The symmetry of the taka-butai stage
The taka-butai of the Music Department, Imperial Palace
At the Heian court (9th to 12th century), performances of gagaku, especially bugaku dance, were often given in gardens at the imperial court and other noble residences. At present, gagaku is usually performed on a stage approximately 7 meters square, called taka-butai (‘high stage’). It is surrounded by red lacquered railings and parapets approximately 90 cm in height, and has a set of stairs at both front and back center. An area approximately 5.4 square of the center of the stage is raised slightly, and covered with green cloth for performances, which gives it its name, shiki-butai (‘covered stage’).
Behind the stage, two pairs of large, vividly decorated percussion instruments, the dadaiko drum and ōshōko gong, are placed in a symmetrical layout to the left and right of center. In performances of bugaku, the accompanying musicians (kangata) sit on stools in an area behind the percussion instruments, which is called the gakuya (musicians’ room). Dancers enter from the back of the stage, those dancing Dances of the Left from stage right (that is, left of the stage when viewed from the audience) and those dancing Dances of the Right from stage left (i.e. right from the audience’s perspective). They climb the stairs at the back of the stage to make their entrance.
Gagaku can be performed on ordinary stages at modern concert halls, and it is also performed outdoors at large shrines and temples.
Traditional training of the musicians
The transmission of continental music and dance, as well as its indigenous counterpart, became the responsibility of the Utamai-no-tsukasa (or Gagaku-ryō, ‘Bureau of Music’) from 701, just before the beginning of the Nara period. The training of gagaku musicians, or gakunin, also began at this time.
At some point in the Heian period, the duties of this body were taken over by another, the Gakudokoro (or Gakusho, ‘Court Music Office’). The gakunin formed hereditary lineages specializing in individual instruments and the like, which came to be known as gakke (‘music families’). The three major centers of gagaku performance were Kyoto, Nara, and Ōsaka (the temple Shitennō-ji), and in later ages the musicians of these centers collaborated in performances at the court within a system known as the sanbō-gakunin (‘musicians from the three directions’).
After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, many musicians from these centers were brought to Tokyo to work at the new Imperial Household Agency. It became possible for men from other families to join the ranks of the gagaku musicians, and now the majority of the performing members of the Music Department are no longer descendants of gakke families.
While the Meiji reforms also promoted the standardization of the instruments and their performance traditions, a traditional means of transmitting the repertoire, known as shōga, is still central: the parts of the wind instruments are learned not by playing the instruments, but by singing them to mnemonics while beating the rhythm.
