An Empty Space in the Forest: Afuri Shrine Fire Festival and Torch Light Performance of Noh 大山阿夫利神社火祭薪能

This week, I tell you my metaphysical adventure of Noh theatre in the forest of Mt. Oyama Afuri Shrine 大山阿夫利神社. Besides being a weekend hiking destination for Tokyonites, Mt. Oyama has been a deity in Japanese mythology for centuries. Oyama Afuri Shrine is an interface between us mortals and the supernatural Mt. Oyama. Before iPhone X, such media has had many features for millennia to establish the link between humans and something beyond no-genius comprehension. Noh festival of Afuri Shrine is one of them.  For two nights before the first full-moon of every October, the shrine holds Noh theatre where the performance under the light of flaming torch is dedicated to God Oyama. Mt. Oyama presides over rain and thunder, i.e. fire, and so, the Noh under the flame makes sense. You may purchase a front seat for 4000 yen (or 3500 yen for an advance ticket; phone reservation only at 0463-95-2006 from 3 weeks before the first performance, 9:00-17:00). But the event has 1000 free tickets that are available only by postal application (detail at the end of this post). I of course chose a free ticket, and situated myself at the furthest, but the highest (in altitude) seat of the venue. That was a bingo. I could immerse myself naturally in a fantastic world of Noh surrounded by primeval forest of Mt. Oyama under the 13^th night of beautiful moon … Yeah, you may prefer actors standing just before you. But don’t you think you can do it in National Noh Theatre in Harajuku, surrounded by the ocean of buildings in Tokyo? In Mt. Oyama, I’ve witnessed an effortless resonance between Noh and the forest. If you are in the metropolis Tokyo in October, Noh in Mt. Oyama is the event you should experience!

Actually, the performance is not held at the top of the mountain, nor the shrine sanctuary halfway up to the peak. The venue is at the administrative complex of Afuri Shrine near the hiking entrance to the purification site, Misogi-no-Otaki (禊の大滝 “the Big Waterfall for Purification”), where I reported my adventure last spring. The bus stop to the waterfall is Shamukyoku-Iriguchi Bus Stop 社務局入口. “Shaumukyoku” = Admin Office of the Shrine. Got it? When you plan to visit them directly from Isehara Station 伊勢原駅 of Odakyu Odawara Line 小田急小田原線, please take Kanachu Bus 神奈中バス I-10伊10 or I-11 伊11 from the Terminal #4 in the North Exit of Isehara Station. (Time Table, here.) It’s a 20 minuets’ bus ride to Shamukyoku-Iriguchi. The performance starts at 16:00 and the door is open at 15:00. BUT, there is almost no parking facility and the public transportation is only with Kanachu Bus. Although the organizer arranges special bus services from the station to Shamukyokku-Iriguchi stop, we’d better expect a long wait at Isehara Station for the next available bus. Our options are (1) arriving at Isehara Station at least by 14:00 to join the cue for the bus, (2) if you are a group of more than 4 people, take a taxi from the station and prepare to pay about twice as much as the bus ticket, or (3) hike Mt. Oyama on that day, and come down to the admin place of Afuri Shrine by 15:00.

At Isehara Station.
In this photo,
Terminal #4 itself cannot appear
as the line is too long …

From the north exit of the Isehara Station,
you may notice a big Torii 鳥居 next to Isehara Branch of Resona Bank.
On the day of Noh Festival,
there is a notice propped up on the pillar of Torii,
saying
“Afuri Shrine Fire Festival and Torch Light Performance of Noh.”

We are getting on the bus.
This signboard says
“Although Oyama Afuri Shrine has
Noh theatre performance tonight,
we cannot guarantee a fine weather.
Please accept any radical changes
in program due to weather.
All the seats are outdoors.
Please prepare yourself for rain or winds.
Usage of umbrellas is strongly discouraged.”

Shamukyoku-Iriguchi Bus Stop 社務局入口

At Shamukyoku-Iriguchi stop, we get off the bus, and cross the road and the bridge over Suzukawa River 鈴川. The road to the performance site is VERY congested from the bus stop. It’s difficult to get lost your way, so don’t worry. There is a community surrounding the administrative office of Afuri Shrine including several tofu shops. You can purchase tofu there before entering the venue, and ask the store people to keep your tofu in their refrige to be picked up after the performance. Their tofu is De-Li-Cious. If you are a bit more courageous, you can also ask them to give you tofu refuse, Okara おから in Japanese, made of soy beans. Normally, the people in Oyama town are generous and give you okara for free. Okara can be a very good veggie burger and many dishes (recipes here.) 😋 Once you situate yourself in the venue, just relax. Your fellow theatre goers may have a good time with beer and sake under the open air of Mt. Oyama … the atmosphere was very similar to summer concerts in the forest of Kenwood. Picnic foods, wine, laughter ...

