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by
Catherine
Fitzmaurice
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- "The word
kagura [god-given entertainment]
employs [a] character [which]
stands for the word 'god' and consists of the
radical ... which means 'sacred' and the root
... which means 'to speak.' ...
[B]ecause of the original meaning of the
root ... 'to speak,' sarugaku also means
'to speak of pleasure.'"
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-
- The
significance of breathing bursts upon various
segments of the human race from time to time --
showing up in the fields of ecstasy, therapy,
heresy, medicine, and performance for instance
-- and since breathing has been my preoccupation
for many years I have been curious about some of
my confreres. I first heard Nô drama in
London in the 60s, and have, at intervals,
explored it ever since. Zeami, who performed,
taught, and wrote in the 1400s, was not
published in Japan until the early 20th century,
and was translated into English soon thereafter.
His conclusions about breath and voice confound
current accepted thought. Perhaps we can
persuade the new millennium to take another
look?
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- Speaking of
sacred pleasure, an actor's voice work
encourages him or her to take serious pleasure
in speaking. This self-aware pleasure in the
actions and rhythms of the performer's own
diaphragm and mouth are part of how an audience
takes pleasure in listening. The sensation of
the vibrations of the voice in the performer's
body and the sensation of the act of aware,
presence-giving breathing help to bring an
audience to a kinesthetic sense of their own
immediacy. Zeami's available writings on breath
and the voice, and listening to Nô vocal
performance are also pleasurable.
-
- Zeami writes of
the "Two Arts" of Nô: Chant and Dance.
While they are interdependent he clearly puts
Chant, or the voice, first. He writes that
Nô is "an art founded on the mastery of
the breath" (Rimer & Masakazu: 204. All
subsequent page references are to Rimer &
Masakazu). The (invisible) breath, according to
Zeami, is the Bones of the Chant (utai),
the melody is the Flesh of the Chant, and the
beauty of the vocal tone, the Skin of the Chant
(69-70). The elements of Skin, Flesh, and Bone
are also to be equated with, respectively, the
art that comes from Sight, the art that comes
from Sound, and the art that comes from the
heart. So in discussing breath, we are
discussing the Bones of the Flesh.
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- Zeami's
references to breath, in the treatises available
in English translation, are infrequent but
significant, for in context of the generally
hidden and mysterious aspects of the Nô
the entire structure of the performance depends
on deep level (Bone) skills. Breath is, as Zeami
indicates, deep knowledge of Voice. Without the
involvement of breath any attempt at reproducing
the vocal tones or melodies of Nô are the
kind of superficial imitation of results that is
not a true monomane (artistic imitation) and
could not result in the awareness and expertise
that Zeami outlines. While the Sound of the
Nô does not represent the heart in the
above schema, "'it is poetry that moves the
heart.' This maxim applies to all kinds of
poetry and to the chant of the Nô as well"
(172). So it might be said that the Chant is the
art that comes from the heart, since, too, the
heart is one of the five places that the breath
comes from, according to Zeami (77). And the
management of breathing and the energy acquired
and used as a result of breathing is what gives
Nô its depth and its "novelty" (newness or
presence) through the focus and freedom that
such training gives an actor.
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-
- Focus and
Freedom
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- Zeami states
that Nô that "succeed[s] through
Sound shows from the beginning a very serious
atmosphere" (100). An actor cannot "skip" by
trying to imitate a more accomplished actor. An
external imitation of the Nô is of the
Function of the Nô only rather than the
Substance. Substance and Function are compared
to a flower and its odor (71). One recognizes
Substance with the spirit, and Function with the
eyes (or ears or nose). Function can never
become Substance, and an actor should never
attempt to imitate Function, which is external.
Only Substance can be imitated, and from it
Mood, or artistic elegance, "flows like a
breeze."
