Speakers: Akira Asada (Critic/Director, ICA Kyoto/Professor, Kyoto University of the Arts)
Shiro Takatani (Artist)

Guest commentators (in order of appearance): Lucille Reyboz (Co-founder/Co-director, KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival)
Yusuke Nakanishi (Co-founder/Co-director, KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival)
Akeo Okada (Musicologist/Professor, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University)
Kazuko Okada (Composer/Professor, Kyoto City University of Arts)
Kohei Nawa (Sculptor/Professor, Kyoto University of the Arts)
Marihiko Hara (Musician)
Ko Kado (Karakami Craftsperson/Owner, Kamisoe Shop)
Oussouby Sacko (Spatial Anthropologist/Director, Center for Africa-Asia Contemporary Studies, Kyoto Seika University)

Moderator: Tetsuya Ozaki (Editor-in-chief, REALKYOTO FORUM, ICA Kyoto/Professor, Kyoto University of the Arts)

Editing and Composition: REALKYOTO FORUM
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Moderator (Ozaki): As we are all aware, on March 28 of this year [2023], Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away. At just 71, one might say his death was far too early. Not surprisingly, considering his extensive and boundary-crossing career, memorial events continue to take place worldwide. Interestingly, Sakamoto also had a substantial connection with Kyoto, and today, we have the privilege of welcoming two Kyoto-based speakers who were intimately acquainted with Sakamoto-san: critic and ICA Kyoto Director, Akira Asada, and artist Shiro Takatani, who will share their insights into Sakamoto’s work. We also welcome eight individuals who, in various ways, had connections with Sakamoto-san here in Kyoto. Later on, we’ll ask them to join us as guest commentators to offer their reflections on the multifarious activities of this one-of-a-kind musician.
Akira Asada published a book entitled Kozo to Chikara (Structure and Force) in 1983 that introduced French contemporary thought to Japan. He was immediately hailed as the leader of New Academism, and became a darling of the age. His association with Ryuichi Sakamoto began around the following year, and went on to involve a string of collaborations.

Around the time Asada first met Sakamoto, Shiro Takatani co-founded the artist collective Dumb Type in 1984 with associates from Kyoto City University of Arts. Along with his Dumb Type activities, Takatani has pursued a solo career in photography, film, and performance. This has included collaborating extensively with Sakamoto in ways likely to be illuminated in today’s conversation. Last year (2022), Dumb Type represented Japan at the Venice Biennale, pinnacle of contemporary art festivals. The composition of Dumb Type’s members is fluid, and during the Biennale period Sakamoto was also part of the group.

To begin our discussion, I’d like to ask Asada-san to share with us his perspective on the achievements and significance of the artist Ryuichi Sakamoto.

– From Classical to Modern and Postmodern

Asada: As Ozaki-san mentioned, since the death of Ryuichi Sakamoto a multitude of people across borders and genres have been expressing their condolences, and offering their memories of him. Due to my long association with Sakamoto, stretching back to 1984, I thought I knew a lot about him, but I’ve come to realize there are many aspects of him that I wasn’t aware of. The depth of his connection with Kyoto may be one. I suspect our discussion today will help us to paint a broader picture of this remarkable man.

How to describe the presence that was Ryuichi Sakamoto? While each of you may have your own image of him, let me provide some information that serves as a common starting point. In the context of Japanese mass media reporting especially, the image of Ryuichi Sakamoto usually begins with the band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), formed in 1978. However, to truly gain a complete picture of Sakamoto, we need to trace back a bit further.

Ryuichi Sakamoto was born in 1952. His father was a literary editor who worked with legendary writers such as Yukio Mishima and Yutaka Haniya, and his mother was involved in hat design. So he was raised in a household steeped in the post-war cultural zeitgeist. Familiar with French music such as that of Debussy, after experimenting with the avant-garde he eventually transitioned to techno-pop. However, prior to all of this, his musical knowledge was rooted in classical music of German and Austrian origin, most prominently that of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, a.k.a. “the 3 Bs.” He not only played their music on the piano but also studied assiduously the analysis of their compositions, and their composition techniques. Even as an adult Sakamoto continued to love learning and, under the title “Schola,” produced CD books and a TV series in an effort to study music anew, covering everything from classical to folk and pop. During this time, I had the opportunity to study alongside him to a considerable extent. Even when selecting recommended performances for the series, he chose true orthodox figures of the pre-war era like the conductor Furtwängler and singer Wunderlich, rather than post-war popularized figures like Karajan or Fischer-Dieskau. For Debussy’s string quartet, instead of recordings by ensembles like the LaSalle Quartet, he chose recordings by the Budapest String Quartet that he first listened to as a child. In this sense it is essential to emphasize that in terms of both cultivation and tastes, his musical foundations were literally classical.

