Lessons From a Grand Master : Ganjiro Nakamura III Teaches the Art of Kabuki to U.S. Students

In a sunlit studio of the UCLA Dance Building, a dozen students from both that university and CalArts kneel in a semicircle reading in Japanese under the guidance of a small cherubic man seated opposite them in a wooden chair.

He is Ganjiro Nakamura III, at 62 one of the stars of the Grand Kabuki, and in this very special workshop he’s teaching the same play he brought to the Japan America Theatre and 11 other North American venues in 1988: Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s 1711 classic, “A Messenger of Love in Yamato.”

On that tour, he was billed as Senjaku Nakamura II, but since has been granted the same Kabuki stage name as his father and grandfather--all of them distinguished exponents of a subtle, sensuous acting style called wagoto .

Less familiar to foreigners than later, flamboyant forms of Kabuki, wagoto is harder to learn, says Ganjiro (as he is referred to in the world of Kabuki). He’s remarkably patient and encouraging with the UCLA and CalArts students. He needs to be: Only one of them speaks Japanese; the rest are learning the text phonetically.

Occasionally the result amounts to a linguistic form of Japan-bashing, and Ganjiro delicately winces. More typically, he assures the workshop members, through a translator, that “the lines are more and more becoming your own. . . . The feeling really came out.”

As the students individually practice a silent entrance or act a two-character scene, Ganjiro and his assistant, Gansei Nakamura, reshape essentials of pose, gesture and dramatic focus, offering an immersion in Kabuki performance practice rarely offered to foreigners--and scarcely ever by actors of Ganjiro’s caliber.

In Japan, he would never be involved with teaching such preliminary aspects of Kabuki acting, Ganjiro reveals in an interview after the third session of the workshop, held last Thursday through Sunday. Yes, he says, he does coach others in this play--”but before they even come to me, they’ve already learned and practiced the role over and over and interpreted it by themselves.” Here he teaches everything, including such basics as how to walk in a kimono.

Ganjiro participated in just one Kabuki workshop outside Japan before this--at the University of Hawaii--and there met Katherine Mezur, now a Mellon Fellow in the division of Critical Studies at CalArts. Mezur organized Ganjiro’s California visit to foster what she calls “a process of cultural interaction and exchange.”

During the workshop, Ganjiro and the students “have been creating this subtle atmosphere, this world,” Mezur says. “Maybe there are skills being learned but what fascinates me most is the presence of this artist in the room: what he brings to it, how he shows something when he’s demonstrating, how the students become his imitators in a sense to participate in another culture.”

Saying that he’s “amazed and happy for these students to be able to understand so much and to come so far (in a just a few days),” Ganjiro pays them the ultimate compliment: “Watching you, I thought it would be great if one of you could become a Kabuki actor,” he tells them. “We haven’t had foreigners in Kabuki, but I could see the possibility occurring.”

What’s Japanese for “fat chance”? With a mixture of races and nationalities--plus a large number of women--the workshop scarcely resembles anyone’s fantasy of a Grand Kabuki casting call. And the students have no illusions about seeing an Icelandic or Australian or California woman--indeed, a woman of any sort--accepted in the rigorously dynastic, all-male Kabuki world.

To CalArts acting student Rainbow Underhill the workshop offered a chance to explore her interest in gender issues in a new context: “I had always wondered if I could convince someone that does Kabuki that I could take on a male role as they take on female roles,” she says.

Korean-born UCLA physics/math student Sidney S. Park came to the workshop as part of an exploration of Japanese art that included his learning traditional taiko drumming. “I think there’s a lot of curiosity about Japanese culture in the Korean community,” he comments.

The January earthquake left CalArts Theater student Linda R. Mills with a leg injury that limited her participation in the workshop. Even so, she says, “it is more than I expected. I did not know we would actually have one-on-one attention (from Ganjiro).”

Ganjiro himself admits to a greater purpose than merely giving outsiders a glimpse of a fabled and forbidden performing realm. “The reason I’m doing this (workshop) is that I think it’s very important now for the world, and especially for the States, to understand our culture,” he says.

“Until now, it’s always been that we Japanese take in foreign customs and traditions and we never try to teach others. So by coming here, getting into detail, my students and Americans will be able to understand how deep and rich Kabuki is.”