-
- The focused
quality that an actor achieves in this way is
Perfect Fluency, which is an internalization of
all necessary skills by an actor, for
"[i]f an actor has mastered the means to
realize his text and to fuse music and movement,
he will have learned how to give a strong
performance and how to give that performance the
quality of Grace as well." Even beyond this
level is Perfect Freedom, a strategy for
experienced actors which allows for the mixing
in of various "impure elements," a kind of
breaking of the rules.
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-
- Training
-
- But rules must
be learned before they can be effectively
broken. Actors should study the Chant in
different ways at different ages:
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- Age Seven: " .
. . he should be left free to perform
[chanting, etc.] in his own manner,
according to his own desires. . . He should only
be taught dancing, movement, and the chant . . .
not . . . Role Playing."
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- Age of Eleven
or Twelve: "From this age onward, the voice
begins to achieve its proper pitch. . . A boy's
appearance . . . will produce the sensation of
Grace. And his voice at this age will always
sound charming as well. With the appearance and
voice of a child, a boy actor, if he shows skill
in his performance, can hardly give a bad
impression. Still, this Flower is not the true
Flower. It is only a temporary bloom. . . The
words of his chanting [must be]
distinct."
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- From the age of
Seventeen or Eighteen: " . . . since the actor's
voice is changing, he loses his first Flower . .
. the actor's will falters . . . he feels
embarrassed and discouraged. As concerns
training . . . the actor must . . . retire to
his own house, and, in a pitch comfortable to
him, practice his chanting, using appropriate
techniques for morning and evening. . . Although
the pitch of the individual voice at this age
may vary, it usually lies between the oshiki and
the hanshiki. [untranslated in the
original] If the actor tries to regulate the
pitch too strictly [by forcing], he
risks getting into bad habits with his posture.
Then too, this may be the cause of damage to the
actor's voice in later life."
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- From
Twenty-four to Twenty-five: "The limits of the
actor will be fixed by his training and
self-discipline. His voice will by now have
settled, and his body will have matured. These
are the strong points required in our art: voice
and physical appearance" (7).
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- A schedule for
training, which continues throughout an actor's
life, is also found in the descriptions of the
Nine Levels (120-122) in which Zeami's language
seems visual and metaphorical in the extreme,
yet the skills inherent here apply in very
practical ways to both of the Two Arts. Basic
mastery of the form of the Chant occurs at the
sixth level when the actor discovers the True
Way of performance. This will expand through
Broad Mastery to the art of the True Flower,
when he must become accomplished in his playing
of the Three Role Types and develop Perfect
Fluency in the specific vocal patterns of each
role. Beyond this point he achieves an ease
which represents the Flower of Tranquillity,
from which he rises to the level of the Flower
of Profundity where his vocal performances
"manifest the beauty that surpasses the
difference between adorned and unadorned" (123)
and here he achieves peerless Grace. It is above
this level that descriptive words are no longer
possible, "where the workings of the spirit and
their manifestation in performance can no longer
be divided" (123). This is Peerless Charm. After
this, some actors, for their own amusement, will
select the styles of the lowest three levels,
but an actor should never start his training
there, Zeami says, or he will never be able to
rise to the higher levels.
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- Pitch
(Frequency)
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- Zeami maintains
that the breath is responsible for the pitch of
the voice (74). Modern physicists and
acousticians would disagree with this, yet in
practice it is clear that the greater the
sub-glottal pressure, the stronger the
resistance by the arytenoids within the larynx
needs to be, and this tightening, unless
countered, stretches the vocal folds and forces
the pitch upwards. Zeami is sensitive to the
interplay of diaphragm and larynx in a way that
modern more mechanistic thinking might not
perceive. (At a Symposium of the Voice
Foundation I heard a singing teacher deliver a
paper on the interconnectedness of the vibrato
of the vocal folds and vibration at the
diaphragm, which complex behavior he said was
initiated by the diaphragm. He played an x-ray
movie showing this link. Most otolaryngologists
were dismissive of his position, but I found it
clear and persuasive.)
