Australian born Susan Taylor practices Jiutamai, one of the traditional dances accompanied by jiuta (old songs in the Kyoto and Osaka area sung to the accompaniment of shamisen or koto). Zashikimai is a term used because it was danced in a zashiki (a Japanese-style salon) in the Imperial Palace or in a tea-house during the Edo period. Jiutamai is mainly danced alone with a sensu (folding fan), which symbolically expresses a range of things, from a stick or a candlestick to natural phenomenon. Turning the body is the main movement. Jiutamai expresses elegant, quiet beauty, handling a folding fan technically and sometimes jumping. It reveals a psychological portrait with a refined and controlled expression (video by Philippe Charluet). #Jiutamai #Japan #JapaneseDance #Imagine
00:27and I wanted to experience the movement and see whether I felt something that I knew was true of myself
00:37by moving in this style that was foreign to me.
00:40And the answer was yes.
00:46Jutamai is a little bit unusual in the traditional Japanese arts.
00:52It's performed by women.
00:54It was developed by women. It's about women's stories.
00:57It's women's perspective on love or on partying or on enjoying some flower or some part of nature.
01:15I'm here at the Adelaide Festival Centre where an Australian woman is just about to perform traditional Japanese dance.
01:21Susan Taylor has been studying in Japan for the last two years.
01:27What's the attraction for Susan to study an art form that is so culturally different?
01:31Music
01:43My feeling as a woman, my emotions as a woman, that I can express through Dutamai because of its restraint, because of its formality, because of its intricate choreography.
01:53It gives me an opportunity to search harder for what might be more of an essence in myself.
02:04In Dutamai, we have to especially express our emotion through the technique of dancing.
02:15And I think that's quite fascinating for Western people because they tend to know what's going on in the story.
02:23And it's easy for you to understand, I guess.
02:25And that's why Susan decided to specialize in Dutamai too.
02:30I don't like to be only sort of apologizing for being here all the time.
02:35Do you want to see my face? Maybe you don't want to see my face, but I'd like to see your face.
02:40Music
02:45There is also the opposite. There is also the passion. Really strong passion.
02:51The ghost comes because she's jealous. And she's not just jealous and thinking,
02:56Oh, I'm a bit pissed off and maybe I won't see him anymore. She's really jealous. She kills her.
03:02Hit it!
03:03It's a Japanese dance piece, which I've choreographed, using an Australian story and as you've heard the detriture music.
03:15It's about the first Japanese family, actually the first people ever, to grow rice extensively in Australia.
03:24Music
03:48Susan, how does it feel taking all that gunk off your face?
03:57It's great.
04:00When it's been on for a long time and I get sweaty and stuff,
04:03it's just like taking clothes off.
04:06It's such a wonderful feeling.
04:09And is it representative of anything for you?
04:14Taking it off?
04:15Oh yeah, absolutely. It's coming back out from being the Japanese dancer,
04:21the Japanese character, the Japanese atmosphere,
04:24being Australian again.
04:26It's really nice.
04:33I guess you don't get to do this very often in Japan.
04:36No, it's a luxury. It's great.
04:40How do you find being back in Australia?
04:42Oh, I adore it. I really miss Australia.
04:45While I'm in Japan, I don't mind being in Japan at all.
04:48I don't miss Australia while I'm there. I love Japan.
04:51But when I come back and I see the gum trees,
04:53I hear the bird songs,
04:55it's just so inspiring. I feel like I'm in the real world.
04:58So I'm sure I want to come back to Australia eventually and live here.
05:03here
05:08on Twitter
05:13and hear the epic Ciao
05:15hopefully
05:17then
05:21enjoy
05:27in
05:31I'm not Japanese, I'm not trying to be Japanese, but I do feel comfortable here.
05:37It does not feel foreign to me.
05:40It's the sense of universal humanness that I experience here.
05:45That and the very special sense of art and space, which is in Japan.
05:52Have you noticed any difference in yourself coming back after two years away?
05:56Not the art form so much.
05:57I enjoy moving from the art form, which is restricted, refined, and very beautiful.
06:02And then coming out and having a play in the pool, whatever, just letting myself go.
06:09So I feel like I'm living two people in that sense, and maybe both are stronger for it.
