Biohistory journal, Autumn, 2004

Biohistory journal,Autumn, 2004: Index >Creating a world view

Dialogue/Narration Narration of the stage Creating a world view Takuo Endo and Keiko Nakamura

Takuo Endo, Yokohama Boat Theater representative Keiko Nakamura, Gneral Director, JT Biohistory Research Hall

Endo is a person like a narration with clothing. Even while sipping tea and talking, I feel my body is imbued with words—or rather, the power of words. I sense that narration is created when what one thinks and what one feels are integrated. Now, when empty conversation shows a disdain for life, I realized again the importance of narration. (Keiko Nakamura)

In this issue, we report on "Kataru no Kai", a group headed by the drama producer Misako Ueda. Accept our apologies for using this space.

Concluding the Dialog / Takuo Endo

When I heard from Keiko Nakamura that narration was also a very important theme in science, I thought, "What? What does she mean?" I was filled with curiosity.     In theater, I have gone through a process of trial and error thinking about what narration might be at the extreme opposite of modern drama. I was glad that Keiko Nakamura's words gave me the hints for my next foothold in my thinking and practice for the future.     Today, drama is becoming hollowed out. It may be that science will provide the assistance it needs to recover.     Drama is a non-scientific field. If we borrow the power of science's validity, discuss the validity of a non-modernistic narration, and are able to apply this in practice, the future of drama may turn out to be something we have not yet discarded.

Just what am I? When we consider that question, in which direction are we facing? The way we stand, the way we seek…all we can do is reveal that process.

There is the discovery that one doesn't use words to convey the results of science — one narrates. The whole becomes clear. I now can believe that something is understood when discovery and narration become one.

From the editors

We wonder if a script would be the best analogy for a genome. While the genes in the genome are predetermined, the proteins created from the genes in the genome and the way in which these proteins function change depending on the time. A drama's performances too differs on each day, though the script is the same. Some products arise only once through an occasional chance involvement within different relationships. There doesn't appear to be a relationship at all between drama and science, but they may have more in common than meets the eye.     Takuo Endo went to Java, where people have become one with their physical surroundings, and felt a nostalgic longing that made him feel as if he had returned to his hometown. By seeking the wellspring of Asia in the narrator of the Indonesian silhouettes, and creating narrative masked dramas using such classics as Oguri Hangan and Mahabharata as the source material, Endo is taking a scalpel to modern drama, which seems somehow to have forgotten its essence. But he insists, "I'm not creating; I find myself changing by making certain discoveries. Something comes into view during the process of creation." Aesthetics involve what to select from that discovery, and what and how to create something from that. A sharp aesthetic sense is created by history—the history of Endo himself and the history of human beings and nature.     Life can be sensed in the narrative mask dramas. Keiko Nakamura senses that living creatures listen to the tales being told and that living creatures begin to understand by themselves narrating. She seems delighted that she can again discover something new from the joint work in progress with Endo.

Takuo Endo Graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in the Oil Painting Course. Endo is a scriptwriter and producer of dramas, puppet dramas, Japanese dance, and musical dramas. He also designs and makes masks for use on the stage. His lifework is modern narrative dramas. Endo has frequently performed abroad, with performances in upwards of 30 cities in Europe, North America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Among his works are the masked dramas Oguri Hangan - Terutehime and Mahabharata (The Death of Young Abhimanyu). He has received such awards as the Kinokuniya Drama Award, the Japan Culture Design Award, and the Yokohama Culture Award. He now is the representative of the Yokohama Boat Theater group.

Dialogue

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