After Kiyotsune

Kongo Noh Theatre. Lights out.

I would like to thank all those who came to see my performance of Kiyotsune on June 29th 2013 at the Kongo Noh Theatre in Kyoto, as well as those who supported from a distance but who could not make it to Japan.

It is hard to describe my feelings now that this pivotal event in my personal life and in the history of the International Noh Institute is over. The night before the performance I was preparing my bag with all the necessary clothing and accessory, including dōgi padded undergarment and eri collars, and felt like packing the night before leaving for a long trip. Or maybe Kiyotsune himself was packing his bag, about to take his leave from my room, and from my teacher’s okeikoba, where we lived together during the year of preparation that preceded the performance. Although in Noh there isn’t the same kind of psychological research on the character that you would have in other performance methods, I have become accustomed to live with Kiyotsune… but now Kiyotsune has left, only to live again through someone else’s body. Anyhow, I should not think of it as something belonging to an isolated past, because past things shape our present, and future, too.

Today I was asked by a friend how I felt after the performance. I realised that a Noh performance is like a marriage ceremony. It is a very important event, to which family and friend partake, celebrating a vow of faithfulness and dedication. But the ceremony only lasts one day. What really counts is all the effort behind and before it, and the new path ahead.