this tradition goes back a long way (that is why they are still very rare and expensive to buy... they follow the same techniques that tradition calls for... materials and all), but I was a little disgusted when I found out... I just kept picturing all the cute street cats wandering Takasago.

We listened to different songs and learned about the instruments for a while before two volunteers, one staff member and one student, were brought up on stage to give a performance using the instruments. They did the story about the ghost in Himeji Castle, about a kitchen girl who was beheaded during the Samurai times because one plate was missing (legend says her ghost still haunts the kitchen well; "if you hear her counting the plates and she gets to 10 you're going to die..."). It was pretty funny to see Yamoto Sensei, one of the gym teachers, put on the kimono jacket and pretend to be the ghost and I actually understood what was going on, so that was probably my favorite part of the show.
After the story, we watched a magic act with tricks, but the guy kept messing up by dropping the ball he was balancing or whatever he was juggling and would blame it on the "strong wind". People still enjoyed his performance, but the actor apologized and said he had "lost face" before leaving the stage. The parts that did go well were entertaining, though (and didn't require me to understand Japanese, so I could follow it).
Lastly, we listened to two experts perform stories, or rakugo. I tried to follow the first tale, about a "White Lion (Zoo)", but ended up asking the teacher I was sitting next to for definitions about a million and one times, so I only half-listened to the second story (stopped bugging my coworkers... my fault for not bringing a dictionary) and paged through my India Lonely Planet.

One of my coworkers, the computer teacher who did the magic performances at last year's Bon enkai, noticed that I was paying attention (at least at the beginning) and seemed to be enjoying myself, however, so the next day he showed up to school with a surprise. He was really excited that I was interested in the Japanese traditional arts and brought me three copies of Shijaku Katsura's work, one CD in English, one CD in Japanese and a DVD in Japanese. Shijaku Katsura is the most famous Rakugo performer (and there is a copy of him doing the zoo story we heard on my CD!), but he died about 5 years ago and is now considered sort of a legend. I haven't had time to listen to or watch the performances yet, but I'm going to put them on my iPod for India.

I was really taken aback by the kindness, but am sort of excited to get to try to listen to the stories and get more out of them this time (well, at least from the English).