Artist Interview アーティストインタビュー

自らをNoh Actorと称す大鼓方・亀井広忠が見つめる未来の能楽とは?
play
Looking to the future of Noh with Hirotada Kamei, an Otsuzumi (Okawa) artist who calls himself a Noh actor
Hirotada Kamei
Noh is a uniquely Japanese traditional performing art that combines the acting of actors known as
shitekata
and
wakikata
who perform to the narration called
utai
and a musical accompaniment known as
hayashi
. This
hayashi
is an ensemble of ultimate simplicity, consisting of just four instruments, three drums, the
kotsuzumi
, a small shoulder-held hand drum, the
otsuzumi
, a larger knee drum, a
taiko
(a standing floor drum) and a flute (
fue
). Another important element of this
hayashi
accompaniment is the vocal punctuation provided by the
otsuzumi
player. Among today’s
otsuzumi
players, no one is the focus of more attention today than Hirotada Kamei. Despite being still in his mid-30s, Kamei is active at the forefront of his profession, participating in more than 200 performances a year while also instructing the next generation of performers through his positions at the National Noh Theatre and the National Theatre. Hirotada Kamei is the first son of Tadao Kamei, a National Living Treasure and Noh
otsutsumi
master of the Kadono school, and his wife, Sataro Tanaka, the 12th-generation head of the Tanaka school of Kabuki
nagauta hayashikata
. From the age of three Hirotada studied under his father, and today he continues the pursuit of his art as leader of the “Hirotada no Kai” and by actively seeking contemporary developments of through performances of “Noh in the Present Tense” in collaboration with the Noh-Kyogen masters Mansai Nomura and Yukihiro Isso. He has also formed a group with his two younger brothers who are Kabuki
hayashi
performers called Sankyokai in his ever expanding realm of artistic activities. In this interview we talked with Hirotada Kamei about his encounter with the
otsuzumi
, the contemporary Noh world and his vision for the future of Noh.
Interviewer: Kazumi Narabe