©Odawara Art Foundation photo: Changsu, Timothée Lambrecq
At the end of last year, with the sunlight of a short afternoon shining on the Enoura Observatory, the Odawara Art Foundation hosted an improvised performance titled “Musics” by the musician Otomo Yoshihide. Itself a work of art, the Enoura Observatory was constructed by Hiroshi Sugimoto, who spent years moving ancient relics around the site, making use of the undulating landscape to create a collage of times and spaces. The Observatory invites visitors to enjoy an array of completely different views while wandering around the grounds, which include elements such as a stage overlooking the Pacific Ocean, orchards, and bamboo groves, and which have to date hosted several impromptu dance and music events. After participating in “Found in Odawara,” a sound performance by Christian Marclay held at the site over two days in 2021, Otomo Yoshihide was struck by the latent potential of the Observatory, and in 2022 chose it as the venue for “Musics,” his new improvisational music project. The performance reviewed here marked the second edition of the project, and had 10 musicians and one dancer participating.
©Odawara Art Foundation photo: Changsu, Timothée Lambrecq
As members of the audience, having navigated a multi-legged journey by train and bus to get to the site, began gathering around the Stone Stage near the entrance—one with the same dimensions as a Noh stage—some of the performers were already sitting around it, strumming on their instruments. Otomo was rubbing some cardboard, while Ami Yamasaki was sweeping the stone pavement with a broom. Some people were standing on the stage, too, but there was no indication of them getting ready to start doing anything; it seemed more like they had just happened to climb up there.
The performers then went their separate ways, moving toward locations including the Summer Solstice Light-Worship 100-Meter Gallery, where Sugimoto’s “Seascapes” are on permanent display; the Winter Solstice Light-Worship Tunnel; and the Optical Glass Stage. The audience also roamed freely, seeking encounters with the musicians and taking in the sounds that filled the expansive space. At times you would come across someone playing quietly in the shadows, while at others you would catch a fleeting session between musicians passing by.
©Odawara Art Foundation photo: Changsu, Timothée Lambrecq
One of the most memorable scenes for me was the Fossil Cave—a former shed that was used to store farm tools before it was renovated by Sugimoto to house his precious collection—the surroundings of which served as the setting for various happenings. The place features a small plaza reminiscent of the bottom of a mortar and serves as a relay point to the bamboo grove that lies below. Last time, I remember a drum set had been set up next to the Kankitsuzan Kasuga Shrine a little higher up the hill, and two drummers, Yasuhiro Yoshigaki and Yuji Ishihara, were playing it. The drumming was carefully controlled so as not to dominate the whole, but the beat had the effect of binding together and tightening the sounds scattered throughout the space. This time, however, there was only “weak” exchange, on the level of small talk or greetings exchanged by people passing each other. Sachiko M was tapping on the bamboo exterior of the Fossil Cave with a stick, Otomo Yoshihide was blowing bubbles, and Kei Matsumaru threw stones into the bamboo grove below. Rather than use their instruments, whether they be samplers, guitars, or saxophones, the musicians “played” the Enoura Observatory itself, creating truly site-specific music. Objects hitting the bamboo trees grove bounced back, creating an interesting rhythm and echoes. Noticing this, members of the audience started imitating Matsumaru and throwing stones. All of a sudden, even the footsteps of people walking around the site started sounding like music. The chirping of birds in the trees above me entered my ears accompanied by a melody. I felt as if I had been thrown into a realm free not only from the performer–audience paradigm, but also from the time and space defining this event.
©Odawara Art Foundation photo: Changsu, Timothée Lambrecq
©Odawara Art Foundation photo: Changsu, Timothée Lambrecq
©Odawara Art Foundation photo: Changsu, Timothée Lambrecq
Before long, I could see through a window of the Fossil Cave that Otomo Yoshihide and Koichi Makigami had kicked off a session inside. Right next to the small hut, Yasuyuki Shuto was moving his body to the accompaniment of Kanako Mikado’s transverse flute. His figure overlapping with that of Otomo, who had been blowing bubbles in the same place a little while ago, Shuto—the only non-musician participating on the day—assumed the appearance of a musician who makes no sound, rather than that of a dancer. The two sessions, one inside the hut and one outside, were completely independent of each other and flowed along separate paths. This experience of listening to multiple pieces of music at the same time served to really drive home the idea behind “Musics.”