As an extension of this, Sakamoto, awakened to music through Debussy, closely followed the development of modern music by figures such as Schoenberg in the German-speaking world, Debussy in France, and Stravinsky in Russia, along with Bartók in Hungary. After the war, contemporary music was developed by avant-garde pioneers such as Messiaen, followed by Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, and Cage. Japan had it own pioneer in the person of Toru Takemitsu, who starting from Jikken Kobo (Experimental Workshop) performed the most worldwide of any Japanese avant-garde composer, also becoming widely recognized through film and television.
Asada: At Osaka Expo ’70, there was a circular Space Theater in the Steel Pavilion (now known as the EXPO’70 Pavilion, designed by Kunio Maekawa) in which hung over a thousand speakers. There Toru Takemitsu, in charge of the music, invited Iannis Xenakis and his disciple Yuji Takahashi to join him in showcasing cutting-edge electronic music. Keiji Usami also presented a spectacle using laser beams. Meanwhile the German Pavilion also featured electronic music, by Stockhausen. Ryuichi Sakamoto would undoubtedly have been greatly inspired by these experiences.
Asada: At that time, as advances in post-war science and technology, and economic growth, reached a peak, so did avant-garde art. Not only artists but also bureaucrats and executives were saying, “Since we’re showcasing the world’s cutting-edge technology, let’s bring in the world’s cutting-edge avant-garde art. Preferably so cutting-edge the public won’t understand it.” Unimaginable in today’s context. Lowering the bar to the point where even children can enjoy it, we’ve now reached the point where we can only produce third-rate entertainment with cute characters and dancing robots. The upcoming EXPO 2025 in Osaka is likely to be a deplorable spectacle. One of the purposes of that expo is, after all, infrastructure development for attracting integrated resorts (IR) and casinos. Considering the uncertain future of casino IR projects, I believe it would be good to reconsider and even cancel the event now.
Asada: Incidentally, Yuji Takahashi, who took part in the Steel Pavilion exhibition alongside Toru Takemitsu, leaned not only towards the artistic, but also the political avant-garde. He started criticizing artists who catered to festivals of the state and of capital, including his mentor Xenakis, who was invited by the Shah of Iran to give a huge performance in Persepolis, and his friend Toru Takemitsu, who served as the director-producer for the Osaka Expo Steel Pavilion. Rather than using monumental technology, he advocated music-making by ordinary people, not professionals. To this end he launched a group known as the Suigyu Gakudan (Water Buffalo Orchestra), where, instead of using giant technology, ordinary people could make music in the manner of a farmer blowing on a blade of grass as they plow the rice fields slowly with a water buffalo. (A cassette book set entitled Suigyu Gakudan: Vacation was published by Sakamoto’s publishing house Honhon-Do in 1984. I cooperated in its making, having first met Sakamoto the same year.) While Yuji Takahashi did not fully embrace Maoist ideology, he did compose music for Mao Zedong’s poetry. Similarly, Cornelius Cardew, who studied under Stockhausen in Germany, published a critical book entitled Stockhausen Serves Imperialism while embracing Maoism and attempting to assemble a scratch orchestra of people with no specialized training. Incidentally, Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was influenced by Yuji Takahashi and part of the Zenkyoto student activist group at Shinjuku High School, criticized Toru Takemitsu for using traditional Japanese instruments, considering it a reactionary move, and distributed pamphlets at Takemitsu’s concerts denouncing this shift.
Asada: This political radicalization wasn’t limited to music but extended to other forms of art as well. In the realm of cinema for instance, Jean-Luc Godard was a prominent figure. In 1967, Godard directed La Chinoise (The Chinese)—not necessarily Maoist propaganda but a film that critically observed Parisian bourgeois youth enamored with Maoist ideology. Incidentally, YMO later released a song entitled La Femme Chinoise a kind of pop portrait of Mao Zedong, much like Warhol’s pop depiction. Godard, in an extension of this, became politically avant-garde himself. Like Japan’s Masao Adachi, he went to Palestine with the intention of making revolutionary propaganda films. However he faced setbacks both artistically and politically, and following lengthy reflection on the failure of the unrealized film Jusqu’à la victoire, (Until Victory), made a film entitled Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere, 1976) that can be seen as a deconstruction of cinema using video. As avant-garde art becomes artistically and politically radicalized, it often pushes beyond the boundaries of the avant-garde.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, surprisingly, attended concerts by Yuji Takahashi, in his early teens. He might have admired Takemitsu and Takahashi. However, once Takahashi’s generation had pushed the avant-garde to its limits, Sakamoto couldn’t simply follow the same path. Musicians like Holger Czukay who studied under Stockhausen in Germany, found themselves in a similar situation. In response they spun out into rock, forming a band called Can. Others close to Can formed Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk used electronic sound, but didn’t delve into complex and challenging avant-garde music like Stockhausen, instead preferring the endless mechanical repetition of very straightforward, catchy phrases. Their music was completely opposite to that of the avant-garde, which had discarded predetermined rhythms such as the diatonic scale and the likes of tonic-dominant harmony and the fixed rhythms of 4/4 and 3/4, in its pursuit of radicalization and complexity. It became known as techno, and YMO’s music, influenced by it, came to be called techno-pop.

Rock was also popular in Germany of course, but people in the English-speaking world would often mockingly say that rock could only be in English, and belittle Germans as being stiff know-it-alls with zero groove. Kraftwerk could be seen as turning this stereotype on its head. They may well have thought, “Oh, yeah, that’s right. We’re robots, so we might as well make mechanical repetitive music.” As this approach became more widespread, an animalistic groove began to emerge, exemplified by James Brown, and music that could be described as a fusion of Kraftwerk and Brown came to be referred to as techno once again.
Asada: On the other hand, Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), formed in 1978, took a different approach by infusing their music with an Oriental feel. They performed wearing bright red People’s Liberation Army uniforms reminiscent in style of Warhol’s Mao portraits. Both Kraftwerk and YMO would go on to become global sensations. This, I believe, is one of the most vivid examples of the transition from modernism to postmodernism (Lyotard published The Postmodern Condition in 1979). Right after the avant-garde of modernism had become radicalized both artistically and politically, pushing beyond its limits, Kraftwerk and YMO emerged in a highly ironic form. What’s more, their ironically-chosen simple and mechanical format resonated with the public and achieved great commercial success. The reality is that while avant-garde electronic music by Stockhausen or Xenakis and the music composed by Czukay or Takahashi as popular music failed to reach a wide audience, techno-pop captivated pop stars like Michael Jackson and even got preschoolers dancing. In all these respects, the transition from avant-garde electronic music to techno-pop is perhaps the clearest example of the shift from modernism to postmodernism. Ryuichi Sakamoto, invited by Haruomi Hosono to join YMO, personified this shift. On his debut album Thousand Knives released in 1978, Sakamoto referenced the phrase “Dong Fang Hong” (“The East is Red”), symbolizing China’s Cultural Revolution, and responded to the post-historical Europe of Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express in which they sing “Europe Endless,” with his own version, “End of Asia,” thus radiating another kind of postmodernity.
– Before and After YMO

Moderator: Now, shall we listen to some of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music from before YMO?
Asada: This is a newspaper article about the TV show “Untitled Concert,” created and hosted by Toshiro Mayuzumi, a slightly earlier-generation composer than Toru Takemitsu. The article covers a concert where Ryuichi Sakamoto’s early avant-garde music was performed and broadcast. Akik Takahashi, a talented pianist and sister of Yuji Takahashi, commissioned several young composers for a concert, including Sakamoto. In this context, Sakamoto composed a piece entitled “Bunsan, Kyokai, Suna” (Dispersion, Boundary, Sand). A recording of Aki Takahashi’s performance of this piece can be found in the Ryuichi Sakamoto | Year Book 1971-1979. It’s a typical avant-garde piece, incorporating extended techniques on the piano while the pianist reads a self-reflective text, pondering questions like “When I say, for example, that piano sounds are boring, what criteria am I using to perceive them?” It’s a well-crafted avant-garde composition that also includes aspects of self-reflection.

Takatani: So by this time, Sakamoto-san was already working as a studio musician.

Asada: After attending Tokyo University of the Arts for four years, Sakamoto completed a two-year master’s program in the graduate school. Although he went beyond the confines of his specialization, being inspired by lectures on folk music by Fumio Koizumi and lectures by artist Jiro Takamatsu, a member of Hi-Red Center, Sakamoto didn’t engage much with formal classes. Instead, he started participating in the recordings of musicians like Masato Tomobe as a sort of part-time job. Later, he was invited by Haruomi Hosono and, along with Yukihiro Takahashi (who passed away just before Sakamoto), formed YMO. Sakamoto didn’t position himself as the lead singer proclaiming, “This is my song, listen to my song.” Instead, he played more of a versatile assistant role, helping out in the studio with artists like Masato Tomobe and joining YMO because of Haruomi Hosono’s invitation. It seems he had a somewhat cynical attitude, saying, “I’m not sure if this is really the music I should be doing, but since I was asked, I’ll handle it decently,” which, in a way, reflects a somewhat postmodern perspective.
Asada: Following Thousand Knives Sakamoto released B-2 Unit in 1980. It is considered a classic of techno, especially the track “Riot in Lagos.” However, in the subsequent album Left Handed Dream, Sakamoto intentionally created songs with a naive sound, and sings some by himself. After the “spreading out” of YMO in 1983 (not a complete dissolution, as they continued to come together for occasional activities), Sakamoto’s 1984 release Ongaku Zukan (Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia) presented various styles of music he found interesting, arranged like an encyclopedia. It seemed to say, “I won’t decide which is good. Everyone, enjoy your favorite tracks.” This approach also makes it a fitting piece for the postmodern era. This was the year I first met Sakamoto, contributing to the concept book for Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia, and collaborating on “Water Buffalo Orchestra: Vacation,” and I continued to work with him into what would sadly be his final years.
Asada: 1983 was a year of significant events unfolding in many artistic domains. Renowned Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima cast Ryuichi Sakamoto, alongside David Bowie, in the movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. In an unusual step, Sakamoto also offered to compose music for the film, including that famous tune, marking the beginning of his career in movie soundtracks.

