The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 21, 1901, Page 10

10 THE SUNDAY OALL. DECOROUS MAIDEN IN QUAINT GARD WHOX STATELY STERS AR THEIR TEMPLE AN BERIRAL JI BAN and her sister gelshas are 80 celebrated that the popular fm- pression is that all the dancing in Dia Nippon is done by young girls who are trained for the profession end hired for the occasion. Nothing could be farther from the real truth. Men, women and children dance daily in honor of some mysterious god or goddess of mythological times; on the anniversary of the birth or death of a deified hero; in the streets, at the theaters, before the tem- ples in celebration of one or other of their frequently recurring matsuris. There are a great variety of dances of immemorial antiquity, accompanied by singing and chanting, which are cele- brated in the temple courts or on tem- porary stages erected for the purpose on certain festival occasions. The sacred dances executed by the virgins and priest- esses of the Shinto temples, and the Dance of Souls, which takes place on the third evening of the festival, when all the spirits of the departed are supposed to revisit thelr old baunts, belong o this class, as well as & variety of priests dances which may be seen at the thea- ters. Here the actors, dressed as priests, perform a rosary dance and then go through curious and ludicrous evolutions on their knees and finish the entertain- ment by marching up to a great bell and repeating their prayers. The No dance, which is partly lyric, is a survival of the pantomime festival dance of the Shinto temples, and up to the sev- enteenth century was a dance of the peo- ple for the people. From that period, however, it became the chief amusement of the Shoguns and the nobility, and princes and nobles often took part in the performances when they were entertain- ing those of higher rank than themselves. An occasional representation has been given since the restoration by families who have handed down the art from father to son for hundreds of years, but the taste for pastime of this sort is dying out among the modern Japanese. The buildings for the No dance are tem- porary opes, half dancing stage and half theater. There is a scaffolding built in the form of a hollow square, three sides of which are roofed over and divided into the boxes of the grand stand, while the front side contains the stage, to the right of which is the imperial box, draped with purpte curtains stamped with the white chrysanthemum, the national symbol. The period of the dance play, as it might be called, occupies from four to six hours on three successive days, and to attend an entire performance is a trial indeed, for the chief end and aim of each actor is to make himself as stafuesque and wooden as possible, while he recités his lines in nasal tones that would put even the prim- ftive American to blush. There is no at- tempt at scenic effect, but the costumes are magnificent and treasured in the fam- ly as its most precious possessions. The chanted poems are written in classic language, and only the very learned are able to follow the play, and even they do so with book in hand. The bare argument of the play, however, is better known to the commonest coolie B hcreD ATV LI} W, ' ,Illll!llllllll nuuummm\; ‘ I CrARLES " [T ST oftentimes than his alphabet, for the most ignorant Japanese is well versed in the legends and history of his country, but the ancient idiom is beyond him. The best representations of the No may be seen at the Koyokwan Club house, Tokip, but, like all other things that are done for the purpose of amusing foreigners, they lack the spontaneity and charm of the original production. “The Kagura,” as performed by the young priestesses at the Wakamiya Shrine, Nara, is a most curious and in- teresting spectacle, with many points of picturesqueness. On an open veranda, facing low wooden seats arranged for the pilgrims who journey thither annually, and the curious foreigner who wishes to see as much as possible of the old-time cus- toms and costumes, which are being repidly swept away by the introduction of forelgn fashions, a group of young girls, daughters of priests dedicated to the calling, arrange themselves preparatory to darcing. The ages of ths little priestesses range ;L_fi S mMask pancers ¢ “Wummunmm\un\mmm\m | from 9 to 12 years and they are dressed alike, in the native costume, formerly worn by ladies at court. The lower gar- ment of bright cardinal red is very similar to the divided skirts now worn; the upper part of the body is clothed in a white kimono, with square sleeves; the opening at the throat is filled In with locse folds of red and white crepe. Over this i1s worn a white gauze kimono painted with the wistaria crest of the Kasuga Temple. The front is short, leaving the red underskirt in sight, while the back breadths fall to the floor in a moderate train. The faces of the little creatures are cov- ered thickly with white paint, lald on in Van Dykes, the points touching the hair on the forehead and neck. Their lips are heavily rouged in the center, which make the mouths look small and the lips very pouting; their eyebrows are shaved and a penciled dot is placed above each one, midway between it and the hair. So mo- tionless are their lips and so expression- less their countenances that at first ons raise thei: i thinks they are mere masks., Their long black hair is caught together at the nape of the neck with loops of gold paper and then folded In soft, white rice paper and left to hang down the back. In the front of the hair are thrust long hairpins, decorated with clusters of wistaria and red camellias, which stand out like horns. Each dancer carries an old court fan, made of wooden sticks, strung together with. multi-colored silken cords, and a curlous double-decked rattle, from which hang long ends of colored silk. The music furnished by the priests, who put on over their ordinary dress cere- monial growns, which reach to their heels. On their heads they set queer shaped, high black hats. They sit on the soft white mats and pound the temple drums and blow a discordant noise from pipes that would have driven Pan mad with tor- ture, while the priestesses move languidly through the solemn figures of the dance. These dainty creatures begin with a lght, swift walk within a circle, then they vance, retreat, move from one side of their small stage to the other, slowly T fans and gentiy shake the rate [T nu AN [TTTTTTTI 1| F \ mmmm,m I tle, which s 1 enougn for a baby glant, and with a few changes of posture repeat from the beginning. It is & com- mercial transaction entirely, and for a second payment they will dance a second time. When they have finished they slowly-drop on the heeis and bend forward until their foreheads touch the white mate To the foreigner this dance is stmply a curicus custom connected with the temple observances of an old and most interest- ing people, a charming translation of legend and story into the language of ltv- ing grace and the poetry of a young girl's soft expression; but the Shinto follower finds in it the acme of pleasure and a most sacred rite; it is the goal toward which he has bent his steps for months and he enjoys it with unalloyed pieasure. A modification of the primitive religlous dance s shown in “The Jouri,” which re- quires the services of a chorus to chant the story while the actors, masked and dresed in rich brocade, fall into pic- turesque attitudes suggested by the in- cidents of the narrartive. The Miko-kagura, or sacred mirror dance, is still seen in the various great Shinto shrines, although the same are not repeated in any twe,