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Jul 12 1983 - 19:30

Rovereto - Parco Santa Maria, Riva del Garda - Parco dell'Inviolata, Trento - Piazza Italia

Buyo - Danze tradizionali giapponesi

Of all the Japanese performing arts, Buyo dance is certainly one of the most beloved and popular, even if it doesn't have the same renown outside Japan as the more culturally known forms like Noh or Kabuki. However, Buyo dance, besides often retracing the same epic tales and presenting the same characters as those more famous forms, is actually the matrix of all the dances present in other forms of Japanese theater and even many modern dances.

The focus is on the presence of the actor-dancer who, in a suggestive but sparse scenography, is capable of eliciting all the emotions and poetry contained in the song of a musician narrating the events from the right side of the stage. The unique privilege lies in the solitary presence, rarely in pairs, of the dancer on stage: a solitude that is expressed in a vast range of pantomimic possibilities, with the absolute absence of makeup or masks, making the face a true mirror of actions. In this refined play of face, gestures, and movements, delicate and precise at the same time, the grace of Buyo is reflected: less emphatic than Kabuki, more understandable to the Japanese public than Noh theater, it is followed through the song and enjoyed as its extension.

A song that transforms into dance. These are ancient songs that briefly, but also more poetically, revive stories and characters from the Japanese feudal epic, the heroes of ancient mythologies, or even simply portraits and aspects of traditional village life or the ancient cities, of family life.

Both male and female dances will be presented, but with the traditional inversion of roles: actors portraying less virile characters or actresses dancing in the roles of male characters. This role reversal is one of the challenges of Buyo, where women, who are excluded from other traditional Japanese performances, also and especially appear. Additionally, grotesque and tragic dances will be presented in contrast to others that are sweet and naive. As a whole, this allows one to witness a performance that is a lesson, yet not far removed from its original vitality and structure.

The Wakayagi family is one of the oldest and holds one of the most interesting choreographic lines in Buyo, having long been detached from comparisons with families accustomed to the audiences of large cities. Its native home, Kyoto, endows it with a "provinciality" that in this case is a mark of an uncontaminated tradition.