Lee Love on thu 5 jan 06
On 2006/01/05 9:41:36, kabromaitis@msn.com wrote:
> If you make you own interpretation of Japanese wood fired work, is it
invalid because you're
>not Japanese? We are all interpreters-that is what being an artist is
about.
This is my last post on the subject. I do think it is "on topic". In my
first post I mentioned that I thought the movie was an allegory about
the life of a creative person. So that is very relevant to any craftsman
or artist.
Rick mentioned that Chinese mannerisms and body language are different.
That is true, but when we are talking about the caliber of actresses we
have in this film, it is not something they cannot adapt to. Basically,
if you have people of one ethnic group taking the roles of another, and
you have master artists playing the parts, it is up to the director to
make sure the artist are including the nuisances to make the role
believable.
It is important to understand, that things like body posture and
movement are not racial or genetic. The Japanese-Americans in the movie
have as different mannerisms as the Chinese do, but nobody said
Japanese-Americans should not play Japanese. It has been pr oven in
tests (you can take them on the Internet) that people of all backgrounds
(Asian or Western) cannot tell Chinese/Japanese/Korean apart by looking
at photos. So visually, they can fill in for each other as actors. Body
language is learned culture. That means an actor/actress can learn to
move differently, if they are skillful.
I'll give you a couple examples:
We have people of Japanese decent in our Japanese language class who are
from Brazil and Peru. It is very interesting to see someone with
Japanese features moving exactly like person from Brazil. From the back,
you would not mistake them for Japanese.
One time, I was in the parking lot at the big Tsukamoto's warehouse
pottery store, and folks started walking off of a tour bus. I had lived
in Japan for 3 or 4 years by then. They immediately looked unusual to
me. Their body language was not Japanese, though their ancestors might
have been. After closer examination, looking at their cloths etc, I
figured they were from Northern California. I went up and spoke to them
while they were looking at a show of my teacher's work in the smaller
gallery next to the big shop and asked them. And sure enough, they were
a Japanese-American group from California.
But really, it gets back to the Geisha being real artists. I was
fortunate in being able to be at 3 Bonenkai celebrations (forget the
year celebrations) with the workshop crew while I was doing my
apprenticeship, and our teacher always sent a Geisha team to host us
during our stay at the hotspring Onsen (first two years: one Geisha and
one shamisen player. Last year: two Geisha.) It was a rare opportunity,
one that few Japanese ever experience, so I feel fortunate.
To put it simply, what they do is very similar to tea ceremony, but they
are not just serving tea, they attend the guests in all aspects of the
party/gathering. They are like the ultimate host/hostess. Every movement
they make is carefully done. Even when they offer you a toothpick or
make a lighter appear magically from their sleeve. Movement is art to
them. They are not ordinary entertainers.
I was able to compare the Geisha, to what popularly pass as geisha at
onsen: untrained entertainers who are made up like Geisha. After the
Bonenkai banquet, we would go to a small karaoke bar on the first floor
of the Onsen. At the first Bonenkai, there was a group of business men
being entertained by two women dressed like geisha, including the
hairdos and kimono. But they were Japanese, but didn't act anything like
the Geisha. They were just bar girls dressed up like Geisha.
I think the difference between a trained artist like the Geisha and an
untrained Japanese is greater than the difference between an Chinese and
a Japanese person. So for the movie, it wasn't so important what the
ethnic background of the people playing the Geisha were, as it was their
training on how to move and behave like Geisha.
Culture is not bound by our genetic background. It is learned. Like my
wife Jean was told when a fellow woodblock student, (Tamaki-san, a
potter who is married to the Master Kiln builder in Mashiko) reviewed
Jean's woodblock work of her first year in the club, that included
images of many Japanese folk objects. She said to Jean, "Japanese
children will not preserve our traditional culture. But Jean will."
--
李 Lee Love 大
愛 鱗
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://seisokuro.blogspot.com/ My Photo Logs
http://ikiru.blogspot.com/ Zen and Craft
"The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything.
The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows
it and who don't."
--Burley Coulter (Wendell Berry)
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