Voice of Sengiku Bando
Sengiku Bando, who teaches Japanese classical dance at Session House, created a production that crossed the boundaries of dance, featuring 15 dancers from Japanese classical dance, ballet and contemporary dance, each bringing their own distinctive strengths. The performances were highly acclaimed.
Japanese Classical Dance on a Journey Across Borders — Sengiku Bando
Japanese Classical Dance on a Journey Across Borders — Sengiku Bando. The project for Sengiku Bando's version of “Madame Butterfly,” bringing together multiple genres of dance, was presented as part of “Dance Bridge,” organised by the Session House Planning Office. Taking the wish to create with people we had never worked with before as the “bridge to be built,” Dance Bridge began with three audition workshops, with a cumulative dancer attendance of more than 30 across the sessions.
Its predecessor, “Madame Butterfly,” based on the opera Madame Butterfly, premiered at the National Theatre's Small Theatre in June 2023. The story is based on actual events and set in Nagasaki in the Meiji era. The American writer Long published the original as a short story, and the Italian composer Puccini used it as the basis for his opera. “Madam butterfly” has been taken on by great artists from many countries. Perhaps it holds an appeal found only in Japan. In a port newly opened to the Western powers, there must have been many people like Cho-Cho-san. A hundred and twenty years after its premiere at Milan's La Scala in 1904, I set about creating this work in the hope of bringing back into the present Cho-Cho-san's innocent heart, caught between eras.
We rehearsed with attention to everything, from silk kimono to under-kimono, from bearing and movement to where to direct the gaze. Alongside these considerations, we also addressed matters of the heart and mind. “What are the artistic possibilities within traditional performing arts?” What kind of creative way of living is possible in today's society through dance? Surely the expressive arts are fundamentally about learning in order to free human beings, extending individual powers, and continuing to take on challenges as truly free people.
For the performances at Session House, I first considered how, in terms of staging, we could blend this studio space with elements of Japanese aesthetics, and how to show the beauty of the kimono's movement here. We decided to use the seating and stage across the width of the space rather than in their usual configuration. This seems to have made the view change depending on where one sat, giving the foreground and background a painterly quality. The wide stage enabled us to create a flowing movement of kimono-clad bodies, and we also experimented with placing tatami mats and shoji screens effectively to evoke a Japanese atmosphere.
This production features Madame Butterflies from different genres. We also attempted to give visual form to four emotional states within a single Madame Butterfly. Multiple soldiers, geisha and the various people surrounding her amplified the historical setting; we placed the characters so as to evoke a fragment of the Meiji era that feels, somehow, nostalgic. We also focused on human psychology as it changes over time, and made it our central concern to show this through “gesture,” a distinctive quality of Japanese classical dance. We aimed for dance theatre that brought dance and drama together. “There are times when a single gesture touches the heart more than a hundred words.” Convinced that expressing with the body emotions that words cannot fully convey is common to every genre, I made visualising emotion my first priority in creating the work.
Sengiku Bando's “Madame Butterfly,” which formed part of “Dance Bridge” as a journey across borders for Japanese classical dance, gained an even stronger sense of crossing boundaries with the participation of members of the dance company Condors and dancers from Mademoiselle Cinema. Tickets for all three performances over two days sold out, with people waiting for cancellations; thanks to everyone, we were able to bring the production to a successful close. It was also streamed online, and the responses have continued to arrive. Photographs and an article about “Madame Butterfly” appeared in the monthly magazine Nihon Buyo, published by Nihon Buyo-sha. The work is also to appear in the “International Theatre Yearbook 2025,” and has been selected as one of the important performances in Japan and abroad during 2024 for inclusion in the printed “Britannica International Yearbook 2025” and its “Electronic Britannica” edition. It seems that Japanese classical dance's journey across borders will remain a journey without end.
Sengiku Bando
Excerpt from Voice of Session House 2024