On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, 1983 was the year I published my first book, Kozo to Chikara (Structure and Power). It was also the year Shinichi Nakazawa released Chibetto no Mootsuaruto (Mozart in Tibet). This period marked the beginning of the popularity of structuralism/post-structuralism, in other words, the onset of postmodern thought. In this intellectual landscape, Ryuichi Sakamoto and I drew closer, as did Haruomi Hosono and Shinichi Nakazawa, though Sakamoto and Nakazawa maintained a long friendship, later embarking on a journey to explore Jomon culture together. In the architectural realm too, the late Arata Isozaki, who passed away late last year, completed the Tsukuba Center Building, a paradigm of postmodern architecture, in 1983. This era witnessed a postmodern boom in Japan, setting the stage for my first encounter with Ryuichi Sakamoto in 1984.

During this period, the Seibu Group (later the Sezon Group) served as a major driving force in postmodern culture. For example, this was when people were talking about the advertising copy of Shigesato Itoi. On the art scene, there were exhibitions by Joseph Beuys at the Seibu Department Store’s art museum, and Nam June Paik (a Fluxus artist and one of the founders of video art) at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and Galerie Watari (now Watari-um). Beuys and Paik performed at the Sogetsu Kaikan, a venue associated with avant-garde music in Japan. Paik was invited by Ryuichi Sakamoto to participate in performances that brought together not only avant-garde musicians such as Yuji Takahashi, but pop practitioners like Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono and Hajime Tachibana. This collaboration also exemplifies the transition from modernist avant-garde to the hybrid experimentation of postmodernism. In the same year, 1984, Laurie Anderson made her debut in Japan, holding performances in Kyoto. This was also the year that students from Kyoto City University of Arts including Shiro Takatani founded the multimedia performance group Dumb Type.

Takatani: We started around the time of Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia. Back then it was mainly Teiji Furuhashi and Toru Yamanaka creating music, and listening to their works again, it is obvious they were heavily influenced by Sakamoto-san’s album. Everyone seems to have been sharing the sound and rhythm of the synthesizers that were becoming popular during that era, to the extent that it might be mistaken for copying. I have a feeling we might have been creating performances inspired by minimal music, by the likes of figures such as Steve Reich.

Asada: The role of minimal music was indeed substantial, with figures like John Cage pushing the boundaries of music to the point of a tabula rasa with his work 4’33” where the pianist remains silent for that specific duration. Following this, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, La Monte Young, and Terry Riley, who now resides in Japan, started minimal music by mechanically repeating simple musical phrases to create alternative orders. In the visual arts, having reached the extremes of a white or all-black canvas (as seen in the works of Rauschenberg, who revisited the achievements of avant-garde art), Minimal Art had emerged that featured small forms or mechanically arranged elements like sticks or boxes, and this was essentially the musical version of that. However, while Minimal Art is considered a late-stage phenomenon in art history’s modernist phase, figures like Reich started incorporating real-world sounds by looping tape recordings, and works like the famous Different Trains suggest a more apt description would be postmodern. The sight of Reich and Kraftwerk sharing the stage at music festivals was certainly a postmodern phenomenon.

Incidentally the term minimal music was first used by Michael Nyman in a review of Cornelius Cardew, mentioned earlier. Nyman gained prominence through his album Decay Music (1976), one of Brian Eno’s Obscure Record issues. Eno went on to create what is now known as ambient music, and in his early days was a star in the rock group Roxy Music, broadly speaking playing a role akin to that of Ryuichi Sakamoto.

– From Contemporary Music to Film Music

Asada: Ryuichi Sakamoto delved into film music with Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence in 1983. Following this collaboration with Oshima, he went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Score for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor in 1987. Sakamoto and Bertolucci were in a way in similar positions. Bertolucci began his career in filmmaking as assistant director on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone (1961). However, he was (as was Pasolini) most fascinated by Jean-Luc Godard, at the forefront of the French New Wave in the 1960s. After becoming politically radicalized and experiencing setbacks during his trip to Palestine, Godard temporarily disappeared from the commercial cinema scene. The question for Bertolucci was whether spectacle in cinema was still possible after Godard’s dismantling. This became his inquiry, and he progressed from works like The Conformist (1971) through to The Last Emperor.

Asada: After participating also as an actor in Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, Sakamoto went on to provide music for the stunning Sheltering Sky (1990) and for Little Buddha (1993), which resembled a Buddhist picture book for children. While he provided music for various films by different directors, these three films with Bertolucci seem to mark one peak in his film score career. Another came with Iñárritu’s The Revenant (2015), featuring Sakamoto’s compelling sound design, undertaken following recovery from his initial battle with cancer.

Takatani: Sakamoto-san took quite good photos , but mentioned that he did not shoot film himself. Nonetheless, he had a deep interest in and knowledge of camera work. His involvement in The Last Emperor, where Storaro’s cinematography and Bertolucci’s direction align, seemed almost destined.

Asada: Sakamoto’s ability to synchronize music precisely with the moment the camera starts moving or when a smiling face clouds over slightly was exceptional. He mentioned working on a microsecond basis, aligning the music precisely with a single frame. However, directors in film, being typically chaotic, might say, “I changed the edit later,” leaving Sakamoto to exclaim, “Oops!” (laugh).

Moderator: We have an unusual video to share; let’s take a look.

[Screening of the video “Field Work”]

Asada: “Field Work” (1985) is a promotional video for the song composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto and performed by Thomas Dolby. Dolby served as the director and lead actor, with Sakamoto also making an appearance. Sakamoto mentioned that the video didn’t turn out exactly as he envisioned, and there may have been some directorial disagreement with Dolby. What’s interesting is that Sakamoto played the role of a Japanese sergeant who, having hidden on Iwo Jima after the war, is discovered and now lives in New York as an elderly man. The character is reminiscent of individuals like Shoichi Yokoi or Hiroo Onoda (more the latter), who remained in hiding without knowing about, or perhaps acknowledging, Japan’s defeat. In Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Sakamoto portrayed a Japanese POW camp commandant. “Field Work” is his attempt to confront the memories of war in line with Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, drawing inspiration from pre-war expressionist cinema, with the exaggerated expressions of that era, also akin to Merry Christmas. In his later years, Sakamoto engaged in his own fieldwork with natural sounds, creating music directly from nature, but in this context, “field work” represents historical fieldwork. And note that in The Last Emperor he portrayed Masahiko Amakasu, head of the Manchurian Film Association in Manchukuo, manipulating Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty and also emperor of the puppet state, in the manner of a movie director.

