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Singing a Dance: Navigating the Musical Soundscape in "Nihon Buyo"
Abstract
continues to be based on a master-disciple (one-on-one) system. During lessons students follow the teacher's every movement through visual, kinesthetic, tactile, oral/aural means of transmission.2 Though research on the oral transmission of music has been strong through the history of ethnomusicology, few in-depth investigations of how students learn to dance and navigate within the musical soundscape exist. This paper focuses on one mode of teaching: oral transmission. I supply case studies from my fieldwork in Tokyo at the central Tachibana dance school where headmasters (iemoto, "headmaster") Tachibana Yoshie and (soke "original or previous headmaster") Tachibana Hiroyo teach.3 I have studied nihon buyo since the age of four. Throughout this article I include my personal experiences observing and taking lessons in an attempt to provide readers with a glimpse of the intimate, physical nature of the transmission process. The Japanese performing arts remain fully integrated in their artistic disciplines-a combined expressivity of music, literary narrative, visual arts (costume, props, scenery), and movement. Sonic and visual artistry must be completely coordinated for the expressive richness of the dance narrative to come alive. How do dancers learn to move with, or inside, a musical structure? In many cases dancers become part of the musical landscape, by producing elements of the soundworld in which they dance (claps, stamps, or vocal parts, for example). Through an examination of the oral transmission of dance, this article unravels the process of how dancers learn to comprehend their path through the complexity of nihon buyo musical sounds. I offer musical transcriptions and case studies of lessons as examples of specific teaching techniques used to teach music and dance. Oral instructions during nihon buyo lessons impart a wide range of directions to a student, both general and specific: fundamental dance movements, choreography, narrative story line, emotional content, and music. Comprehending the dance, from basic movements and choreography to musical and emotional considerations, is a complex coordination. I found that teachers' articulations in lessons form a metalanguage, a unique dance instructional language reflecting a varied and deeply complex matrix of information. This "dance speak" is comprised of a fragmented, yet completely fluid combination of the musical vocal line, instrumental vocables, emotive exclamations, and instructive speech. A closer inspection of the oral transmission process reveals that the metalanguage created during
... This research connects the "divided life" (Browning 1995, x-xi) of intellectual and embodied interpretations of the moving body: theory is unraveled through experience and participant observation is a "dance of disorientation." (Hahn 2001(Hahn , 2007. I also conducted formal interviews with twelve frevo practitioners (dancers, musicians, students, teachers, choreographers, and scholars-many of whom take on many of these roles at once) about their participation and artistic motivations-as well as countless informal interviews. ...
... This research connects the "divided life" (Browning 1995, x-xi) of intellectual and embodied interpretations of the moving body: theory is unraveled through experience and participant observation is a "dance of disorientation." (Hahn 2001(Hahn , 2007. I also conducted formal interviews with twelve frevo practitioners (dancers, musicians, students, teachers, choreographers, and scholars-many of whom take on many of these roles at once) about their participation and artistic motivations-as well as countless informal interviews. ...
Frevo is an energetic dance from Recife, the capital of Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco. Frevo is a dance of resistance because it narrates complex notions of identity that contribute to social empowerment through strategic processes of liberation for marginalized groups. The carnivalesque dance originates from the Brazilian martial art of capoeira and it participates in the kinesthetic disruption of power hierarchies as it is performed during carnival’s crowded, unpredictable, and often violent streets. Through this ethnographic research, I consider how frevo practitioners engage in cultural resistance using a practice that I call “carnivalesque improvisation.” Such strategies of resistance are transmitted through distinct teaching methods, allowing dancers to engage in improvisational processes of self-liberation.
... Julian Gerstin (1998) researched the interaction and improvisation between dancers and drummers in Martinican bèlè . Tomie Hahn (2001) writes about learning processes in nihon buyo in Japan that incorporate sound and movement . An important publication with theoretical implications is Greg Downey's (2002) text on embodiment, sound and movement relations and perceptions in capoeira . ...
This article introduces the theme and contents of this double issue on choreomusicology. It summarizes the historical development of research focusing on the relationship of music and dance, or sound and movement, especially within music and dance studies, but also in other disciplines. The authors advocate the term choreomusicology as an umbrella term for the various approaches used to investigate music-dance interrelations and related topics such as embodied music interaction. The focus is on combining views from ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology, which offer new potential to choreomusical research with their culturally sensitive insights based on ethnographic fieldwork, often including practical understanding of the traditions studied.
... Julian Gerstin (1998) researched the interaction and improvisation between dancers and drummers in Martinican bèlè . Tomie Hahn (2001) writes about learning processes in nihon buyo in Japan that incorporate sound and movement . An important publication with theoretical implications is Greg Downey's (2002) text on embodiment, sound and movement relations and perceptions in capoeira . ...
This article introduces the theme and contents of this double issue on choreomusicology.
It summarizes the historical development of research focusing on the relationship of music and dance, or sound and movement, especially within music and dance studies,
but also in other disciplines. The authors advocate the term choreomusicology as an umbrella term for the various approaches used to investigate music-dance interrelations and related topics such as embodied music interaction. The focus is on combining views from ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology, which offer new potential to choreomusical research with their culturally sensitive insights based on ethnographic
fieldwork, often including practical understanding of the traditions studied.
This article contributes to the study of the relationship between music and
dance through the elaboration of questions such as: how music and dance
coexist in the perception of the performer; whether dance is always
inseparable from music or it becomes independent from it in formal learning
conditions; whether music influences learning and memorising the
choreography of the folk dance. Incorporating aspects of cognitive research
into the study fields of ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology creates fertile
ground for (re)examining previous opinions about the relationship between
music and dance, as well as the need for future interdisciplinary research
of the process of learning and remembering choreography as an art form.
Fieldwork can be a dance of disorientation. The encounters in the field often directly reveal contrasting constructs of reality that challenge the researcher's core sensibilities and act as catalysts for profound change through the sensuous nature of extreme experiences.
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