is a Japanese recitative dance, originating in the 15th century and popular during the
Sengoku and early
Edo period
The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
s (late 16th to early 17th centuries). Although kōwakamai has dance and musical components, scholars consider its textual component as an independent literary genre.
Kōwakamai may have evolved from the dance form called ''
kusemai'' of the 14th century, sharing its origins in traditional court dance and music with ''
nō'' and ''
kabuki
is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes ...
''.
Little is actually known about how the dance was performed in the warlord to shogunate periods. A remnant of the kōwakamai is performed every year on January 20 at Tenman-jinja, a
shintō
, also called Shintoism, is a religion originating in Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, it is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes ...
shrine in Ōe.
History
Kōwakamai (along with
Noh) is a form of entertainment enjoyed by warrior-class families during Japan's medieval age. Kōwakamai performances were celebratory but also the cause for sorrow. Many of the pieces are sorrowful tales, ranging from resoundingly sympathetic tales dealing with the loss of life and defeat.
[ The piece titled " which depicts Taira no Atsumori and Kumagai Naozane at the ]Battle of Ichi-no-Tani
The was fought between the attacking Minamoto clan and the defending Taira clan at Suma, to the west of present-day Kobe, Japan, on 20 March 1184. It sat on a very narrow strip of shore, between mountains on the north, and the sea to the sou ...
is especially popular for these reasons.
When considering the kōwakamai lineage and the creation of (the actual kōwakamai written-texts), one is usually accredited. Momonoi Naoaki claimed to be the grandson of , who in turn was a descendant of Minamoto no Yoshiie. Momonoi Naoaki's childhood name was , from which it is said the term "kōwakamai" gets its name.
Kōwakamaru was born in Nyū district, Echizen Province
was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan in the area that is today the northern portion of Fukui Prefecture in the Hokuriku region of Japan. Echizen bordered on Kaga Province, Kaga, Wakasa Province, Wakasa, Hida Province, Hida, and Ōmi Provin ...
. After his father's death he entered Mt. Hiei (probably Enryaku-ji
is a Tendai monastery located on Mount Hiei in Ōtsu, overlooking Kyoto. It was first founded in 788 during the early Heian period (794–1185) by Saichō (767–822), also known as Dengyō Daishi, who introduced the Tendai sect of Mahayana ...
temple).
At age 16, he accompanied the to the imperial court in Kyoto, and then became employed by the court by Retired Emperor Shōkō's decree. In Kyoto, his talents in music and dance became renowned, and eventually initiated the Kōwaka style.
Several accounts describe how Kōwakamaru developed the new art form. His talent for ''shōmyō
is a style of Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the nort ...
'' (Buddhist chant
Tibetan illustration of veena.html" ;"title="Saraswati holding a veena">Saraswati holding a veena, the main deity of music and musicians in Mahayana Buddhism
Buddhist music is music (, ) created for or inspired by Buddhism and includes numero ...
) being recognized, he received tutelage under the '' kusemai'' dance master , beginning his lessons with and .[''Kōwaka kakeizu'' (family tree), of the Kowaka Kohachirō branch of the family, early ]Edo period
The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
, once owned by (). Or, while in Kyoto he was taught '' Heike'' in melodies similar to the Kōwaka, then devised tunes different from his master. Or that the art blossomed when he adapted the sōshi narrative "Yashima-gun" and set it to music, to great acclaim.
Echizen Kōwaka troupe
Thus Momonoi Naoaki (Kōwakamaru) founded the Kōwaka troupe, and afterwards styled his clan's name as the "Kōwaka family". The family had three branches: the Hachirokurō, Yajirō, and Kohachirō, named after the founder's sons and son-in-law, and were based in Nyū district of Echizen Province, thus they have been called the "".
Kōwakamai reached its peak during the 16th century when the actors received small fiefdoms (') from warlords Oda Nobunaga
was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...
, Toyotomi Hideyoshi
, otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...
and the like. When Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...
founded the shogunate
, officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...
, the clan received 300 ''koku
The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...
'' of rice as stipend, and the three families took turns serving in rotation.
Daigashira School
The Daigashira School of kōwakamai was founded by , who learned the art from Kōwaka Yajirō Naoshige. Shirozaemon passed the art to his disciple then to . In Tenshō 10 (1582 CE) Yukitsugu was invited to Kyūshū by the lord of Chikugo Province's Yamashita Castle, , and his cousin, the lord of Yanagawa Castle, where he taught the performance style and transmitted the art form to the lords and their vassals. That style of kōwakamai became Ōe kōwakamai.[
]
Decline
In the early parts of the Edo period
The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
, kōwakamai performances were given annually at the court of the shogunate. But the art had gone into obscurity by the Genroku era (1688–1704), and had fallen into complete oblivion by the Meiji period
The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...
in the 19th century.
The Daigashira School Ōe kōwakamai has been transmitted to the present day, surviving in the Ōe district of Miyama, Fukuoka
270px, Kiyomizu-dera Main Hall
is a city located in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 34,907 in 14658 households, and a population density of 330 persons per km2. The total area of the city is .
