やがて、鹿は人となる/やがて、人は鹿となる Eventually, Deer Become Men / Eventually, Men Become Deer
東北地方に三百年以上前から伝承されてきた鹿踊(ししおどり。獅子踊、鹿子躍などとも書かれる)。五月初旬、岩手県大船渡市と宮城県南三陸町にて現代まで受け継いできた保存会の方々を訪問し、家々を練り歩く鹿踊に同行、装束などを見せて頂いた。八人が扮した鹿たちは、時に勇壮に舞う姿も見せるが、一方で死霊を慰めるように静かに口伝を唱え、万物を供養するという役目を担う姿を目の当たりにした。
石巻に戻り、猟師とともに森の中を歩いた。先程まで牡鹿が居たと思われる斜面では、仄かに漂う気配を感じながら、微かな匂いを嗅いだ。鹿たちの獣道を教わるためだった。その道では、角で傷つけられた樹々に目が留まった。陽光が差し込み、樹がこちらを覗き込んでいる。僕は手に握っていた鹿角を、森へと差し出した。
(「やがて、鹿は人となる/やがて、人は鹿となる」、「Elnias Forest」展@Reborn-Art Festival 2019 会場テキストより抜粋)
For more than three hundred years, the folklore dance culture: “Shi-shi Odori (Deer Dance)” has been spread in variations and inherited over the wide region of Tohoku. Early in May, 2019, at Ofunato city in Iwate prefecture and Minami Sanriku town in Miyagi prefecture, I visited the members of several organizations who have cooperated to preserve those folk traditions to the present. They gave me opportunities to accompany with the parade of “Shi-shi Odori” to each of the individual houses in some local areas. Also they shared the knowledge with me on their characteristic costumes including ornaments and musical instruments etc. As a form of folk performing arts, eight players as deer demonstrate a brave and dynamic dance to the public. However, I was convinced that their another important role was to perform religious ceremony in the local community, when I observed their ritual form of prayer to recite calmly the traditional chant of requiem for ancestors and to hold a memorial service for all the spirits.
Later, in Ishinomaki city, I walked in the forest with a hunter. He introduced me to a slope where we supposed that a male deer must have been there for a moment ago. Sensing a hint of his presence around us, we smelled his scent in the air to follow him. Actually it lead us to the hidden trail of wild deer. On the way of tracing that track, marks on the surface of trees which deer carved with antlers attracted our notice as a sign. Eventually, I found a tree in the ray of sunlight casting a gaze towards me. To correspond to it, I presented an antler of deer in my hand to the forest, in return.
(Text from Eventually, Deer Become Men / Eventually, Men Become Deer exhibition at Reborn-Art Festival 2019)
- Grassland Tears
- 辺つ方の休息 Tranquility at the Shore