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Dancing Monk Ippen
By R. Pikser The Dancing Monk Ippen is a modern adaptation of a part of Japanese history from the 13th century, when there was much civil war and killing even among families. In one family, the Kono family, in which two brothers were on opposing sides, the toll was so great that one brother sent his son to study Buddhism, rather than war. Ippen, as the boy is named by the monks, encounters friends and other monks and does his best to practice Buddhism. But, in spite of his longing for peace, he is sent to war, where, in spite of all, he does his best to live according to his beliefs. The play and the program notes are quite detailed in their description of the travails of the Kono family and Ippen’s life. Unfortunately, there were no supertitles. From time to time, the sound track that accompanied the play had some voice-over in English, but not nearly enough to keep a non-Japanese speaker in tune with the twists and turns of the history of this famous monk. Even without a detailed concurrent translation, it would have been helpful to have a voice-over with the schema of the play. There was a lot of civil war. Brothers were on opposite sides. One brother killed the other’s wife. Then he married again. There was a baby who was sent to a monastery. He was given the name Ippen. Ippen grew up and made friends at the monastery, but he had to leave. He got married. There was conflict with another monk. He had to go to war again, and so on. An outline like this would have helped the non-Japanese speakers to focus, though it was not so hard to follow the hour and a quarter of the piece. As to presentation, all the stage pictures were elegant, each one like a painting, but especially striking was the group choreography. These young performers are not dancers, but they moved with precision, giving their full energy to whatever movement they were doing. The staged fighting was spectacular, too, with cutting, stabbing, and death in beautiful stylized form. Choreographer Chie Nakagawa should be pleased. Not so successful was the use of group movement almost at the close of the play as Ippen and another monk, who seemed to be his nemesis, confront each other. Why the movement was put into that scene was not clear, and the movements were merely repetitions of other movements from other parts of the play. Perhaps that is why they did not resonate. But what most disturbed this reviewer was that Ippen never danced. Nembutsu, religious chanting, for which Ippen was known. But there was no chanting. Further, the name given to this production is The Dancing Monk Ippen. If the dance and chant go together, and if Ippen is known for expressing his Buddhism through dance, the audience needs to see it. Perhaps in another version, the concept could start with dance, or chant, or even the ecstatic, and what it means to try to dance and love when everyone around you is dedicated to war. But that will be another production. This one has found its ecstasy in the fighting. Company:
Fuuun-kabocha-no-basha 
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