Seite 83 [83]
OCR
SCRIPTED AND EMBODIED RITUALITY IN A YOIK-NOH PERFORMANCE that you need... do not ask me what you need, love, and dare to love... yourself, then you can love others, too... love! (translated by R. Eriksen and H. Gaski) And later: do not be afraid little brother fear rather, that there will come a time when such guestions do not even crop up in thoughts... if man forgets that he is a part of nature, of life, but don't be afraid little brother life takes care of its own creatures, people disappear, peoples too, epochs end; (translated by R. Eriksen and H. Gaski) As for the third voice in the play, known as the jiuati in Noh theater, the chorus was imagined — just as in Okura’s piece — as being personified by Valkeapää’s yoiking band, who served as commentators of the story in yoiking style. That means that the commentary did not take the form of words put to melody, but rather — characteristically of the yoik — by melody carried by the vowels of semantically meaningless short particles (such as, “heeei” “oooooh”, “loooy,” or “laaaa”). TWO DIFFERENT PERFORMANCES OF THE PLAY When we watch the different performances of the play, all of the poetic and musical elements, plus the directorial instructions and scenographic references for carrying out the actual performance, belong to what we have termed scripted rituality. These fixed elements contribute to the staging of a play as well as to the rituality of theater. Moreover, these fixed elements form the liminal pillars to the creative, transformative process of action from the page to the action on stage, and thus scripted liminality becomes embodied for the duration of the performance. In the performances in Japan in 1995, the spoken parts of the play were read by two Japanese actors sitting on the right side of the stage (where traditionally +81 +