Moderator: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence was made in 1983, The Last Emperor in 1987, and “Field Work” in 1985, placing it between these two films.

Asada: When asked by Haruomi Hosono in YMO, Sakamoto agreed to write “catchy, saleable songs,” and went on to compose tracks like “Behind the Mask.” Michael Jackson of all people was enthralled by “Behind the Mask,” and it was supposed to be featured on his immensely successful album Thriller, but due to copyright issues, this did not happen. The fascinating aspect of YMO is how they seamlessly transitioned from avant-garde music, relatable only a few, to the level of Michael Jackson.

Similarly, when invited by Bernardo Bertolucci to help shoot a spectacular film even after Jean-Luc Godard had deconstructed cinema, Sakamoto managed to pen a majestic score befitting Vittorio Storaro’s magnificent visuals.

Later on, influenced by the bossa nova of Brazil’s Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Argentina’s tango, Sakamoto performed his versions as part of a trio, captivating Mexico’s Iñárritu with “Bibo no Aozora” (“Beautiful Blue Sky”). He truly did have the capability to do anything.
Asada: In that sense, in my article featured in the May issue of Geijutsu Shincho, where both Ozaki-san and Takatani-san participate in the Ryuichi Sakamoto special feature, I stated that Sakamoto was a postmodern music machine capable of skillfully simulating anything, whether it be techno-pop, romantic film music, or even tango, however, especially after falling ill, he began to play his own music, saying, as someone with a wounded body, as a human being, “This is the sound I really want to hear, and this is what happened when I composed it.” However, to tell the truth, this was an oversimplification, and I would like to make a slight correction here.

Firstly, during the era of Kraftwerk and YMO, I actually felt that Kraftwerk’s total cynicism, where they fully became robots and mechanically repeated simple phrases, made them cooler than YMO, who were like half-human, half-robots, and therefore somewhat half-baked. Fortunately or unfortunately, YMO had an incredibly skilled bassist and a drummer, creating a groove that made listeners dance. Although Ryuichi Sakamoto wore the mask of an emotionless mechanical being, underneath that mask he was actually having fun. Especially during live performances, you could see YMO with Akiko Yano in the background energetically dancing as they performed. So YMO, despite being considered a postmodern musical machine, was all too human, and actually, musically danceable. The same can be said for his film music, tango, and other types of music.

In reality, Ryuichi Sakamoto just loved music, and more specifically, sound. The term “amateur” comes from the French word meaning someone who loves. Though styling himself as a professional studio musician, able to handle any music requested, Sakamoto actually loved every kind of music and, in fact, sound itself. To call him a cynical postmodern music machine would be mistaken. For the sake of the publication, this point was excessively simplified, so I wanted to amend it here. The postmodern music machine, and the human who listens to the world’s sounds with his entire body and transforms them into his own music, are the starting and ending points of his career as a musician. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that the face of the amateur initially hidden behind the mask, gradually came to the surface.

Moderator: In 2015, Ryuichi Sakamoto was in charge of the music for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant.

Asada: After recovering from his initial battle with cancer, the commission from Iñárritu marked the second peak in Ryuichi Sakamoto’s film music career with the music and sound design for this film. Interestingly, in Iñárritu’s Babel (2006), the Japanese segment features Sakamoto’s Bibo no Aozora played repeatedly. At that time, Gustavo Santaolalla, an Argentine composer who had been responsible for Iñárritu’s film music, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. Some say that Sakamoto’s music played a subtle role in this success, and Iñárritu even paid a visit to Sakamoto to express his gratitude. Given this history, it is not surprising that when it came to The Revenant, Sakamoto was officially approached to do the music. At the time he was reportedly quite weak, despite having largely recovered. The term “revenant” means “one who returns,” particularly someone returning from the world of death, essentially a ghost. In a sense, Sakamoto himself was a revenant. Despite his fragile state, at the urging of his partner Norika Sora, who told him that offers for Iñárritu’s film work were rare and he should do it even if it meant risking his life (my words), Sakamoto took on the challenge. Unable to handle it entirely on his own, unsurprisingly, he collaborated with Carsten Nicolai (also known as Alva Noto), also obtaining some assistance from another composer.

Set in a wintry northern land, the film features Leonardo DiCaprio as the protagonist. He fathers a son with a Native American, then referred to as an Indian, but the son is killed by savage white men. The story revolves around the protagonist repeatedly almost dying but returning to this world to seek revenge. The narrative is intense, and the harsh filming conditions led to DiCaprio suffering frostbite multiple times. He also won his first Academy Award for Best Actor. DiCaprio, who had previously portrayed a nefarious and brutally unjust slave owner who proclaimed the biological inferiority of black people in Tarantino’s Django Unchained (reminiscent of Shelly’s Prometheus Unbound), here takes on a role distinct from other white characters, portraying someone close to nature and the Native American way of life. This main character is attacked by a bear, sustaining serious injuries. His occasional utterances become barely audible, yet against this backdrop, there is music that evokes the opening of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. The sheer scale of the music that seems to mimic the gasping of someone near death creates what feels like a faithful reproduction of the sounds of the majestic northern landscape. This work can be seen as the beginning of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s later style, breaking through to the point of not structuring music by organizing sounds (musical tones) excluding noise, but rather converting the echoes of nature and the very cries of the world into music. This music and sound design seemed to be beyond the understanding of the Academy, with its persistent devotion to theme tunes, and the Academy Award for Best Original Score in that year went to Morricone for Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. A questionable decision, because The Hateful Eight could hardly be described as an outstanding example of Tarantino’s work, nor the music exceptional in terms of Morricone’s compositions. I believe that The Revenant is far superior. Nonetheless, the Oscars are merely an industry award, so there’s no real need to dwell on this.