Just follow the crowd.

Fire trucks are ready for the festival.

At the end of the road is the ticket booth for reserved seats.

Turn left at the booth for reservation,
and first right to the “free” seats.
You have to have an invitation postcard
to pass the gate over there.
More to this postcard at the end of this post.

One of the tofu shops
located in front of the admin office of the shrine

From the admin office,
we could admire the peak of Mt. Oyama,
under the cloud …

There is a bit of a story about Noh performance in Afuri Shrine. During the long history of Oyama worship, the most powerful patron for the shrine and Oyama Temple 大山寺 was Tokugawa Shogunate that governed Japan for 1600-1868. It was the time when Oyama pilgrimage from Tokyo (Edo 江戸) became uber-popular. Many people and, inevitably, conflicts were brought in to the sacred mountain. One of the most serious was a rivalry between temple monks and Yamabushi priests 山伏 affiliated with the shrine. Often, they were young and ambitious “religious males” to pursue the “purest doctrine of their belief” and disdained “unbelievers” active in the same Mt. Oyama domain. They fought, physically and daily. (Sounds eerily familiar in some other parts of the current world, doesn’t it?) Shogunate worried the escalation of violence, and envisaged a clever solution. In the late 17^th century, they dispatched a Noh master, Kishi Matashichiroh 貴志又七郎, from Kishu Kanzeryu School 紀州観世流 to Mt. Oyama and let him organize twice-yearly official Noh performances acted by monks and priests TOGETHER. Creating a theatrical performance requires a damned-well team work. If that’s the order of Shogun with absolutely superior military power, young gangs in the mountain had no choice to study and work together under master Kishi. (Hm. Sometimes, a dictator could act very effectively ...) Eventually, they had no time to fight and the peace arrived in Mt. Oyama. The tradition of Noh performance continued till Americans started bombing Japanese cities in 1944. After the war, for a while, money and people were dissipated to hold performing arts in Mt. Oyama. Then, about 40 years ago, together with the previous chief priest of the Afuri Shrine, the largest school of Noh, Kanzeryu 観世流, and the oldest school of Kyogen 狂言, Okuraryu 大蔵流, began the project to resurrect the tradition. In 1980, the current style of “Afuri Shrine Fire Festival and Torch Light Performance of Noh” was established. The 2017 event is its 37^th. Oh, by the way, for a full-Noh performance program, Noh and Kyogen must be presented alternately.

They are the seats for 4000 yen.

The Noh stage of Mt. Oyama Afuri Shrine.
It’s one of the best Noh stages in Japan.

The idea of revived Noh festival in Mt. Oyama is a combination of the fire festival traditionally held in late August and the Noh performance under torch lights with a community theatre component. This year, the first night of the festival was opened by Kaniyamabushi Kyogen story 蟹山伏 by Oyama Community Kyogen Group 大山狂言. It’s a classic comedy of arrogant Yamabushi who was tormented by a mountain crab goblin. The actors of the program were enthusiastic amateurs who train themselves to preserve 300 years’ tradition for a community theatre of peace. It was a fun! Come to think of it, the origin of the event was bigheaded behavior of Yamabushi and monks. Ordinary people laughing out loud their snobbism is the best fit for the occasion. After Kaniyamabushi, the mayor of the City of Isehara and the local representative for the National Diet gave a small speech to celebrate the festival. They were followed by a ritual of purification by the priests of the shrine to announce the beginning of the fire festival. Next, in time to ancient hypnotic court music played by priests, young shrine maidens brought the fire created at the peak of Mt. Oyama to the sacred space next to the Noh stage. A pile of firewood was situated at the center of the place demarcated by 4 pillars of purified bamboos on which the maidens lit the fire. Then, the priests recited the chant, expressing the gratitude to God Oyama, and asking peace in human world. The prayer was reinforced by following arrow-and-bow and Japanese pole sword rituals 弓矛神事 on the Noh stage. Finally, the priests transfer the sacred fire to the torches strategically located around the Noh theatre. When the community actors performed, the sun was still shining and the cicadas were singing merrily in the forest. By the time the priests made the fire torches, the voice of evening cicadas was echoing in the forest of slightly chilly but pure air. The stage was ready for the professional Noh actors.

