- Director, Photography, Editing
- Yoshitaka Nitta
- photographic aids
- Yohju Matsubayashi Akari Chibana
- Producer.
- Yoshiko Ito
- production
- Eurasia Vision
- URL
- https://creators.yahoo.co.jp/nittayoshitaka/0200088867
When you think of traditional Okinawan music, what comes to mind? The first thing that comes to mind is “Asatoya Junta” or “Tinsagu no Hana”. These are the songs of the genre called Okinawan folk music. In fact, there is older music than these folk songs. It is called “Ryukyu classical music.
Ryukyu classical music is said to have been born in Shuri Castle during the Ryukyu Dynasty. We followed the thoughts and activities of a female student who is taking on the challenge of learning and passing on this music to the younger generation.
The day Shuri Castle burned down
In the early morning of October 31, 2011, Shuri Castle was engulfed in flames. Kie Teruya, a university student who was asleep at her home in Yomitan Village, woke up around 2 a.m. for some reason, and when she opened her SNS, she saw her friends posting that Shuri Castle was on fire. She immediately jumped up and drove to Shuri in her nightgown, and when she arrived at the university around 5:00, she saw Shuri Castle burning red from the ground. As he stared at the burning Shuri Castle, he wondered, “What should I do now? as he stared at the burning Shuri Castle. Her mother later told me that Kie was crying on her bed before she even jumped up. Her mother later told me that Kie was crying and screaming in bed before she even jumped out of bed. “I don’t usually wake up at that time of night, so I guess I had to see it. I don’t usually wake up at that hour, so I guess I had to see it.
A female student learning the “classics” right in front of Shuri Castle.
In Okinawa, there is a university where you can learn traditional performing arts from the Ryukyu Dynasty. In Okinawa, there is a university where you can learn traditional performing arts from the Ryukyu Dynasty. It is the Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, located right in front of Shuri Castle. Kie Teruya, a sophomore, is one of the 40 students in the Ryukyu performing arts major course. Kie Teruya, a second-year student, is one of them. Her instructor is Professor Masaya Yamauchi, a performer of Ryukyu classical music and a holder of the Okinawa Prefecture-designated Intangible Cultural Property (Okinawa Traditional Music Tansui School). Private lessons continue in a classroom with a view of Shuri Castle beyond the window. What surprised me the most when I entered the university was that I could see Shuri Castle from the practice room. It makes a difference in how I feel.” For Kie, Shurijo is an inseparable part of classical music.
What is Ryukyu Classical Music?
The history of Ryukyu classical music dates back to Shuri Castle over 300 years ago. At that time, Okinawa was an independent country called the Ryukyu Kingdom, and Shuri Castle was not only the residence of the king, but also a place for politics, diplomacy, and rituals. The Ryukyu Kingdom prospered through trade with China and Southeast Asia, and developed its own culture such as Awamori and Bingata to entertain foreign envoys. Ryukyuan classical music is one of the cultures that developed in this way, and was refined by being performed in front of the king and his envoys. Ryukyuan songs (Ryukyuan tanka) are basically sung to the sound of the sanshin, and are sometimes accompanied by koto, flute, kokyu, drums and other instruments. The music varies from natural scenes to songs about love between a man and a woman, but is characterized by a slow tempo. The music is characterized by a relaxed tempo, and the rich and diverse worldview of the Okinawans during the Ryukyu Dynasty is condensed in the music. When the Meiji Restoration occurred in Japan, the Ryukyu Dynasty was abolished and Okinawa Prefecture was incorporated under Japanese rule. The unemployed warriors began to perform music in the towns to earn a living, and classical music spread among the common people. Eventually, the tempo became faster and the melody became easier to understand to suit the tastes of the common people, and this became known as Okinawan folk music.
Gradually, classical music, which was supposed to convey the atmosphere of Shuri during the dynastic period, came to be regarded as “stiff” and “boring” music, and although it was respected, it became distant from the senses of the common people.
Shurijo for the Young
After Shuri Castle was burned down, Kie began to think more deeply about Shuri Castle, which had given birth to Ryukyu classical music. It was during this time that she met Masashi Inafuku, a fourth-year student at the University of the Ryukyus. Masashi was born and raised in Shuri, and in high school he walked through the Shureimon gate every day on his way to school. When Masashi saw Kie playing classical music in Shuri Castle, he approached her and they became acquainted. After Shuri Castle burned down, Masashi called on young Okinawans to “walk around Shuri Castle together” and began to work as a volunteer guide for university students. As they walked together, he told them to learn about Shurijo and think about what Shurijo means to them. Both of them said that they realized the weight of Shurijo’s existence for the first time after it disappeared, which they had always taken for granted. Kie came to the conclusion that she wanted to perform classical music at Shurijo so that more people would visit the castle and learn more about it. She hopes to practice more and further increase the value of Ryukyu classical music before the castle is rebuilt.
To expand the opportunities for children to come into contact with the sanshin.
Kie started playing the sanshin when she was in the first grade of elementary school. She started playing the sanshin when she was in the first year of elementary school, after her mother applied for a sanshin class in her hometown. From the third grade, she started learning Okinawan folk songs as well as classical music. At the age of 13, he won the Newcomer’s Prize at a traditional music competition sponsored by an Okinawan newspaper. At the age of 13, she won the Newcomer’s Prize in a traditional music competition sponsored by an Okinawan newspaper, and began to aspire to pursue Ryukyu classical music in earnest.
Kie believes that in order to pass on classical music, it is important to provide as many opportunities as possible for children to come into contact with the sanshin, and as a university student reporter on Okinawa41, a website that introduces Okinawan culture, she writes articles aimed at promoting classical music. For this article, I visited the Akanuko Children’s Sanshin Club, where I once attended. This sanshin club is a free class sponsored by Yomitan Village and is held every Saturday. Elementary and junior high school students are divided into four classes according to their level, and are taught by local teachers. Even in Okinawa, where performing arts are thriving, free sanshin clubs like this are rare, and Kie is hopeful that if this kind of steady local effort spreads more widely, people who can support Ryukyu classical music in the future will grow up.
I want to spread the appeal of “classical music” to young people.
In April last year, half a year after the burning of Shuri Castle, Kie and Ayane Oshiro, a Koto student at the same university, formed a Ryukyu classical music unit called Re:finesse. They wear clothes and accessories, and perform at hotels and live houses, hoping to let the younger generation know more about classical music. They have also started to communicate on social networking sites such as Instagram. On the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the burning of Shuri Castle last October, they have been actively distributing live videos that combine the night view of the castle with scenes of their rehearsals at the university. We want young people to feel familiar with classical music, which they have never been familiar with before, and also to be interested in the history of Shuri Castle and Okinawa. There is one more thing that the girls are trying to do. One more thing the girls are trying to do is to address the issue of gender, which has always haunted traditional Okinawan music. Originally, classical music, which was performed by the warrior class at Shuri Castle, was originally reserved for men. Since the Meiji era (1868-1912), this practice has gradually disappeared, but there are still few female performers. In addition, the National Theatre Okinawa still recruits only male Kumiodori trainees. In this day and age, both men and women have equal rights to perform music. In the field of classical music as well, we would like to proactively communicate this fact. As Kie looks ahead, she sees a more flexible world of classical music that respects tradition while making changes where necessary. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)