– Encounter with Shiro Takatani

Asada: Later Sakamoto in a sense applied the techniques he used in The Revenant to create a masterpiece of an album entitled async (2017). To allow listeners to experience it in an ideal setting, he staged the “Installation Music” exhibition at the Watari-um Museum, featuring visuals by Shiro Takatani, along with works by Zakkubalan and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. (Note: In 2023, as part of Ambient Kyoto, Ryuichi Sakamoto & Shiro Takatani’s “async – immersion 2023” featuring a 25m display of LED screens and multiple speakers was staged in a large underground space in the Kyoto Shimbun Building. This exhibition marked the culmination of a collaboration that began in 2017 and achieved a scale and precision befitting the description of great work of art). The title “async” refers to “asynchronous,” denoting music where various sonic events are scattered without synchronization to a steady beat.
Asada: This last album, entitled 12, was created when Ryuichi Sakamoto’s cancer returned. The album’s jacket features artwork by Lee Ufan. Lee Ufan is a prominent artist of the Mono-ha (School of Things) movement, who arranges simple “objects” such as rocks or iron, turning the relationships between these objects, and between the objects and the viewer, into art. “Mono-ha” is a term that, like “Impressionism,” was initially a derogatory label, implying that its practitioners were merely placing objects without much artistic effort. In a similar vein to the Mono-ha movement, in his later years Sakamoto reached a point where he believed that since the world is already creating music, arranging the sounds of the world would be enough to create music. The final destination of this approach can be seen in 12, but in reality, this tendency, akin to a Mono-ha approach to music, can already be discerned in the async album.
Asada: To connect with Takatani-san’s story, let’s go back to the past once again. In 1985, at the Tsukuba Expo, Sony created a giant video display called Jumbotron, similar to those found in stadiums. We talked earlier about the radical nature of business leaders during the 1970 Osaka Expo. At this time, Yasuo Kuroki, a design executive famous for creating the Walkman, approached me and told me I could destroy the Jumbotron at the end of the event,” so do something.” To which I replied, “Okay, let’s destroy it,” and performed “TV War” with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Radical TV (composed of Daizaburo Harada and Haruhiko Shono). Radical TV also collaborated on my TV program “TVEV Broadcast” (TVEV stands for TV Evolution), and in that context, “TV War” can be considered “TVEV Live.”
Asada: Much later, in 1999, as the 20th century was coming to an end, Sakamoto received a commission from the Asahi Shimbun newspaper to create a work that would summarize the century, the opera entitled LIFE. However Sakamoto was not fixated on the traditional form of opera, which is just a plural form of opus, where singers sing theatrical lines like in 19th-century Italian opera. Instead, he preferred a collage of sound and visuals. I worked with him in a conceptual designer-like role. When he asked if there was a video artist who could handle this, I recommended Shiro Takatani, a member of the Dumb Type collective (along with other members like Daizaburo Harada). If I may boast a little, this turned out to be a brilliant choice. The collaboration between Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music, summarizing 20th-century music history, and Shiro Takatani’s visuals, summarizing 20th-century history, resulted in a magnificent interdisciplinary artwork of exquisite precision. Their collaboration continued until Sakamoto-san’s death. (And as seen in the example of “async immersion,” even after.)
Asada: This is a photograph of Teiji Furuhashi, a central figure in the Dumb Type collective. He passed away at the young age of 35 in 1995 due to AIDS. Alongside his artistic activities, he delighted audiences in Osaka and New York as a drag queen. This particular photo, taken by Takatani, bears Furuhashi’s signature and was sent to Sakamoto and his partner Sora in New York. I remember he organized an event called Kantsubaki (Camellia hiemalis) around the Doyama gay area in Osaka, something like a gathering of all drag queens. When I took the couple there, they were thrilled, saying, “Osaka is amazing, like Rome or Madrid.” Speaking of which, Pedro Almodóvar, symbol of Madrid’s Movida scene (a colorful cultural movement, including drag queens, with overtones of resistance to the fascist Franco until his death in 1975), and a pioneer in queer cinema, commissioned Sakamoto to create the music for High Heels. Even in Almodóvar’s latest films you may spy Ryuichi Sakamoto’s yearbook casually placed among the belongings of characters moving house. He watched a Dumb Type performance, but seemed to like the late-night drag show after it even more.

After this, Teiji Furuhashi had stayed in New York with an ACC grant, and when I visited New York, I met with him and took him to meet HIV/AIDS activist Douglas Crimp (also known as a critic of postmodern art) to help prepare for an event related to the World AIDS Conference in Yokohama. During that time, he told me that he enjoyed watching CAVE by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), a venue known for the performances of artists like Bob Wilson and Pina Bausch. Although the live performance had already finished, there was an interesting video installation version being showcased at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). It was a soaring yet painstakingly-constructed piece of documentary music video theater, a sort of expanded version of Different Trains that incorporates recorded testimonies from a train conductor who shuttled between the East and West Coasts where Reich’s divorced parents lived during his childhood, Jewish people transported by train from Western Europe to Polish extermination camps during the same period, and post-war Americans. It also explored the theme of the cave in Hebron where Abraham and his family were buried, by collaging the words of Jewish people in Israel, Arab people in Palestine, and Americans, tracing the intonation of their narratives through musical instruments. As a result, I was introduced to Beryl Korot by Barbara London, a curator who had been dealing with video art at MoMA. Being one of the organizers, I decided to invite Korot to Japan for a pre-opening event for the NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC). It wasn’t exactly returning a favor, but in a way, we sent Takatani, who co-founded Dumb Type with Furuhashi, to the Sakamoto team for LIFE.

Moderator: Now, let’s watch an excerpt from LIFE.

[Screening of the excerpt of LIFE.]

Asada: LIFE was performed at the Nippon Budokan (Tokyo) and Osaka-Jo Hall. In the first part, the history of 20th-century revolutions, wars, and music is summarized through visuals and music. The second part presents a vision of ecological coexistence looking ahead to the 21st century, and the third and final part examines the multifaceted question of “Is there salvation?” The beginning features an imitation of the opening bassoon melody of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1913), and towards the end, the melody transforms into a recurring theme for the Requiem without a savior. In between, 20th-century music is simulated successively, creating an astonishing masterpiece that could only be crafted by postmodern musical machinery. One notable segment features Churchill’s speech rallying the British people for a home ground battle against the Nazis, who had occupied France, adorned with Bartók-style music. Another part is Oppenheimer’s famous testimony recalling the atomic bomb experiment, stating, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” set to music resembling Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Consider these sections as Churchill’s Aria and Oppenheimer’s Aria. Oppenheimer, being a great intellectual, read the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit while leading the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. In it, Vishnu appears before Arjuna, who cannot decide whether to avoid the imminent battle. Vishnu speaks of the ethics of eternal recurrence, stating that the moment has been repeated countless times and will continue to be repeated and that even if Arjuna chooses pacifism this time, it will not change the course of destiny, therefore, he should accept his fate and fight. This dialogue culminates with the declaration, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Meanwhile, from the second part onwards, various ethnic music, including Okinawan folk songs by the Okinawa Chans, accompanies biologist Lynn Margulis discussing the importance of symbiosis in the history of biological evolution.

Actually, after the performance of LIFE, Sakamoto-san and Takatani-san were planning to seclude themselves at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) to create a DVD version. However, unexpectedly, an installation version of LIFE was produced instead, leaving only a recorded video for the opera version. This is fairly typical of creative artists, but it would be great to have something like a DVD book with essential information about the opera version of LIFE. For now, there is a booklet for LIFE, including a conversation between Ryuichi Sakamoto and me, and also a book called LIFE TEXT, a compilation of various quotes. I recommend these for a more in-depth understanding of what I have briefly explained here.

– “Without LIFE, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

Moderator: Now, let’s welcome the first of our guest commentators. We have Ms. Lucille Reyboz and Mr. Yusuke Nakanishi. They are the co-founders and co-directors of KYOTOGRAPHIE, the Kyoto International Photography Festival, of which eleven have been held to date. This year they have also initiated a music festival called KYOTOPHONIE. Interestingly, Ms. Reyboz’s life was literally changed by LIFE.

