The Role Played by Processions in Performance Art as Related to Shintoism, Buddhism, and Christianity

• Project/Area Number: 12410014
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 美学(含芸術諸学)
• Research Institution: Joetsu University of Education
• Principal Investigator: MOTEGI Kiyoko Joetsu University of Education, Music, Professor, 学校教育学部, 教授 (30174345)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KANDA Yoriko Keiwa College, Department of Cultural Sciences, 人文学部, 教授 (40247424)
• Project Period (FY): 2000 – 2001
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2001)
• Budget Amount: ¥4,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,000,000); Fiscal Year 2001: ¥1,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000); Fiscal Year 2000: ¥2,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,300,000)
• Keywords: Procession / Processional path / March / Rounds (Jun-ko) / Pilgrimage / Travel song / Bridgeaway / Purified Place / 巡礼 / 花道 / 結界 / 練供養 / 鳥追い

Research Abstract

Adopting an international perspective, this research takes the first step toward explicating various performance arts that accompany religious processions in Japan and Germany. The Japanese performance arts considered here include the torioi ("bird-scaring") ceremony; processions involving large floats, such as the "Procession of 10,000 Lights," and the Gion Festival; and the activities of itinerant street performers, with a focus on the significance of processions for performance art, and the effects and symbolism that such processions have with respect to music. Analogous arts investigated on the German side include the Fronleichnam, and the Fasnacht, the latter of which is found in Alpine areas. This ground-breaking research is unique in that it takes a multidisciplinary approach (including such fields as musicology, folklore, and cultural anthropology) to clarify the relationship between music and the universally practiced behavior of forming a procession to go to a designated dest ination.
Processions serve two purposes: exorcism (of danger or evil spirits) and welcoming (of ancestors or gods). The performance arts examined in this study can also be categorized according to these two functions. Processions generally involve two groups of people, as well: the participants, and the onlookers. From the participants' perspective, the social meanings of a procession include: 1) improving one's social status through purification, etc.; 2) being recognized as a member of the community; and 3) experiencing a feeling of unity through participation in a shared activity. On a cosmological level, participation can be interpreted to mean 1) a guarantee of rebirth in the next world; and 2) a direct experience of the origins of local myths.
The music that accompanies processions is often characterized by primitive vocalizations with percussive accompaniment, including songs accompanied by drums, and the use of metal percussion instruments. The utterances often contain words designed to ward off danger or evil spirits, and the volume of the vocalizations and instrumental playing were found to be closely linked to the perceived effectiveness of the exorcism. The performance arts associated with the bird-scaring ceremony and Gion festival in particular were found to have deep cosmological significance. Participants report a spiritual uplift through playing and singing as part of their shrine pilgrimages (analogous to social meaning 1 above), with the practice sessions for each group of instrumentalists generating a sense of unity (analogous to social meanings 2 and 3 above). Also, the repetition of the music over the course of the procession creates a continuous aural experience that matches the continuous visual experience, thereby intensifying the experience for both participants and onlookers.

Research Products

• [Publications] 茂手木潔子: "行列・音楽・信仰"学燈. 7月号(仮題). (2002)