Geography
Mi ...
. (See §Restoring the kōwakamai art below).
Kōwakamai corpus
Many kōwakamai pieces represent variations of tales found in other texts and genres.[ However, the kōwakamai versions contain variations such as shortening or extending the dramatic prose of given scenes within an episode.
Kōwakamai originally had thirty-six numbers in the standard repertoire. Anecdotally, there were thirty-six '']otogi-zōshi
are a group of about 350 Japanese prose narratives written primarily in the Muromachi period (1392–1573). These illustrated short stories, which remain unattributed, together form one of the representative literary genres of the Japanese m ...
'' storybooks at the imperial court that the founder set to music. But according to one genealogical document, a larger number of pieces were culled to a canon of thirty-six pieces during the time of Kohachirō. The standard thirty-six texts were also later wood-block printed in storybooks called .
There were outside-the-canon pieces added, raising the total to forty-two pieces. Some fifty total texts survive today.
For argument's sake kōwakamai fall into the following categories: Ancient tales, Minamoto tales, Heike tales, Yoshitsune tales, Soga tales, and miscellaneous tales.
*Ancient tales:
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*Minamoto tales:
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*Heike tales:
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*Yoshitsune tales:
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*Soga tales:
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*Miscellaneous
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Description of the art
Evidentiary documentation is too sparse to provide any detail on how kōwakamai was performed in its inception or during its heyday in the late 16th to the early 17th centuries. In the early period, kōwakamai was not starkly distinguishable from the kusemai: both involved two players and both were apparently interchangeably called ", or simply ".
The surviving kōwakamai (the form transmitted in the Ōe region) involves three players, the principal ''tayū'' and two supporting actors named ''waki'', and ''shite''. The principal and the supporters were dressed alike, a ' top, long version of the hakama
are a type of traditional Japanese clothing. Originally stemming from Ku (), the trousers worn by members of the Chinese imperial court in the Sui and Tang dynasties, this style was adopted by the Japanese in the form of in the 6th c ...
trouser, and no mask, but they wore different types of ' hats.
The kōwakamai performers do not impersonate characters, and do not "act", they merely narrate the lines spoken by the personae dramatis. Also there are no choreographic movements involved that can be recognized as "dance" in the usual European sense.
Kusemai influence
Kōwakamai is often assumed to have developed from the '' kusemai'', although some commentators do not think this is firmly established.[: "only conjecture".] One basis of making the connection are the records stating ''kusemai'' being performed by a certain "Kōwaka-tayū" of Tanaka Village in Echizen Providence. This plausibly referred to Kōwakamaru or one of his immediate successors, so the dance must have been the same thing as kōwakamai, or, a "transitional" form approaching it. Scholars say this is ''kusemai'' performed by men is of a "different order" from the dance which is otherwise known as ''kusemai'', namely, the courtesan dance as described by Zeami, or a dance show primarily featuring physically attractive women and boys.
Restoring the kōwakamai art
The Japanese government has designated kōwakamai to be an . The folk custom is practiced in the town Setakamachi Ōe in Miyama City, Fukuoka Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Fukuoka Prefecture has a population of 5,109,323 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,986 Square kilometre, km2 (1,925 sq mi). Fukuoka Prefecture borders ...
.
Although almost nothing is truly known about how kōwakamai was performed at the time of its greatest popularity,[ performances are held annually in Japan as part of a local festival of sorts. The instrumental melodic arrangements of eight ballads as well as the method of their oral recitation have been restored by the Kōwakamai Preservation Society in Setakamachi Ōe, Miyama City in ]Fukuoka Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Fukuoka Prefecture has a population of 5,109,323 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,986 Square kilometre, km2 (1,925 sq mi). Fukuoka Prefecture borders ...
. On 20 January 2008 "Atsumori", "Takadachi", and "Yōchi Soga" were performed by the Kōwakamai Preservation Society's adult troupe. "Atsumori" was performed by the young adult troupe. And "Hamaide" and "Nihongi" were performed by the elementary school-age troupe. The tale "Atsumori" is particularly well known because of its depiction of Oda Nobunaga
was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...
. Before Oda departs for the Battle of Okehazama, he does a choreographed dance and recites the famous lines, "Although a man may be alive on earth for fifty years, in heaven those fifty years are but an instant—a dream." This performance of "Atsumori" was also performed in Kyoto
Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...
by the Kōwakamai Society in February 2009.
At the same time as the Kyoto "Atsumori" performance, "Ataka" was also staged. Both performances were recorded on CD & DVD by th
Kyoto City University of the Arts' Research Centre for Japanese Traditional Music
Explanatory notes
References
;Citations
;Bibliography
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*; originally published as Fujita (1929),
''Kōwakamai no ryūso to kyokumoku ni tsuite''
, ''Kokugo to Kokubungaku'' 9, pp. 28–53
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kowakamai
Muromachi period