Reyboz [in English]: In 1999, I was working with Salif Keita, and… (teary-eyed).

Nakanishi: Lucille always tends to cry when it comes to Sakamoto-san’s stories. She said she wouldn’t cry today…. Lucille Reyboz, originally a photographer, spent her childhood in Africa. Due to this background, she actively photographed record jackets for African musicians. Among them was the world-renowned musician Salif Keita, who was invited by Sakamoto-san to perform in his opera LIFE.

Reyboz: Salif asked me to accompany him and I stayed in Japan for about two months, capturing photos and videos. I had been a keen listener to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music, and the invitation was extremely appealing to me, given my age of 26 at the time. My experience in Japan exceeded all expectations and was incredibly stimulating. Ryuichi possessed the talent to effortlessly transcend the boundaries of various music genres, blending classical and electronic music, while collaborating with outstanding creators from diverse fields. With Salif’s presence and musicians from around the world, including Mongolia, Okinawa, Sweden, Canada, Brazil, the project showcased a fusion of different musical traditions.

Everyone involved in the opera was inspired and had their hearts opened. Ryuichi not only looked back at the past but also opened the door to the future. We felt strongly connected to the world he envisioned and became a part of it. It was the most wonderful experience of my life.

I took a little video from backstage. I first met Shiro Takatani during the shooting, and later, various circumstances led me to live in Kyoto. If it weren’t for LIFE, I wouldn’t be here now. I am deeply grateful to Ryuichi.
Nakanishi: This was Lucille’s first time working in Japan, and afterward, she became very interested in living here. We met in 2011, just before the Great East Japan Earthquake. I am originally a lighting designer, and Lucille approached me with the idea of creating works based on Japanese ghost stories. Most of these stories revolve around the idea that when humans forget to respect nature, they receive a kind of retaliation from it. After being greatly impacted by the earthquake, we turned that experience into artworks and presented them, and that became the catalyst for starting KYOTOGRAPHIE.

I was deeply impressed not only by Sakamoto-san’s music but also by his statements on society and the environment. Through Lucille, we collaborated on the creation of the piece PLANKTON: The Origin of Drifting Life at KYOTOGRAPHIE 2016. During that time, I had a conversation with Sakamoto-san about life, and just listening to him was a profoundly moving experience.

Moderator: Nakanishi-san’s tearful dedication of KYOTOPHONIE to Sakamoto-san during the opening speech left a strong impression.

Nakanishi: It’s great to hear stories about Sakamoto-san from various people like this, and in Kyoto, there are many creators with connections to him, including those present in this venue. I hope that someday we can collaborate on exhibitions or stage productions about Sakamoto-san.

Moderator: That is definitely something to consider. Thank you very much.

Asada: As I mentioned at the beginning, Ryuichi Sakamoto was not the type of musician to say, “This is my song, listen to my song.” He was more like a mediator or organizer, interacting with various people, bringing them together, and encouraging a synergy that gave birth to various things. KYOTOGRAPHIE has become one of Kyoto’s defining cultural events, and it’s interesting to note that it all started through the good offices of Sakamoto.

– Creation and Evolution of LIFE

Moderator: Now, we have Mr. Takatani here, and he possesses invaluable materials, almost tantamount to trade secrets, regarding the creation and evolution of LIFE.

Takatani: I first met Sakamoto-san around 1990 when I went to see his concert with Asada-san at Osaka Festival Hall. We were introduced in the dressing room after the performance. During the production of LIFE I exchanged ideas with Sakamoto-san, Asada-san, author Ryu Murakami, and others through a mailing list for about two years. About a year before the performance, in the winter of 1998, Sakamoto-san came to Kyoto for a meeting. On that occasion Asada-san brought along a bundle of documents, including texts, poetry, photos, and videos, amounting to over 100 pages, each with handwritten explanations in pencil.

[Showing the materials]

Asada: The 1990s were still the analog era. Nowadays, AI might handle this kind of work, but having someone like this person was convenient (laughs).

Takatani: Absolutely (laughs).

Moderator: Asada-san’s role here is what we now call a “Dramaturg.”

Asada: No, I actually dislike dramas, and I also dislike trying to appear sophisticated by using German terms like Dramaturg. I was just an editor.

Takatani: Based on material like this we created a kind of timeline before entering the video editing room. Of course, we didn’t have access to all the footage, so Sora-san and others, who were managing the production, contacted archives overseas, obtained the rights for old videos and photos, and even prepared alternative footage in cases where we didn’t know until the last minute whether permission would be granted.

Moderator: Sakamoto-san said that the 20th century was the “century of war and slaughter,” simply put, the “century of destruction.” Is it accurate to say that the production started from assembling evidence for this?

Asada: While the first part of LIFE follows the history of revolutions and wars, the second part paints a vision of coexistence on the post-historical horizon. It explores how, from the level of nucleic acids, proteins, and microorganisms, symbiosis has shaped life on this planet.　

Takatani: As we delved into the history in the first half, some have said that since this was a work created in Japan, there could have been more reflection on what Japan did in the past. However, including all historical events in the work was impossible, and this piece is not only from the perspective of “Japan” but was created with what all humans reflect on as humans in mind, and prioritizing significant events in human history. As Lucille mentioned earlier, it seemed important to capture elements that would hit the audience with a sense of “Can such expression be possible?”

Asada: From Sakamoto-san’s perspective, he had engaged with the memory of Japanese imperialism up to works like The Last Emperor . Then in LIFE he looked back on the entire 20th century more as an individual, addressing the question of how humanity would live in the upcoming 21st century. In the second part, themed around “symbiosis,” as mentioned earlier, we experimented with using the internet to connect dancers from various places around the world dancing at the same time. Since I had connections with William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet, I brought in a highly talented dancer/choreographer from that ballet company, Tony (Anthony) Rich, and various others from around the world. In attempting to use the internet as a delay machine that creates slippage rather than realizing simultaneity, this showed Sakamoto-san’s characteristic approach as an artist. Although for better or worse, by this point the technology had already developed considerably, and there was hardly any noticeable delay.

Moderator: LIFE then evolved into installation form.

Takatani: In the process of creating LIFE we discussed how to transform the vast cache of material we’d collected into a work—whether through DVD-ROM, or some other suitable format. Since opera is a performing art with a beginning and end, this was an inevitable discussion. However Sakamoto-san sought a way for the audience to experience the work on a parallel timeline rather than a linear one. Which is why an installation format seemed most suitable.
Moderator: This is LIFE – fluid, invisible, inaudible…, a collaborative work created at YCAM (Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media) in 2007 by Sakamoto-san and Takatani-san.

Takatani: The work has nine tanks suspended from the ceiling, each 1.2 meters square, filled with water. Ultrasonic devices similar to those used in humidifiers generate mist in the water, and projectors project images onto the mist from above. In a completely dark space, visitors walk through as if strolling in a garden where nine water tanks are floating, viewing and listening to historical footage used in LIFE and interviews with various artists and intellectuals commissioned by Sakamoto-san.
Takatani: In water state 1 nozzles are installed in an 18 x 18 grid pattern on the ceiling, and rain generated according to meteorological satellite data. The water droplets fall onto a water basin, and the resulting ripples are converted into sound. This work originated when Sakamoto-san, inspired by beautiful ripples in the bath, took a video with his iPhone and asked, “Can this be turned into sound?”

