Ono no Komachi

Last night Megan and I attended an interpretive dance event we heard about on the radio - the Komachi Variations. The performance consisted of one woman doing classical Japanese dance (nihon buyo) accompanied by a woman playing a nokan, a flute used in medieval Japanese theatre. The performance was meant to show scenes from the life of a famous 9th century Japanese poet, Ono no Komachi, who was reputedly a famous beauty with many admirers but had a sad, lonely old age and died destitute. It was a very interesting experience, quite different from my previous experience attending dance events - mostly classical ballet. The dancing was very formal, rigid and ritualistic, with certain gestures repeated and often held for quite a long time. Megan's comment was "Well, it was very nicely done... but I'm not sure if I get it." We had a long conversation about what they various costumes, music and dances might have symbolized, and tried to figure out which of the poems in the program went with the different scenes in the performance.