Story behind “BAKERU“
The Beginning of “BAKERU“
The idea for “BAKERU” began at a symposium for the members of WOW Sendai after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. During a discussion about how to express what we, the people of the Tohoku region, needed to do at the time, the keyword “Tohoku” was brought up, as though it was almost inevitable. The members wondered if it would be possible to create a work that expresses the region’s history and culture through different angles using our modern sensibility. The idea for “BAKERU” was born from these sentiments.
During the discussion, particular attention was paid to the folk entertainment that has been handed down in the different areas of Tohoku, such as the stories of Namahage, which are folkloric demons, and the Shishi Odori dance. Why are these traditions still passed on today? The project began with the members deepening their understanding of a culture that they only vaguely knew about.
Learning about Tradition and Spirituality
In order to learn about the folk culture that is passed down in the different areas of the Tohoku region, we asked two people who are knowledgeable about the region’s folk entertainment. The first was Shutaro Koiwa of Tateito Yokoito, a company that works to pass on the traditions of the Tohoku region. We spoke with Koiwa, who was born in Iwate prefecture, and who has inherited the folk art of the “Gyozanryu Maikawa Shishi Odori” dance, about the succession of folk entertainment in the modern era, and the state of mind of its performers, who are considered to undergo a “transformation” during the performance. The second was Katsumi Sato, an associate professor in the research division of the Tohoku University graduate school of information sciences. Professor Sato studies a form of folk entertainment called the Buyō Dance and carries out support for the successors of this art form using motion capture technology and CG animation. We spoke with him about the approach of combining high-technology with tradition. By moving forward with this type of research, we slowly came to understand our interest in tradition, the movements used in folklore entertainment and the meanings behind them, as well as how to study folk entertainment. The various information that we gained became a large hint as to how to perform and experience “BAKERU“. At the same time, we were also able to understand a portion of the rich spirituality and depth that folk entertainment possesses by listening to its living voices.
The Reinterpretation and Reconstruction of Tradition
While deepening our knowledge of Tohoku’s folk entertainment, we began to think of a design for a concrete expression and experience. Our aim was not to recreate tradition exactly as it was, but instead to add our own interpretation and expression, along with a little bit of playfulness, in order to create an expression and experience that even children can intuitively enjoy and understand. We went through a process of trial and error while questioning if we could create a form of expression that only WOW could, while still maintaining the outlook of each type of folklore entertainment.
“BAKERU“‘s Gaze
“BAKERU“, which takes on the theme of Tohoku’s traditional entertainment, was born from our search for our own roots, which caused us to face the spirituality of the land. Traditions that have been passed down since long ago, such as traditional entertainment and handicrafts, must be passed down for reasons such as skill, thought, and culture. Our ancestors freely used the high-technology of their time, honed their wisdom, and constantly came to try new forms of expression. As artists at the forefront of history, we would like to cultivate new forms of expression while still studying tradition. We want to pass on the worth of the traditional culture that the Tohoku region has created to the next generation by allowing them to come into contact with it through an entirely new form of expression. We hope that many people can experience “BAKERU“, which is filled with these sentiments.
