As part of the cumulative HIP project, I presented a video and a performance at Studio Kura on 22nd and 23rd July. This blog reflects on how the elements of the exhibition came together.
The exhibition was the result of a collaborative and responsive process, with input in Nijō-masue and Hamakubo villages in Itoshima from Studio Kura staff. In a workshop on 15th July, local participants explored ideas around human and puppet.
The workshop in the Studio Kura Rice Store (kura)
Conversations with Matsuzaki Hirofumi helped with research and we included a performance from Ikke, in the edit with help from his mum, Matsuzaki Saori.
Over the last three weeks, it has been helpful working alongside fellow artists-in-residence from USA, Australia, Germany and the UK and learning from their process. I worked closely with puppeteers Kay Aika and Emi Shimizu to devise and film additional footage of puppets designed by Haratie 原 千恵 and Sota Sakuma (佐久間奏多), including Petit-Pino named 'Pino-kun' and Peltie991, and Pan Ptacek (鳥男 - trans. 'birdman') . An etching printed and pasted onto a whale cut out was shared by Tom Byrne. We spent a couple of days preparing the workshop, based in and around the Matsuzaki family shrine and hall, as well as improvising with the puppets for the video, and finally filming Kurt antics.
Installation at Studio Kura 22-23 July 2023
The installation includes a hanging sculpture, and a mock-up shrine with video, plus large blue tarpaulin which was found in the sea. The blue sheet is not in the image above. The environment is intended to create the feeling of being underwater. In heat of the studio second floor, with temperatures rising to 39 degrees, it is hot and sweaty and smelly (most items collected still reek of the sea). It's possibly like being in the belly of a whale - somewhere you might want to get out of a soon as possible. So the exhibition asks questions like: how would you get out of a dark hole? There's a potentially an question about how humans evolved from the sea - beginning as an organ with two orifices. I had hoped the work might say more about evolution, but I think I need more technical skills to pull that off.
The video is edited from Zoom recordings after a hybrid/online devising workshop using an Open Broadcast platform and green screen. The project as a whole takes inspiration from The Adventures of Pinocchio. Here we are dealing with the scene in which Pinocchio is dropped into the ocean and is swallowed by a whale. He finds his “father”, Gepetto, in the belly of the whale and they both try to work out how to escape. The video is intended to work as part of an immersive and claustrophobic installation, so there's about a minute of listening to the sound of subqua breathing and bubbles.
Video looping as part of the exhibition
As I have discussed in more detail previously, in his book ‘Earth Diver – Shrine Edition’, Shinichi Nakazawa has written about caves in Shinto mythology as sacred sites of revelation. And in clowning practices we talk about the most productive creative impulses coming when we are completely ‘in the dark’.
I have been working with Premier Pro, refreshing editig skills and layering with green screen. Working with opportunities and ideas that come up in response to the participants sometimes means there is no time to draw a storyboard. I would like to set up shots more thoroughly, in spite of limited time. I am using a Sony Handycam FDR-AK53, and a Minolta MND50 48MP, with macro zoom underwater. I also use a GoPro Hero 4. This is a basic GoPro, but one that I am used to. It's wideangle allows me to tell story in this underwater theatre, rather than focus on natural details. It is harder to get a stable shot with the Minolta while moving between diving spots. In the edit I had to combining video captured on Zoom during the workshop in May with the better quality footage here in Japan, and decided to cut between cardboard puppetry as background and the 3-D world of Gepetto and Pino. Even so, the light is often so bright here that I have had to compensate using colour adjustments with the quality footage.
Meanwhile Kurt Zarniko has been creating the character Gepetto, taking inspiration from local objects, performance styles and legends. For instance, Gepetto’s mask is made from rubbish collected from Hamakubo/Hakoshima beach. You will know by now that Gepetto is performed by Kurt Zarniko, who is in turn performed by Richard Talbot.
These layers of persona connect with the story of a performance of the Gidayu Kyogen 「義太夫狂言」 Oshu Adachigahara「奥州安達原」by Chikamatsu Hanji「近松半二（ちかまつはんじ）」 which was presented to villagers here in Hamakubo in the late 18th Century. During a climactic scene one of the actors got carried away with his role as Abe Muneto, a feudal warlord on the run and already in disguise as a criminal. Suddenly exposed by his enemy, Minomoto Yoshie, he stabbed and killed his fellow performers. (For more on performances of Oshu Adachigahara see my follow-up blog).
The account of the actor's leap into the audience implies that the uproar was as much about confusing the boudaries between theatre and real life, as about the tragedy of a psychotic 'possession'. The villagers had to chase the actor back onto the stage before they could pin him down with ladders - in effect, he was subdued by technical team! (Uehara 2021, pp.168-171)
A shrine was erected in the actor's memory, Hamakubo no Abesama is in the mountain next to House 1. It provides a space of meditation for anyone feeling ‘stuck’ or possessed! I hear that Kurt made a dedication to the shrine on the day of the exhibition.
The next stage will be a 'return' workshop in Salford, England, in October.
Uehara Yasuhiro, ed. (2021) 'Lord Abe of Hamakubo: the ghost of Muneto that possessed a touring actor' (Hamakubo no Abesama: tabiyakusha ni noriutsutta Muneto no rei). in Itoshima Legends (Itoshima Densetsu-shū). Fukuoka: Nishinihon Shimbun
Thanks to University of Salford and GB Sasakawa Fund for their support.
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