Another piece, Forest Symphony, was created in collaboration with Sakamoto-san and YCAM InterLab. Trees convert solar energy through photosynthesis, and this work captures the bioelectric potential difference of trees from around the world as data. It then creates a “symphony by the forest” using the difference in electrical potential to generate sound.
Moderator: This is the LIFE – WELL installation.

Asada: I must mention that, although this is the work of Sakamoto-san and Takatani-san, much credit goes to fog sculptor Fujiko Nakaya. Her father, Ukichiro Nakaya, known as the “scientist of snow,” was a pioneer in the artificial synthesis of snowflakes. Fujiko Nakaya has been active as a fog sculptor since participating in the 1970 Osaka Expo Pepsi Pavilion project as a member of the E.A.T. (Experiments in Art & Technology) group. She is now recognized as a pioneer in environmental art. E.A.T. included artists like Robert Rauschenberg, and engineers such as Billy Klüver. In Osaka, David Tudor, known as Cage’s pianist and also a unique composer in his own right, played a significant role within the group. They asked Fujiko to do something for the “ugly” pavilion building, and that’s how the mist covering began. It’s an interesting building, but because E.A.T. followed the Buckminster Fuller philosophy, they weren’t pleased it wasn’t a Fuller Dome.

Fujiko is also a pioneer in video art, having experimented with communication networks using video as a medium, calling it “Video Hiroba,” (Video common) even in the pre-internet era. She gave her support to young, emerging video artists like Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Teiji Furuhashi, and Takatani-san. So Takatani-san has in turn supported her, like a dutiful son.

Takatani: Not really (laughs).

Asada: This work, LIFE-WELL, has mist emerging from a pond resembling a well surrounded by stone walls. Just like in LIFE – fluid… mentioned earlier, mist rises above the water tank, and projections come down onto it, creating beautiful layers similar to frost needles.

Takatani: Thank you. Nakaya-san’s mist is not a chemical mist using oil fog machines but rather a mist made of safe, drinkable water, akin to real clouds. Sakamoto-san was very interested in that. In LIFE-WELL, mist nozzles are installed under the bridge. When mist comes out, its shape is captured by a camera, and the sound changes according to that shape. So, it’s not music composed by Sakamoto-san playing; it’s how the mist changes in this compact environment that alters the music. Once again, note the lack of a “listen-to-my-song” attitude.

Asada: Watching this with me, Nakaya-san said without any malice, complimenting the beautiful work, “When Sakamoto-san and Takatani-san do it, even mist becomes fantastic art. I’ve always been anti-art.” Given her background working with Rauschenberg and Tudor, it’s an interesting comment. It’s as if she is saying, “In the wake of my constant commitment to anti-art, is it really OK to return to such beautiful art?”
– “I don’t like what is commonly referred to as tourism.”

Moderator: In 2005, Sakamoto-san and Takatani-san launched the “Garden Series.” This is footage from the first event, held at Honen-in, a temple in Higashiyama.

Takatani: Sakamoto-san has always been interested in Kyoto, but he often said, “I don’t particularly like what is commonly referred to as tourism.” One day, I learned of various events taking place at Honen-in and thought it would be nice to have a live performance with Sakamoto-san at a temple. Sakamoto-san said, “I’d like to listen to music with about five people while looking at the garden,” (laughs). I set up three small screens facing the garden and projected prepared videos onto them in a random fashion. It was basically a live event where Sakamoto-san played music like a DJ, and the audience sat on tatami mats and enjoyed the performance.

Moderator: Just five people would have been pushing it I think (laughs). How many attended in the end?

Takatani: Around 70, I think.

Asada: What was interesting is that Sakamoto-san noticed that frogs responded to a certain sound by croaking. So he began to conduct the frogs during the performance, emphasizing that the croaking of the frogs was also part of the music.
Moderator: And this is the Yotoku-in at Daitoku-ji.

Asada: Actually, we initially asked Sosho Yamada, head priest of the Shinju-an sub-temple at Daitoku-ji, if we could use Shinju-an. However it was so beautifully and perfectly crafted that there was no room to insert new art, so we decided to choose another location. When we were chatting in the Teigyokuken tearoom of Shinju-an (which is said to be favored by tea connoisseur Sowa Kanamori), it suddenly started to rain. For a while we listened in silence to the raindrops hitting the roof. That seems to have been an unforgettable experience for Sakamoto-san. To borrow a pun from artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, it was like Uchoten (the name of the tearoom at Sugimoto’s Enoura Observatory, meaning both “feeling on top of the world” and “listening to the sky with rain”).

Takatani: At the Yotoku-in we installed three mirrors in the garden, the angles of which could be adjusted using motors, allowing the audience to look at the sky reflected in the mirrors. Sakamoto-san played music in DJ fashion during this event as well. It began with very delicate, almost imperceptible sounds, and before you knew it, you felt surrounded by the music.
Moderator: In between, this is not a collaboration with Takatani-san, but in 2007, YMO performed at the “Live Earth” concert held at Toji temple.

Asada: Michael Nyman also performed there. Despite his talk of post-minimal music, he had actually returned to tonal music, continuously pounding chords, which I wasn’t that fussed on at all….
Moderator: Moving slightly back and forth here, in 2005 a Susan Sontag Memorial Symposium was held at the Kyoto Art Theater – Shunjuza (currently part of Kyoto University of the Arts, formerly Kyoto University of Art and Design). Sontag was a prominent American intellectual, critic, novelist, theater director and filmmaker. Unfortunately, after a long battle with cancer she passed away in 2004. Since Asada-san was close to her, we thought of doing something in Kyoto. A symposium was held right here, followed by a live memorial performance by Sakamoto-san and Takatani-san.

Asada: The novel In America was quoted in the video, but in the end, only punctuation marks remained, and the music ended with noise… I’ll never forget the tremendous crash of the thunder at that moment.
Moderator: Two years later, in the same Shunjuza theater, the World Artists Summit was held. This was the second such event, and Sakamoto-san participated as one of the artists.
Moderator: In 2010, Sakamoto-san began hosting a regular TV program on NHK Educational TV entitled Sukora: Sakamoto Ryuichi Ongaku no Gakko (Schola: Ryuichi Sakamoto’s School of Music). As the name suggests, the show featured discussions with various guests, covering music from Bach to contemporary, including rock, folk, and electronic music. The live recording of the show took place here, and we have Mr. Akeo Okada from the audience joining us. Okada-san, would you please come up?
Okada (Akeo): The Sukora series started with Bach as the first episode, and a special lecture the following year was on Beethoven. The recording for that episode took place here at the Shunjuza theater with students in attendance. I had come as an audience member, but Sakamoto-san noticed me sitting towards the front and invited me to join him on stage.

