Kagura - Royaumont Foundation 2007 France

Kagura Workshop at the Royaumont Foundation, Paris, France in 2007.

The workshop was devoted to Kagura, traditional agrarian dance of Japan, and especially to Iwami Kagura. It was directed by Tadashi Ishikawa and Susan Buirge, choerographer.

The kagura, ancestor of Noh, are dances directly related to the agrarian cycle that have been maintained for centuries by the village inhabitants. The music is essentially made of chants, flutes and percussion. The dances belong to ceremonies where the relationships between music, gestures and objects are finely codified. They can be a prayer or an entertainment addressed to the divinities. Iwami kagura, dating from the middle of the 19th century, is the last evolution of this ancient form, with both narrative and abstract parts concerning the founding myths of Japan.