©Odawara Art Foundation photo: Changsu, Timothée Lambrecq
Otomo Yoshihide has for many years now approached music as “the spatial intersection of numerous individual histories, and the resulting occurrences at that intersection,” and has been putting his idea into practice through what he calls “Ensembles”
(*1). In Otomo’s view, music, by its very nature, requires collaboration with others. Thus it is always intertwined not only with those performing it, but also with actors such as technicians as well as crew and audience members, and reflects the society and everyday spaces in which it exists. It is no secret that Otomo’s activities have had a multifaceted impact on the community disintegration and regeneration experienced in the Japanese creative scene after the Great East Japan Earthquake. One is tempted to think of “Musics,” in which several instances of music coexist regardless of whether they intersect with each other, as an elaboration of Otomo’s “Ensembles.” No one can hear everything, and no one can hear the same music. I feel like the concept of music as a metaphor for society, which goes back to John Cage’s “Musicircus” and revolves around the dichotomy of the individual and the whole, has through “Musics” been updated into something even more open.
©Odawara Art Foundation photo: Changsu, Timothée Lambrecq
As I looked in (and listened) through the window of the small and packed-out Fossil Cave, Otomo’s strumming was layered with the rhythmical sound of Makigami’s Jew’s harp and voice. For some reason, I found myself envisioning a hidden sanctuary, akin to the Prohibition-era speakeasies where jazz is said to have been born. “Musics” is an attempt to liberate music from “boxes” and free it from all frames, including those of performer and audience. On the other hand, music has developed as a form of expression distinct from everyday sounds based on the very premise of the existence of a community of listeners in an enclosed space. I’d like to reiterate that Otomo, while questioning conventions, idioms, and forms in every way, does not discard the things he challenges, instead developing a consistent practice of overcoming them through revision. In Otomo’s mind, there’s no contradiction in being on the one hand the most progressive musician out there, and on the other the man behind the soundtrack for the smash hit TV show “Amachan” and an evangelist for pop and jazz from the olden days. The insertion of “music within a box” into a liberated space made for yet another reminder of Otomo’s versatility.
©Odawara Art Foundation photo: Changsu, Timothée Lambrecq
With that in mind, my perception of the final sequence of the event—which revolved around a performance by Yasuyuki Shuto, now in a different costume, on the Optical Glass Stage where the performers had returned— also changed. While Shuto’s presence and movements, which seemed to incorporate the horizon beyond the sea stretching out into the distance, were impressive, the optics of the performance—set inside the frame of the stage and seemingly relegating the music to mere accompaniment—could easily have undermined the concept of “Musics.” (And I actually heard some fellow members of the audience expressing such concerns after the performance.) However, it was music that in the first place created this space for people to gather together in the light of an early winter evening, and that, a phenomenon with millennia of history, is surely something worth listening to. In a lecture about the “Sound Play Group” that he has been conducting for many years for children with intellectual disabilities, Otomo spoke about how, when one child who until then had been mostly improvising unusual sounds learned to play an instrument and was able to play “Miagete Goran Yoru no Hoshi wo” (“Look up at the stars in the night”), he was a little disappointed at first, but gradually came to think of their achievement as a treasure (*2). Otomo is always conscious of the danger that improvised music, which is open to everyone and is supposed to embody freedom, can result in exclusion and the creation of new conventions. “Musics” marks a tentative milestone for a musician who has employed back-and-forth thinking in his search for the ideal form of music. Just as the structure of his ensemble differed greatly between this and the previous edition, Otomo has more than one answer to the question of what is ideal, and I look forward to the opportunity to hear what his next—and surely updated—hypothesis will sound like.
*1: Otomo Yoshihide, MUSICS. Iwanami Shoten, 2003. Pg. 186
*2: Otomo Yoshihide, “Keynote Address at the 23rd Academic Conference: Hurdles of Music—On My 18-Year Experience of Making Music Together with Children with Intellectual Disabilities,” Japanese Journal of Music Therapy, Vol. 23, No. 2 (reprint), 2023. Pg. 66
Translated by Ilmari Saarinen