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- Zeami insists
on the importance of the physical workings of
the breath, as far as he was able to describe
them, and writes of the "five 'storages' and the
breath that comes from them" (77-76). In the
accompanying footnote these are described as
"the heart, lungs, spleen, liver, and kidneys,
[and t]he 'five notes' {kyu, sho,
kaku, chi, and u} were thought to
correlate with breath movements depending on the
five internal organs." The "storages" also
determine the five colorings, or timbres, which
in turn are divided into "five tones" and "five
modes. Three of these modes fall in the
ritsu pitches and are referred to as
sojo, oshiki, and ichi kocho,
whereas hyojo and banshiki
represent the two that lie in the ryo
pitches. Mujo is a combination of
ryo and ritsu pitches. When the
voice is produced on the basis of these five
'storages' the entire body begins to move, and
this movement becomes the genesis of the
dance"(78). Chant is then, for Zeami, the origin
of dance! And though the human voice is not
usually the accompaniment, can one imagine
modern dance without sound? Zeami says
"[D]ancing is impossible without the
strength of sound behind it" (79). For "both
dancing and gesture are external skills"(90).
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- Zeami's "proper
order" (a jo-ha-kyu) for the origin of
the voice is "first, determining the pitch,
second, preparing the breath, third, producing
the voice." (74). Kyu, yin, and the
ryo pitches are derived from an imitation
of the female phoenix and are related to the
Earth and the inhalation of breath. Sho,
yang, and the ritsu pitches are
derived from the male phoenix and are related to
Heaven and the exhalation of breath (105). The
patterned combination of these elements creates
a balance of upper and lower into twelve pitches
and five tones. This balancing of yin and
yang Zeami describes as the essence of
the Flower, and as the essential element in the
success of all undertakings (19). "The Flower
represents the principle that lies at the
deepest recesses of our art . . . [t]he
Flower of youthful beauty, the Flower of the
voice, and the Flower of Grace."
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- Volume
(Amplitude)
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- Grace and
strength are contrasted with roughness and
weakness, and all these elements are applicable
to sound through the use of changes in
sub-glottal breath pressure which creates
variety of intensity or amplitude, and quality
(as well as pitch). Zeami encourages subtlety by
asking the actor to "unite" or identify with the
role, vocally as well as with his movements, so
that he will use the right amount of Grace in a
rough role, and strength in a weak role. In
general, however, Zeami does not seem much
concerned with loudness. His actors would have
had no problem with audibility because of the
resonant nature of the Nô voice. Intensity
and projection are not required when the whole
body vibrates with sound.
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- Tone
(Timbre) and the qualities of Speech Sounds
(Articulation)
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- Strength and
Grace appear also in the qualities of both sound
and words:
-
- Then, too, the
slight differences in the sounds of the words in
the text are most important: for example, words
such as nabiki (waving or fluttering),
fusu (to lie down), kaeru (to draw
back), yoru (to come close), and so forth
have a soft sound and seem of themselves to
create a sense of gracefulness. On the other
hand, words like otsuru (to fall down),
kuzururu (to crumble), yabururu
(to break), marobu (to knock down) have a
strong sound and require forceful gestures. Thus
it can be understood that the qualities referred
to as strength and Grace are not totally
distinct and separate but rise from a fidelity
to the object of the role being portrayed, while
weakness and roughness indicate a divergence
from that ideal (48).
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- A thin, high
voice is described as "vertical," and a thick,
low voice as "horizontal" (105). And perhaps the
qualities of "bear, tiger, and panther" (105)
refer to tonality also. Effects may be heavy or
light, and be clear or complex in sound (104)
and the actor's voice must be able to express
"so many different kinds of emotion -
felicitation, yearning, love, pity, jealousy,
wrath" (168). But these effects cannot be
consciously imitated or visibly calculated, or
they will not seem genuine (192-193).
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- With respect to
correctness of pronunciation, Zeami's position
is not rigid. He writes of final participles
that "even if the pronunciation becomes altered
to some extent, so long as the rhythm is
correct, the problem is not a serious one," and
"even if there should be some deviation in . . .
pronunciation, there will be nothing
disagreeable in the sound" (192-193). But
"mistaken accents on such substantive words as
nouns, verbs, and adjectives are harmful" (103).
