The picture here is my sketch Noh’s old man mask, the type called Ishio-jo, that’s use for the title role of Oimatsu (The Old Pine Tree), a Noh play by Motokiyo Zeami (1363-1443). When we say the old man mask, it usually means really really old, i.e., a few hundred years old or something, which suggests that the old man’s immortality.

Click here for the synopsis of Oimatsu.

So as I was learning the dance at the end of Oimatsu, I realised how difficult it was for me to embody the physicality of a God, a tree and a pine, all in one. Apparently this old pine was not only a stationary God, he could fly. While I was at Udaka-sensei’s okeiko-ba(practice stage) in Matsuyama, I attempted to sketch the Ishio-jo mask that’s used for Oimatsu just to get a feel of what he looked like. His face has got the wooden quality, which reminded me very much of one of Udaka-sensei’s mask carving class in Kyoto.  The process of carving a Noh mask takes as long as the old pine himself! I was told that a particular type of pine called hinoki has to be at least 200-300 years old before it was cut into a 21cm x 13cm x 8cm block. The block then is dried for another 200 years before it would be ready for carving into a mask. At least 400 years has passed before the carving process begins.

I am immensely interested in mask carving. But for a new student, it might take a year to carve the first mask. I would have to move to Kyoto then if I were to start my mask carving lesson. A Noh mask is one of those things that I can hardly take my eyes off.

Back to Oimatsu. The sketch helped me a little to start to become Oimatsu. I sketched the face of Oimatsu in Matsuyama during a break from practicing. The first dance, as I expected, would be the most difficult. Only when my other Noh teacher, Rebecca Teele, suggested to me that I should imagine walking an inch below the floor that I got the sense of weight, “gravita” I supposed, of the God, an Ancient Pine God.

Then there’s the chanting of Oimatsu. My female voice just didn’t cut it as the voice of the Pine God. I gradually improved to say the least but after hours and hours of practicing.

See the footage of me performing Oimatsu with my classmates Jordi Mora and Alexandre Ferran here.

In Matsuyama where Udaka-sensei’s family used to have a castle, the okeiko-ba has a reputation that if a student stays overnight there, something special usually happens. Alexandre went to Matsuyama before I arrived in Japan and reported nothing. So after staying overnight there for about 4 nights, I wasn’t sure if I experienced anything “special”. The building of the okeiko-ba was built to be earthquake-proof, so it seemed to move slightly constantly. I was used to all sorts of noise while I was by myself practicing the Oimatsu dance.

Until the last night of my stay at the okeiko-ba, I was sound asleep, tired after days of practicing voice and dance. Matsuyama is usually very quiet at night.  At around 3 or 4am, I was awakened by a very loud sound of Noh chanting,... 

Yohhhhhhhhh!  

...as if somebody in the okeiko-ba was practicing chanting. It was a very long chant of one vowel that lasted for a long time as if the chanter had an enormous lung capacity. It was a male voice, not unlike the Noh chanting we’ve heard in a Noh play...

And of course, nobody was there in the room except me. I remembered thinking to myself after suddenly being awoken, “Go away!  I want to sleep!”, and tried to get back to sleep again. Only when Udaka-sensei asked me in the morning over breakfast if anyone came to visit me, then I recalled the incident.

Udaka-sensei meditates every night before bed. While I was in Matsuyama, he led me to meditate as well. Meditation for him is a part of Noh practice, even before a mask carving lesson. It makes sense to me because the kinetic and vocal aspects of Noh are stripped bare to minimal passages that one needs a certain degree of stillness of the mind to do it well. Consequently, meditation potentially opens the senses to be in tune with something “special”. That something special element has always featured in all Noh play in a form of legend such in Oimatsu.

Did I practice voice too much or Oimatsu came to visit me? I keep open-minded about this but feel privileged if someone who inhabits at the okeiko-ba came to visit me that morning...