Kaniyamabushi Kyogen

The shrine maidens to transfer the sacred fire

The fire ritual

The arrow and bow ritual

The priests are making torch lights for Noh performance.

The opening of a full Noh theatre is always Hitori-okina (“An Old Man Alone”) 一人翁. At the beginning of 2017 torch-light Noh in Mt. Oyama, a priest conducted a rite of purification for the actor and musicians of Hitori-okina on stage. Then, the Noh actor Kanze Yoshinobu 観世芳伸 performed the dance of offering to God Oyama, Hitori-okina. The beer-and-loud-chat atmosphere at the beginning completely disappeared. But unlike Noh theatres indoors, the forest in the mountain, darkening sky, smells of torch lights and water of nearby Suzukawa River … curiously claim their absolute existence during this semi-prayer dance. Hitori-okina was followed by two Shimai dance 仕舞, Dohkan 道灌 with Matsuki Chitoshi 松木千俊, and Matsukaze 松風 with Takeda Yukifusa 武田志房. Shimai is a sort of abridged Noh dance taken from a longer story and performed without masks or specific costume. I was amazed by simply-clad actor’s small movement of arm, or of a golden fan that could change the flow of air at once in the theatre. The expectation was mounting. The penultimate program was Jizohmai Kyogen 地蔵舞 performed by Yamamoto Tohjiro 山本東次郎 (an Living National Treasure title holder) and Yamamoto Yasutaroh 山本泰太郎. Jizohmai is a comedy where a monk declared abstinence during his pilgrimage but in his effort to find one-night shelter in a mountain succumbed to drinking and started to dance called Jizohmai. 80 years old Yamamoto Tohjiro sit very cute in the center of the stage, looked like an emoji of a teenage girl. The charm of Kyogen of that night was both programs incisively making sarcastic remarks about the self-importance of Buddhism monks and Shinto priests, without being cruel for anybody. Maybe, that’s the secret to settle a bickering among too-ardent religious people. By the end of Jizohmai, Mt. Oyama was in complete darkness where the torch fires illuminated brightly the stage, and the shadows of forests were drifting with the chorus of crickets. The entire space was vast-open, but the stage without any props was like a core of concentrated something. The conclusion of the evening was Funa-Benkei 船弁慶 which is a story of a defeated samurai master Minamoto-no Yoshitsune 源義経. During his rout, he had to bid a farewell to his beloved wife Shizuka 静御前 and battle against a ghost of slain enemy Taira-no Tomomori 平知盛, with a help of his faithful follower monk Benkei 武蔵坊弁慶. When the first protagonist Sizuka was on stage, the air was beautiful but painfully silent and tense. The actor Kanze Kiyokazu 観世清和 (the current grand master for Kanzeryu School and a recipient of L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) wore beautiful female mask and just by slightly changing a direction of his movement expressed silent agony of the brave but desperate wife. After the lovers separated, the second protagonist, the ghost of Taira-no Tomomori by Yamashina Yaemon 山階彌右衛門 (a younger brother of Kanze Kiyokazu), burst in the stage with a fury for revenge. He wore the mask of devil and menacingly approached to the party of Yoshitsune. The actor did not wear any bloody costume or smelly-looking gown like characters in Macbeth, but we could feel the death. I had a flush back of a scene I encountered ages ago in Bois de Vincennes for Théâtre du Soleil. My French is so rudimentary that it’s unfair to comment the intention of Ariane Mnouchkine … but I realized what she wanted to have in Paris could be this intensity in Oyama Noh created from the medieval script from Japan. Both stages were in the forest … Cartoucherie de Vincennes created a stage by closing off the space with a tent. Oyama Noh set a stage without any wall and let the forest to interact uncontrollably during the performance ... Oh what the difference a forest can make to human expression … Around the time Sizuka withdrew from the stage, the 13^th night moon appeared above the stage, welcoming the ghost of defeated soldier. Over the waning moon, the clouds were moving slowly just like the movement of Noh actors. The moonlight and torch lights changed the silhouettes of the forest over the stage meditatively … The evening was ended by another prayer dedicated to God of Oyama. Great. The art in the forest.