For "the beauty of the chant derives from the
syllables and the words" (102) and they should
be chanted "in a clear and correct manner" (102)
and in accordance with the melody.
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- Rhythm and
Rate (Duration)
-
- Rhythm of
speaking depends on breath, which requires
concentration to be directed properly, and which
results in emotional depth and calls forth
empathy within the audience. Working with breath
and time, an actor should "forget the voice and
understand . . . the melody. Forget the melody
and understand the pitch. Forget the pitch and
understand the rhythm" (102).
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- The basic
pattern of rhythm that informs Nô plays
and their performance is that of
jo-ha-kyu. Jo means "beginning,"
and beginnings should be simple, gentle, and
easy to understand. Ha breaks the mood of
jo, and brings greater complexity.
Kyu, meaning "ending," is the final stage
which is characterized by agitation (83-84). It
is "[t]he fulfillment of jo, ha,
and kyu [which] provides the
spectators with a sense of novelty, and the
creation of jo, ha, and kyu by the
performers brings this phenomenon about"(138).
And with regard to rhythm in speaking Zeami
writes "As for my personal explanation of
'Pitch, Breath, Voice Production,' the jo
can be said to be represented by the stage of
hearing the pitch and gathering in the breath.
Ha is represented by pushing out the
breath, and kyu by the production of
voice itself"(139). The proper fulfillment of
this rhythmic process gives rise to pleasure.
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- The rhythm of
speaking, inherently based on breathing, should
also inform the body's rhythms. Zeami says:
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- . . .
[A] truly fine play involves gesture
based on chanting. . . If the actor bases his
chanting on his movements, he shows himself as a
beginner. For an artist of experience movement
will grow from the chant. . . In any aspect of
life it can be said that our intentions give
rise to various aspects of our behavior. It is
through words that our intentions are expressed.
In the case of the Nô, too, therefore, the
chant provides the substance of which the
movements of the actor serve as a function. This
is because functions grow out of substance and
not the other way around. Thus, at the time of
an actual performance, the actor stresses the
importance of the chant (45-46).
-
- Again, Zeami
writes of the primacy of the Chant with:
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- Actually the
audience should first hear the Chant, then see
the appropriate gesture afterwards, so that when
they see what they have already understood, the
satisfying sensation of a genuine union between
the two images will be created in the moment of
transition from one to the other . . . If the
audience sees the motion of the sleeve before
the concept of weeping is settled in their minds
. . . the words will somehow seem left over, and
the entire action will appear to be reduced
(76).
-
- Within
post-romantic, naturalist, or post-modern
theatre the words are indeed "left over," as
actors nowadays are taught to play "Actions" and
emphasize verbs, which makes it hard for an
audience to know "what" is being talked about,
or sometimes verbal meaning may be lost
altogether. The text has lost its centrality
within theatre, physicality (which for Zeami is
the Skin, or most external aspect) of
performance is stressed, and currently most
Western actors do not care to work on their
voices. But several later theatre mavericks such
as Delsarte, taught that movements follow spoken
words, Steiner's eurythmy gives gesture to
syllables, the Word precedes the actions of
creation in the Judao-Christian tradition, the
Natyashastra and Bon and Sanskrit
performance theories hold syllables as sacred,
and for Kashmiri Shaivism all things originate
from sound. And when I visited Grotowski in
Italy at his invitation in December 1996 to show
him what I was doing with breathing and voice,
it was clear that voice was then, at the end of
a spectacular career, a central interest of his.
We spoke of vibration as soul, as creation. The
deep meaning, the hidden infrastructure, is also
for Zeami in Substance, or sound, for which
breath is the initiating energy. Inspiration
denotes both an inhalation and a creative idea.
Breathing is meaning. And respiration is
identified with spirit, coming from the same
Latin root.
