Ancient ritual dance bewitches and baffles

FOR many, the initial draw of Sambaso at the Singapore International Festival of Arts was the fact that legendary photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto had designed the set and costumes, using images from his Lightning Fields series.

But as it turned out, Sugimoto's designs, while certainly beautiful, were the least interesting part of the performance.

Instead, it was the centuries-old dance and music that captivated the audience. It took them back to a bygone era when humans saw themselves as subject to the actions and whims of gods and had to appease them all they could.

Sambaso, said to be one of the oldest and most sacred Japanese rituals, is performed as a harvest ritual. It invites a god to descend to earth and bless it so that the farmers would enjoy a bumper crop.

Though it's called a dance, it is not so much a dance as a series of stark movements carried out by a male performer, which climaxes in him stamping on the ground.

The act of stamping is believed to release the energy of the earth and performer, which then envelopes the audience and unites them in spirituality. Only then will a god concede to come down from the heavens and bless them.

The performer, in this case, is none other that Mansaku Nomura, the 83-year-old kyogen master and "national treasure" of Japan, gracing a Singapore stage for the first time.

The spry octogenarian executed the ritual with all the focus and fervour of an Olympic gymnast, determined to hit his marks with nanometric precision.

His group of musicians bang small hand-drums (kotsuzumi) and a larger drum (otsuzumi) while chanting ancient mantras, adding to the ritual's mystique.

The overall effect was spellbinding, even if the dance remained largely incomprehensible for non-Japanese audiences because it carried neither narrative nor emotion.

The surtitles too had been scrapped, so the verbal exchanges in Japanese between the performers drew a blank for many.

You either surrendered yourself to the ritual completely - or watched it coldly and detachedly; there was no in-between.

Fortunately for many, the sambaso was preceded by a kyogen, which proved to be a lot less intimidating. A kyogen is a comic story performed in traditional Japanese slapstick.

Performed by three actors, including Nomura's equally famous son, Mansai, the kyogen told of two impish servants who would steal their master's best sake when he is out.

Frustrated by their mischief, the master decides to tie up his servants when he leaves for business. But the servants still find ways to steal into the cellar to take swigs from his flagons.

Like the sambaso, the kyogen was performed with controlled movements and studied precision. But one warmed to it quickly to laugh at the jokes. And it helped that there were surtitles in this case to help understand the action.

Overall, though, Sambaso was what one might call an authentic cultural experience, because it involved a pure and insular art tradition that makes almost no concession to the outside world. It made the audience work much harder at building a bridge into another culture.

The Singapore International Festival of Arts is now on. Visit sifa.sg for the full programme