Er, well, the photos of professional actors were not taken
as I thought there must be copy right issues.
But, the moon is beautiful, isn’t it?

An empty space again

If you plan to have an invitation ticket for a free seat for Oyama Noh Festival, you send a reply-paid postcard by Japan Post to

The Committee for Himatsuri-Takiginoh at Oyama Afuri Shrine　大山阿夫利神社社務局火祭薪能実行委員会

355 Oyama, Isehara City, 259-1107　伊勢原市大山355

(phone) 0463-95-2006

with your name, address, phone number and the date you plan to attend in message part. One application per person only. No group request accepted. Deadline of application is 2 weeks before the first performance. If the number of applications exceeds more than 1000, the shrine holds a lottery and luckies will receive an invitation postcard in reply. Otherwise, their reply says “we are sorry.” They accept the application from August every year. Good luck!

Fixing a hole with Red Clay: repairing charcoal kilns in Niiharu

Last winter, Charcoal Making Club of Niiharu Lovers struggled to bake bamboo charcoal. We lit the fire at 6:00 for the charcoal kilns, and they could not be hot enough at 20:00. Later, when we opened the kilns, we found out the bottom of the metal barrels had huge holes which made it impossible for the kilns to cook bamboos efficiently. This summer, Charcoal Making Club did a major overhaul for kilns by replacing the broken metal barrels with high spec oil drums provided with the courtesy of one of the world majors. There are many designs for modern charcoal kilns in Japan. (Photos can be seen here.) Niiharu’s kilns are made of a drum of 57cm of diameter and 90cm tall, buried in red clay. The bottom of a drum has a hole of 11cm diameter. The bottom wall of the drum also has 4 holes each of which is connected with a pipe of 5cm diameter. The top of a drum is a lid with a hole for a Ø3cm pipe. The drum is then put on a U shaped concrete gutter as its Ø11cm hole is over the trough. The drum and gutter are held by red-clay loaded in a space surrounded by four 150cm*120cm metal walls. The clay holds the drum and 4 pipes by piling up the square tightly to the rim of the drum. When we see the kiln from a side, it looks like a metal box situated on a clay mount with 4 pipes sticking out from the top.

A sectional view of Niiharu’s charcoal kiln

It’s a view from the above of the kiln.

The Lovers took out the metal barrels
from the structure.

The new kilns.
I didn’t know there were several kinds of metal barrels.
My seniors said the new barrels had thicker wall
so that it can keep the heat well.

The science of charcoal making is, when we add heat on logs slowly but continuously in an almost sealed-up space, they start to heat up themselves and release volatile substances their cells hold. If we keep burning them by firewood, they will eventually become ashes which are the materials, such as metals, that cannot evaporate with the energy created by camp fires. In contrast, if we stop adding external energy, but create tightly sealed environment for the heated logs, they continue to burn themselves slowly with very limited supply of oxygen and discharge unstable oils from their body as much as possible. Though, without new fire supplied, the closed structure eventually cools down and the self-combustion of logs inside also stops. The logs burned in this way end up as a chunk of carbon. They are now charcoals which are incompletely combusted logs in a shut room. When a charcoal is very close to pure carbon, they do not contain volatile element much. Unlike firewood, they can burn for a long time without creating flame. In other words, a charcoal kiln intends to let the logs free the unstable elements completely during combustion. Niiharu’s kilns are designed to do that just by burning firewood in the concrete gutter. As this is for weekend forest volunteers, it’s not for cooking wood charcoal for days, but for one day making with bamboos. Even though, the inside of the kilns must reach around 700ºC that made the previous metal drums porous, and the concrete slab that sealed the U-shaped gutter with the metal drum crumbled when we removed the red clay to take out the metal drums. The power of fire and heat …

The difference between completely burned woods and charcoal.
One of my senior Lovers showed me how different they were.
Completely burned woods looked like a charcoal,
but they were very fragile and easily became ashes
just by rubbing them between the fingers.
In contrast, our bamboo charcoal maintained its form
and emitted metallic sound when we gently tapped them.

The dug-out metal barrel, upside down.
It was surely worn out.

The side wall of the barrel.
No wonder the kilns could not heat itself up well.