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- Conclusion
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- To transcend
"outward manifestation" and "succeed through the
Heart" it is necessary, Zeami tells us, to
"forget the specifics of a performance and
examine the whole. Then forget the performance
and examine the actor. Then forget the actor and
examine his inner spirit. Then, forget that
spirit, and you will grasp the nature of the
Nô" (120). Breath, or the inner spirit, is
that essential element that makes each
performance new, immediate, and present, as I
understand the meaning of "novelty," rather
than, as the preface suggests, novel in the
sense of unusual or different, as though some
original piece of business or intentional change
in vocal delivery were necessary. "Novelty" is
the bringing to life, moment to moment, of a
performance. Without breath we are all
brain-dead, or only "in our heads" without the
immediacy of our feelings, as both emotions and
physical sensations.
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- Within the
inspired performance of a Nô play this
intense and concentrated presencing of the human
voice through its breath energy serves as an
example for a fully realized life. "The
performances serve as prayers for the peace of
the whole country," Zeami writes. Related to Zen
Buddhist practice (which includes breathing
practice), and to an intensely spiritual view of
community, history, and life itself, Nô
performances, especially their sound, are purely
performative, always in profound relationship
with the audiences, always new (novel) and
always seeking to be more dimensional in ways
which only the performers fully experience. The
"interior spiritual power" that Zeami sees as a
necessity for the actor is the seed that gives
rise to the Flower of the Nô, just as
Non-being can manifest itself as Being. The
actor becomes "one in spirit with the vessel of
nature and achieve[s] in the depths of
the art of the Nô an ease of spirit that
can be compared to the boundlessness of that
nature itself, thus to achieve at last the
Flower of Peerless Charm" (119). This state of
presence is pure experience, and writing it is
unrealizable. Zeami constantly notes that his
concepts are impossible to describe in words and
that his metaphorical discourse is intended for
a private audience of cognoscenti. He advocates
oral transmission of his secret knowledge of the
Flower.
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- In explaining
the Flower (hana) with reference to the
chant, Zeami says that even though a beginner
may perform the music correctly, the "gifted
performer is one who will truly grasp the
essence of the 'inner music' or the 'Flower
within the Flower'" by infusing the chant with
new feeling and "even though he changes nothing,
he will use anew all his old arts, color the
music and his voice in a skillful manner, using
a level of concentration he has never felt
before. . ." (54). He insists on the secrecy of
the Flower within the Nô, and compares it
to the strategy that a military commander might
use to surprise his enemy (59).
-
- Zeami's
theories are descriptive of practice, and are
not abstract, however seemingly metaphorical,
for they are based in experience (the awareness,
feelings, and actions) of the body, as is
spirituality (as contrasted with autocratic
religion or hallucinatory mysticism). A good
(Nô) performer's experiences have no exact
names within the normal discourse of a
materialist society: they are at the "first
level of the Flower of Peerless Charm." Yet
Zeami's desire to bring such experience, at
least through encouraging aware reception, to
all types of audiences disproves charges of
elitism. The ("vertical") rewards of aware
breathing and sounding are available to anyone
who takes the time to practice just as the
("horizontal") rewards of reading and writing
are, for " . . . mastery seems to depend on the
actor's own state of self-understanding. . .
Real discernment of the nature of the
differences between external and interior
understanding forms the basis of true mastery"
(90). The secrecy that surrounds those skills of
which Zeami writes is not because of their
esotericism but because they can only be
thoroughly taught through oral transmission. And
it may be expected from any serious artist that,
just as Zeami did, he desires to achieve greater
skill levels and also that he exhorts his family
to keep his secrets for their own artistic, and
commercial, benefit. And "where there are
secrets the Flower exists. Where there are no
secrets the Flower does not exist"(60).
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- Works Cited
-
- Rimer, J.
Thomas & Masakazu, Yamazaki: On the Art
of the Nô Drama, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984.
- First published
in:
- Consciousness,
Literature and the Arts
- Volume 1
Number 1, April 2000
- Now located
in Archives, Articles
- Reprinted
in:
- The Voice
and Speech Review
- Volume 1
Number 1, August 2000
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