It was a bit surprising to me that, for the Sukora series focused on classical composers, Beethoven was chosen after Bach. I expected Sakamoto-san might delve into Debussy, Satie, Cage, or minimal music. Beethoven’s intensity and cerebral quality seemed to somewhat contradict the “Ryuichi Sakamoto = Postmodern” image, so it was a little unexpected.
Okada (Akeo): Moreover during that recording, or maybe after it, Sakamoto-san was joyfully playing the second movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 Pathétique. I couldn’t help but ask, “Sakamoto-san, you really like Beethoven, don’t you?” He smiled and replied, “Well, I’m actually quite old-fashioned.” That left a strong impression on me. I thought, “Ah, this person’s roots go back to the civic culture from along the Chuo Line in the Showa 30s (1955–1964)…” Sakamoto-san emerged from the world of 1950s Tokyo salaryman culture. As is well known, his father was an editor, essentially part of that a salaryman-like civic culture. However, he was also connected to those “outside” civic society, including figures like Yukio Mishima. This may be where Sakamoto-san came from, so to speak.

Anyone who knew him directly would probably agree that Sakamoto-san was very sincere —almost unusually so for an artist. His strong desire to be an honest citizen seemed to take precedence over being an artist. One suspects this tendency had its roots in his upbringing.

One more thing to note is that Sakamoto-san, although a top student at Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai), was quite unexpected in his choice of composition teachers. The top students in Geidai’s composition department at the time often studied under Yujiro Ikeuchi, a French-influenced teacher. Students with an admiration for Debussy or Ravel tended to end up under Ikeuchi’s wing. However, Sakamoto-san’s teachers were Kanichi Shimoosa and Yoshio Hasegawa, both German-oriented and disciples of Kiyoshi Nobutoki, known for Umi Yukaba, a popular song among the military, especially with the Imperial Japanese Navy. It’s quite surprising that Sakamoto-san was a “grand-disciple” of Kiyoshi Nobutoki, but it may explain his deep admiration for Bach and Beethoven.

Moderator: Indeed, Sakamoto-san is generally associated with French music, so I think you have provided some very valuable testimony there.

Okada-san, we will hear from you again later, but for now, thank you very much.

– Mallarmé Project

Moderator: Next, let us watch a video from the Mallarmé Project, which took place three times over a span of three years starting in 2010. The venue, once again, is here at the Shunjuza. The project was conceived by the late French literature scholar and director Professor Moriaki Watanabe (who served as the director of Kyoto Performing Arts Center at this university) in collaboration with Asada-san. Professor Watanabe also directed the performances, with readings by both himself and Asada-san. Takatani-san was responsible for visuals and set design, while Sakamoto-san handled the music and sound. From the second version onward, dancers Tsuyoshi Shirai and Misako Terada joined the project.
Asada: Asada: Professor Watanabe was a member of the first generation able to study in France after the war. In those days, it wasn’t like now, where we are connected through the internet. He traveled to France by sea, in his case being forced to take the route around the Cape of Good Hope due to the Suez Crisis in 1956. He immersed himself in French culture, acquired the French language as if it were his own, and as a result, could do readings like actors from the bygone era of the Comédie-Française, something even present-day French people might find difficult. Then after returning to Japan he formed a close relationship with the three Kanze brothers, especially with Hisao Kanze, who was considered a genius. He even practiced noh, and shared the valuable knowledge that “Since Hisao-san was a leftist and opposed the iemoto system (system of family headship in traditional Japanese arts), he didn’t charge for training.” The professor’s readings in French and Japanese were both excellent. Plus, he had a beautiful voice. I thought it would be wonderful to add Sakamoto-san’s music and Takatani-san’s visuals to this.

The poem “The Afternoon of a Faun” (1865-67) by symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé was written with the intention of being recited at the Comédie-Française, but the performance was rejected. In 1894, Debussy composed Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and in 1912, Nijinsky of the Ballets Russes choreographed and danced it himself, causing a scandal (the half-beast god, who had let the nymphs [water spirits] flee, makes a gesture reminiscent of masturbation at the end). However, especially in Japan, perhaps because Shintaro Suzuki’s translation was too old-fashioned and difficult to understand, many people only knew the name. Professor Watanabe retranslated it into an understandable form through oral reading, and he read it himself. Sakamoto-san, who loved learning, saw this as a perfect opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Debussy and despite his busy schedule, accompanied us three times.
Asada: Adding to that, when Cage introduced chance into music, Boulez responded with the concept of “controlled chance,” for example preparing several fragments and randomly selecting and performing them on the spot. In correspondence of that time, while Stockhausen cited Joyce as his reference, Boulez brought up Mallarmé’s “Book” (an attempt to read fragments of poetry picked up from a box randomly). Using a similar technique, Boulez composed a piece entitled Pli selon pli (Fold by Fold), which takes its name from a line in Mallarmé’s poetry.

The Mallarmé Project unfolded assuming such trends implicitly. In the third production, we took up Mallarmé’s speculative novel Igitur (something like an abstraction of Hamlet) and recited it, incorporating several other poems. The dance theater and visuals adorning this, especially the subtitles in French and Japanese on the screen, were beautifully created under the direction of Shiro Takatani, with programming by Ken Furudate. Mallarmé would likely have rejoiced to see the countless points gathered to form letters like constellations, only to scatter again. In the end, “Afternoon of a Faun” was also recited, and listening to Watanabe-san’s well-paced reading was delightful. The dancers dancing naked behind a semi-transparent screen seemed to modernize the Impressionist water bathing scenes. Above all, I was once again amazed at Sakamoto-san’s exquisite improvisation in adding music with a minimum of coordination beforehand.

Takatani: Here is a view of the stage from directly above [shows a stage diagram]. Two large semi-transparent screens are installed on the rotating stage, opening like a book at 120 degrees. The screens can have images projected on them even as they rotate. We designed the stage like this for Igitur because it emphasizes changes in the timeline, shifting to the middle of the night, for instance.

Sakamoto-san plays the piano on the left, and on the right, Watanabe-san and Asada-san sit at the table and proceeded with the recitation. On the table is a crow from the PixCell series created by Kohei Nawa.

Asada: For Mallarmé, Edgar Allan Poe was of decisive importance; he even translated Poe’s “The Raven” into French. The object here is metaphorical representation of that poem. Also, the screens resemble books and, when viewed from above, are reminiscent of the hands of a clock. The rotation of the revolving stage, on which these are placed, evokes the spiral staircase on which Igitur descends underground, and also suggests Poe’s “maelstrom.”

Watching a portion of the footage here, it feels like a dream that such a performance could have taken place in this theater. While it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t further refine and preserve it, like LIFE there are at least three recorded versions, and I think they ought to be compiled somehow, as a valuable legacy of the production.

—————-
(End of Part 1)

This symposium was held on June 18, 2023, at the Kyoto Art Theater – Shunjuza.

Organizers/Operators: ICA Kyoto + Kyoto Performing Arts Center, Kyoto University of Arts
Planning cooperation: Kab Inc./ KAB America Inc. + Dumb Type Office Ltd.
Allow us to express our gratitude to the attendees for their generous contribution. Thank you all.

*Click here for Part 2.