Mukashi, Mukashi: Once Upon a Time . . .
28 Sep 2024 - Photos by Yoshikazu Inoue

In a subtly magic opening, a spotlight finds Mukashi, Mukashi's quartet of dancers who transform into wolves, just as the spotlight transforms into a full moon. They howl and the audience enthusiastically joins in. We are primed. And primal. 

Mukashi, Mukashi is a cross-cultural collaboration between two dance companies, the Canadian CORPUS and the Japanese KIO. The exploration of traditional forms of Japanese theatre is fascinating as the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf is told in various styles and variations. There are puppets, dancers as puppets, a wide-eyed anime Red Riding Hood, a fierce Kabuki samurai and a cardboard woodsman. In less delicate hands it would be cultural appropriation, but Mukashi, Mukashi is light and always transparent about the sources of the stereotypes. Who could resist a gyrating K-pop/disco Red Riding Hood?

Of course western theatrical influences are represented as well. Only a salute to old school animation, set to the unmistakable scoring of Carl W Stalling, translates as anything other than mild satire. A tabloid talk show is fun but hardly contains any cultural significance. But then I have to wonder if my cultural bias is showing. Not being steeped in Bunraku or Kyogen theatre styles I was impressed, a Japanese viewer might find those homages slight. There is no way of knowing without considerable discussion and that is not what we are here for. Mukashi, Mukashi is beautiful and silly, influenced the most by sketch comedy or the art of television variety shows, linked by the basic profundity of the Red Riding Hood meets the wolf myth, though being very careful not to explore or analyze the meanings of the tale. There is an overarching innocence that only slides into mild innuendo once. We end with a Japanese fable about a crane. It is a variation of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale and it too ends in a tragic full moon. Beautiful and bittersweet.

CORPUS co-founder David Danzon (House Guests) is credited with the concept and the direction, but the show was created by the performers who switch fluently from English to Japanese (there are surtitles which also include French). Surprisingly there are no jokes or even mentions of cultural confusion, the stuff of so much theatrical navel-gazing, the quartet are just here to put on a show not to be praised for their work. And so they do. Sakura Korin, Kohey Nakadachi, Takako Segawa (House Guests) and Kaitlin Torrance gleefully take on character after character, create origami, and waggle the tails attached to their derrieres. Fairy tales trade in reductive representation which lends itself well to the variations in style and the consistency of grace that dancers present. They slide into a multitude of dance styles as well, always with a sense of having fun instead of slumming. 

As the crane ascends to the full moon, accompanied by echoing wolf howls, we haven't really learned about traditional Japanese theatre, or western popular theatre, but we have learned that there is a cultural bias or distinction. The unknown is always imbued with more weight and that's fine, though Kabuki and Looney Tunes turn out to be less a contrast than complementary. And it has been proven definitively that a wolf, even after rehab, will always want to sink its big teeth into grandmothers and little girls.