Music Reviews : ‘KA-GU-LA’ Program by Japanese Musicians

With its dramatic lighting effects and focused concentration on the part of the players, the “KA-GU-LA: The New Winds of Tradition” program Friday at the Japan America Theatre at times achieved its intended aim of going beyond music making to create a sense of ceremony and ritual.

Several selections evoked feelings of numinous eeriness, though, when the works fell short, the results--for at least one Western listener--suggested mere New Age fluff, Japanese style.

Most impressive was “KA-GU-LA: Ritual of the Wind,” in which three-quarters life-size rod puppets, manipulated Bunraku-style by Hiroshi Hori, appeared to float, fly and glide through space, and, more importantly, respond longingly and with nuance to Michiko Akao’s seductive flute playing and Midori Takada’s percussive effects.

Akao’s virtuoso playing of four Japanese folk songs also went beyond melody to suggest the human life cycle in miniature, beginning with warm comfort and frail delicacy and ending with the encounter of transcendent natural forces. And in “Kaze no Rosho” (Wind Chant), Akao was able to explore those forces more directly, tracing unpredictable trajectories, whirlpools and eddies seemingly unrelated to human experience.