Tapdancing

[Budomaru]

i just watched "Zatoichi" for the second time (the new film with ビートたけし here's me boasting i know his nickname B))... mmm looks like a spoiler, i'll post it in tags

[spoiler]
what caught my attention was the tapdancing they do at the end of the movie. there was a part where there were 4 people with those japanese spirit/demon mask things, and sticks, doing tapdancing of some sort using the sticks as well. then there was a bunch of actors doing tapdancing in those wooden japanese shoe things (i dunno the name of those - which is odd now that i think about it) - thing is, although they were dancing to taiko music, they didnt look like they were dancing in a japanese sort of way, it looked pretty western.

so i was wondering, whether there is a form of native japanese tapdancing or not.
[/spoiler]

*thanks spoiler tags* ^_^

[aKuMu]

Well in allmost all his Films he's credited as Beat Takeshi

[Txkun]

It's something I was wondering about too. I think also I saw some matsuri photos with dancers with similar masks (tengu?). By the way the shoes are called geta (げた-下駄). I hope someone can shed light on this...

[keatonatron]

There is no "Native Japanese Tapdancing"

In fact, in traditional Japanese arts there is no fast dancing, so to make the film more exciting for modern viewers Takeshi added the modern dancing style. I think it makes it more fun, because they spend the whole movie sucking you into the era of the film, and then break you out at the very end.

If he really wanted a TRADITIONAL art for the ending to the film, you'd have to sit through an hour of Noh which would make your head explode.

[Budomaru]

keatonatron wrote:
There is no "Native Japanese Tapdancing"

In fact, in traditional Japanese arts there is no fast dancing, so to make the film more exciting for modern viewers Takeshi added the modern dancing style. I think it makes it more fun, because they spend the whole movie sucking you into the era of the film, and then break you out at the very end.

If he really wanted a TRADITIONAL art for the ending to the film, you'd have to sit through an hour of Noh which would make your head explode.

thanks for throwing a bucket of light on it ^_^ and yes i'm glad there wasnt an hour of Noh i havent seen any, but i've seen a 1,5hr kabuki performance (which was watered down and a bit adapted for western audiences though, since the sum of the show was some classic kabuki theatre pieces and in the end a performance to classical -european- music instead of japanese) and it was tough . though i honestly believe an original performance of either would have been more interesting.

i've also seen taiko drummer shows twice. hard to actually follow, but i guess that like noh and kabuki, its an art form that you need to have experience with and understand in order to enjoy.

Txkun wrote:
It's something I was wondering about too. I think also I saw some matsuri photos with dancers with similar masks (tengu?). By the way the shoes are called geta (げた-下駄). I hope someone can shed light on this...

thanks for clearing up the shoe thing - my dictionary had a bunch of words on "shoes" but no specification of what shoes each word meant. and yes i think those masks are tengu masks.

aKuMu wrote:
Well in allmost all his Films he's credited as Beat Takeshi

true, but on greek version dvds, he's more often credited as Takeshi Kitano

[keatonatron]

i havent seen any

You should probably keep it that way. I had to watch a 2-hour noh video in school once... the longest two hours of my life.

They don't.... move.

[AJBryant]

Hey, I *love* noh.

There's no drama like Noh drama (like noh drama I know).


Tony

[crowfeather]

>>There's no drama like Noh drama (like noh drama I know).<<


Tony<<

LOL Tony-san. This is a cleaver play on words. This may have gone over the heads of the younger members who never heard this song.

"There is no business like show business------------"

[Txkun]

I didn't google so I may be stoned to death for this but...
is there any DVD of Noh? Or of Bunraku? I really would love to see them.

[keatonatron]

Bunraku is awesome!

Noh is... interesting. But even after you study the theories, techniques, and stories, it's still boring as hell. That's my opinion anyway.

For that reason, I really don't think you should purchase a Noh DVD. Try looking at the library. A large college library would probably have something.