A Witness to the Process of Translation - Kurokami E{m}Urge: A response by Christine Shallenberg
Embedded Writer Christine Shallenberg responds to the making of Kurokami E{m}Urge by Yoshinojo Fujima (Rika Lin).
image by Rika Lin
I don the VR headset, adjusting the straps to allow for a clear image and orienting myself with the handheld controller. Once inside the virtual reality realm, I am transported into a non-space of floating, surrounded by a setting specifically designed to immerse me in the world of this song, this story – Kurokami. The meaning of this title – Black Hair – reflected in the frames inside of frames I continue to press up against throughout the experience. I am inside the VR space, inside the song-story, inside the hexagon-shaped room, walls of white, blank scrolls; ready to receive the story with so much history and mystery. I can see through the cracks in the walls to the world outside, another container in this virtual space. When I tilt my head to look up, a giant moon, craters fully visible and filling the sky, shines its melancholy glow.
I am asked to choose between Rage and Acceptance - these internal emotional states as a reaction to the process of letting go. The song “Kurokami” became famous for being used in the Kabuki play "Oakinai Hirugakojima”. In the play, it is sung by Tatsuhime on the night that the samurai she loves is married to another woman. She has intentionally sacrificed her own love for him so that that he can fulfill his dream of reviving the Genji clan.
I choose Rage.
I am transported back inside the hexagon structure, where a message for me is engraved on the inside wall. I emerge.
I fly to another location in the virtual space. I can see now that there are three points of focus I can travel to at will, throughout the process of witnessing this song of despair. Tatsuhime brushing her long black hair, the Shamisen performing the haunting music, the hexagon structure of screens, now being painted with black ink by a calligrapher as he moves around the outside of the structure, recording the story in rich, broad strokes.
I linger at a place where I can witness from further away, aware of the dark shifting forest of bamboo framing the edge of the triangular platform.
Image by Subhash Maskara
_____________________________________________________________________________
At my first coffee shop meeting with Rika, she tells me that in Japanese culture black hair is symbolic of a woman’s beauty, sensuality and strength, as well as youth. I sit across the table from her, a trained Grandmaster in the Fujima school of Japanese classical dance, where she received her professional name: Yoshinojo Fujima. She is the captain of this ship, working to orchestrate, mediate and create. She is grappling with the multiple translations this work has undergone – from live performance to digital performance, to video and now virtual reality space. Each of these forms has specific aesthetic considerations and languages that need to be finessed through this process of transformation.
But Rika has been compelled by active transformation of form throughout the journey of her work. She is known for exploring Japanese classical dance as a living traditional art form, even to the point of transgressing traditional roles and stylistic choices of that form in her work. At the same time, she maintains a balance and respect for the specificity of tradition and context.
The second time I encounter her process is at a filming for the Fujima Ryu school inside an actual theater, the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. I enter the dark space, which I’ve never visited previously. Green light bounces off the cyc giving the room a mysterious glow. Folded screens in a zig zag pattern create a boundary in the upstage part of the space. Dappled warm light spreads across the empty stage. It has the feeling of a break, a pause in technical rehearsal – something so familiar and yet strange to me in this time awakening from Covid closures.
There is a flurry of action attending to details, adjusting the screens so that they are balanced evenly on the stage. Performers in casual kimonos move purposely and quietly from backstage to the house. There is a discussion on how to appropriately open and present a handheld fan. Much anticipation for the Sensei, Fujima Shunojo to finish the elaborate process of dressing in formal kimono as he will perform for the camera first.
He appears – there is no curtain in this theater, so the curtain will be simulated with a fade from blackout, just as in the virtual space the curtain is the slow blink inside the VR headset.
floating
demure
gaze soft
gold fan
signaling
subtle shift of head
stiff rods inside kimono
sound aching
I feel immense gratitude for the gift of being present to witness this ancient traditional practice in the act of translation from stage to screen.
Image by Sydney Sullivan
_____________________________________________________________________________
I enter another film studio, on a different day, where activity has begun long before my arrival. The room, towering ceilings, draped on all sides with green screen cloth that also covers the floor. It feels like a radioactive womb, evenly lit with white globes overhead. At the center of the space is the hexagon of hanging screens I recognize from the VR space. Three cameras at the edge of the room, capturing this activity from each of the perspectives the audience might take within the headset. This is a constructed, artificial space, entirely crafted to allow for the translation of pixels from physical into three-dimensional digital space.
The room is abuzz with activity, equipment, and the movement of the production team throughout the space. Rika is coordinating over the phone with the director, Subhash Maskara based in Mumbai, showing him the viewfinder images for all three cameras. The lighting and camera technicians are working together to create a seamless, shadowless space, to allow for the greatest level of accuracy for the green screen capture. The calligrapher artist, Hekiun “Hiro” Oda, is advising on the precise hanging positions of the translucent white screens, and mapping out the dance he will perform through his live calligraphy painting.
It is time for a first take. Hiro leaves the space to dress in formal kimono. He also mixes up the dark black ink he will use. It smells clean and is thick, ready for the canvas. Now each element in the room and each member of the production team is still, anticipating the black tears of ink that will drip down the scrolls, narrating the story of Kurokami in thick brush strokes. Rika steps into the frame. She announces with clarity, “Action.”