Oki(Setting)・Kudoki(Telling)・Chirashi(Dispersion)

　Dance, but do not move. This baffling contradiction is a core principle in traditional Japanese dance, and a puzzle that must be solved bodily by all those who learn the art, in which hides an explosive mechanism for generating dynamic cultural trends.

　Traditional performing arts in Japan included two categories of singing—katari-mono, which tell a story, and utai-mono, which emphasize melody and music. In the Edo period, when many of the arts began ro converge, these two forms of singing were combined and integrated, during which process distinction was made between two types of dancing—mai (“whirling” or “spinning”)  and odori (“stomping” or “prancing”). Eventually the art of dancing would grow to take on the roles of silent story-telling and singing, in highly abstract expressions through control of body and costume, where the performer’s personal expressions were ultimately eliminated and emotions sublimated into the extreme minimalistic movements we see today in the distinctly Japanese forms of dance.

　Such dancing arts valued serenity over anything else, and because of this emphasized me importance of subtle changes in tempo created by the alternating use of kamae—the “stance” for stopping and holding oneself in pose—and hakobi— the “carrying” of one’s body in sequential steps. Through time, these concepts with their varying combinations evolved beyond technical expression to encompass ways of thinking about entire structures of dance production, developing into the three-stage contrivance of oki, kudoki, and chirashi.

　Oki means to “set in place.” In dance, it is the prelude that sets the stage for the unfolding of a story. Kudoki is the “telling” or”wooing”—the presentation of the chain of events. And chirashi is the “dispersion’’— where excited tension is released in the acceleration toward a climactic ending. These three stages of composition became, in and of themselves, a formula for generating emotional energy and would trigger an explosion in the popularity of dance and music amongst common people in the Edo period.

　The methodology, handed down through generations of traditional dancers, influenced a wide variety of performing arts in the Meiji period, contributing to the spread of popular music and other forms of stage performance, and it is visibly present in more modern productions as well, from the all-female Takarazuka theater to public television’s yearly New Year’s Singing Contest to many of today’s popular TV dramas.

　The groundbreaking creative trends in 21th century Japan continue to develop while still rooted in the triumvirate of oki, kudoki, and chirashi established in the Edo period.