I now know the pipes at the bottom wall of a drum were not welded but inserted to the hole and stabilized by clay. The pipes are for volatile substance inside the bamboo free to evaporate. The red clay is typical soil in Kanto region especially where the volcanic ashes from Mt Fuji fell. I asked if we can just burrow up the land wherever allowed in the Niiharu Forest to replenish the stock. “Huh? Of course not. Niiharu is rich forest with lots of fallen leaves and the other organic materials. When we use the top soil, those organic materials will be burned during the charcoal cooking, and the mud cannot seal the kilns tightly.” So, we’ve been to a place in the forest where we can harvest the clay beneath the top soil. We have to DIG deeply. I also noticed the difference in red clay between “before” and “after” of charcoal cooking. When we dug out the drums from the structure, the “clay” was hard by tapping, but could crumble easily into very fine grains with a strike of spade. We needed face masks to operate to avoid coughing. In contrast, freshly procured red clay is dense. By adding water, we can make mud balls easily. I understand why a desert is desert … The tierra of desert was exposed to direct sun light continuously. It must have turned into the “after” clay of Niiharu’s kilns. I guess the organic richness of the soil is definitely greater in Niiharu than those places in desert in China …

Red clay in Niiharu

We dug a hole to harvest the clay.

You may say there are lots of red clay
in our charcoal making hut.
Actually, we used up almost all of them during the repair.
My seniors said this winter we have to procure more
before baking charcoals in order to seal the kiln.

Hmmm, it may be difficult to see in this photo
the difference between the “fully-baked clay” and newly procured one
... I hope you sense the texture of before-baked clay
in the bucket by comparing the baked clay surrounding it.

The red clay was in full-operation during the renovation. After replacing the crumbling drums and slabs, the mud balls were applied to seal the gaps and holes of the metallic materials, to act as a plaster for bricks and U-shaped gutters to stay together, and to attach tightly the pipes at the bottom wall of a drum. Hmmmmm … playing with mud balls in kindergarten must be something in order to learn the basic technology of human settlement. Hey, moms in the world, don’t stop your kids to play in mud. Certainly their garment could be damaged beyond repair, but that’s an important experience to understand human history! The mud-pasted structure is next stabilized by piling dry red clay within the 4 metal walls. … In the end we worked reticently to fill the once emptied space. Digging the thing out, and digging the thing in. Zen ...

The walls were temporarily removed to work in the kiln.

The worn-out walls were replaced by new metallic panel.
But …

Lovers noticed the newly procured panels have holes.
So, they were sealed by mud balls.

“Hey, I’m a city boy of Yokohama,
and have never done indecent things of
soiling my pants when I was a kindergartener.”
“Well, so you have to do it now.”

Preparing mud balls

Plastering the bricks was also with mud balls.

Before setting the barrel

First, situate the marble …

Then, seal the space with the clay,

Put the marker for the Ø11cm hole,
and seal the remaining gaps with more clay …

And set the metal barrel.
“Watch out for the direction of the 4 holes.
They must be on the diagonal line of the space.”

Next, we inserted the pipes
and adjusted the direction of the kiln in diagonal.
It’s because when we bake the charcoal,
long bamboo chimneys will be attached to the pipes
which go out from the holes of the walls of the hut.
The diagonal direction of the pipes is determined
by the locations of the side holes.

An operating kiln with chimneys should look like this.

At this stage, we made it sure
the mouth of the pipes inside the barrel smooth.
Otherwise, when we load bamboos to be baked,
the ledge created by a pipe impedes packing.
When we cook charcoal,
inside of the barrel should be tightly filled as much as possible
so as to make the circulation of the heat efficient.

Now the pipes were provisionally stabilized with a hemp line.

Then the gaps between the pipes and the barrels were
sealed by mud balls from outside.
All in all, sealing the space inside of the barrel is very important.

Now cover the bottom of the barrel with red clay a bit
and stomp it over to make the closure for sure.

And pile the clay up, up, up …

Done!

Now the new charcoal kilns have pretty red and blue lids in Niiharu. We hope this winter we can finish our baking within 8 hours. Fingers crossed.

If you find a problem in Niiharu Forest, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North 北部公園緑地事務所

Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016 (I guess in Japanese only)

FAX: 045-316-8420 (I hope there is somebody who can read English …)

Niiharu Administrative Office / Satoyama Exchange Center 新治管理事務所・里山交流センター

Phone: 045-931-4947

Fax: 045-937-0898

Email: info@niiharu.jp

http://www.niiharu.jp/