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DCCA’s Kuniko Yamamoto
By Brittany Martino
Humanities 121, Edison Community College   
Monday, October 17

About this article… see editor’s note below

One of my group projects that I attended was the Kuniko Yamamoto performance. Before going, I did some research about her. In the research I found that she enchants audiences of every age with dramatic storytelling, using myths and fables from ancient and modern Japan, spiced with social revelations to educate and amuse. Kuniko uses traditional Japanese music, handcrafted masks, stylized movements, and a touch of magic to create an artistic balance of illusion and reality.

And that is exactly what the performance was.

Kuniko Yamamoto began the performance with an introduction about herself. She included some comedy about learning English, which I thought she spoke very well. Half of the show she dedicated to smaller children in the audience and then the other half to the adults. Kuniko had the audience involved in singing along tunes, performing magic tricks, and also playing a game. The game that we played as an audience was just like the game that we play in America called Rock, Paper, and Scissors. Except this Japanese game was White Fox, Hunter, and People.

She told many interesting stories during the performance. She expressed the stories in many different ways. Kuniko would use origami in most of the stories, and also use masks and other small props, but she would dance around and use her hands to tell the story too. She showed us many ways to take just one piece of paper and transfer it into many shapes (origami). She had two masks that she told stories with. One of the masks was to represent a man that would eat your bad dreams. Another mask was the face of a white fox, which is when we played that game.

Kuniko told ancient stories such as one about a little woman and also the dragon symbol. Both of those stories were pretty interesting. She also told us that Godzilla is a symbol of the volcano in Japan. Also that smiling and laughing is a symbol of self-control and also staying positive, which is why you also see Japanese people smiling quite often. They do not like to ever say no. A couple things that Kuniko had said that I thought was nice were that in Japanese, the word “Ohio” means “good morning”. She also said “butterflies are the symbol of life”.

Her last performance for the night was astonishing, in my perspective. And I think that it too “wowed” the crowd. She used a sushi mat to tell a story. First, she explained how to use the mat to make the sushi roll and use it for other things. Such as like she said if you are bored in the kitchen, you can use it to make music or you can be Jackie Chan. But then she turns on some beautiful Japanese music and begins to tell her story using the sushi mat in many different ways. She made the bamboo mat turn into so many shapes. The way that the music was playing and the way she was using the mat to tell her story was amazing in my eyes. It literally gave me chills when I was watching her perform this last act. Kuniko made the mat look like two flags, flapping in the breeze while she said “Today, you and I, side by side, like two flags, a friendship of traditions, fireworks to celebrate our future and history.”

I thought that going to see Kuniko Yamamoto was a wonderful experience. And I would definitely recommend anyone, even little children, to see her live performance. In my eyes, some of the things that were done by her, I would consider it to be art. Japanese culture is so different from ours and the way that Kuniko expressed those things, was art to me. It is valuable and historical to many people in this world, which is why many others including myself, would look at this performance to be art. But I know that not everyone will agree with that. As I talked to one other of my group members, she looked at the performance as artlike. But like the book says, what is revelatory to one person or one culture might not be to another.

Editor’s note: Last fall I taught “Art in the Humanities,” an introductory level course at the Edison Darke County Campus. Among the many projects the students addressed were different forms of art, from painting and television, to visits to DCCA events, Bears Mill, Garst Museum and Shawnee Prairie. The purpose was to discuss their evaluation of how the assignments related to “art” and/or the “humanities.” Some of the best reports will be presented, with the student’s permission, on County News Online. The opinions expressed in these reports have not been altered in any manner.


 
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