Our part for this Black-Market Truths exposition consists of artistic experiences of walking through urban (Tokyo, Kyoto, Kanazawa) and sacred (Kumanokodo, Ise) Japan: Going on Beyond. This is interwoven with the acts Hiromi and Yamamba.

Yamamba
We process the mythology of Yamamba - the old Mountain Crone. In legends, she is an

enigma: ‘she is, simultaneously, a benevolent demon,  a supernatural human, and an enlightened being tormented by delusive attachments’ (Brazell, 207, 1998). 

From the original Noh play by Zeami:

And then there is Yamanba:
birthplace unknown, lodgings uncertain,
wandering with clouds and streams,
no mountain depths unreachable

Yamanba as a symbol represents contradictions with regards to grief and madness. She activates thinking around the interpretation of certain societal prejudices – she who has no home must be a mad one, she who wanders alone does not belong to society, she who has no known birthplace is bound to live as an outcast. The Noh play Yamanba by Zeami processes the legend of Yamanba through Buddhist concepts: ‘a she-demon appears before our eyes; however, when right and wrong are seen as one, form itself is emptiness, and likewise’ (Brazell, 222). Through poetry, Yamanba instead appears as a being entangled with nature, thus praising concepts of non-dualism popular in medieval Japan. Yamanba is portrayed as a being who watches over the mountains and co-exists with the clouds. The words Form then is emptiness, emptiness then is form - shiki sokuze ku; ku sokuze shiki comes from the much quoted Heart Sutra.

Hiromi
We also invite Hiromi to perform. In fact, they will start our presentation.Hiromi (Hero + me) represents the cultural suffering of being in-between cultures, expressions, genders, social class, ages, stages. They perform to Doomsday by Nero, from the computer game first-person role-playing shooter Borderlands 2, a computer game played by many young male teenagers.

Going on beyond

In this video, we engage with the environment as we walked on Kumanokodo; an empty tunnel near Tsugizakura, the hot spring river Kawayu. We also collaborated with the art collective KyojimaEki, and the musician and contemporary Shirabyoshi Makiko Sakurai, both based in Tokyo. You hear Sakurai’s singing as well as her playing on the ryuteki flute. You also hear Ami reading part of the Heart Sutra in English as well as singing it in Japanese together with Zen monks (2013).

form then is emptiness, emptiness then is form.

feeling, thought, will and consciousness

likewise nothing more than emptiness

Nothing is born, nothing dies,

nothing is pure, nothing is stained,

nothing increases and nothing decreases

in emptiness, there is no body, no feeling,

no thought, no will, no consciousness

No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind

No seeing, no hearing, no smelling, no tasting, no touching, no imagining

no ignorance, no ignorance

There is no old age and death and no end to old age and death

No suffering, no cause of suffering, no end to suffering, no path to follow.

No attainment of wisdom, and no wisdom to attain.

Therefore, heart has no mental hindrances.

No mental hindrances, therefore no exist fear and fright.

able to remove everything suffering.

Going, going, going on beyond,

always going on beyond

Wisdom Heart Sutra

Returning to the mountains
We end our presentation with a song in Swedish, translated from the last scene in Zeami’s Noh-play Yamanba, and re-composed and sung by Kajsa Magnarsson. 

Mountain Song (by Zeami Motokiyo, Kajsa Magnarsson and Ami Skånberg)

Now I must go
Return to the mountains
To watch over every tree with my breath
In the spring noticing the signs
Watch over every sign
of buds that break out
flowers blooming

In the autumn
Find the best place for moon viewing
Seeing the light of the moon
The best view of the moon
I wander around the mountains
In the mountains Around the mountains
To welcome the cold
The clouds heavy with rain
Come rain
Come rain
To watch over the rain with my breath
In the mountains where I wander
Around around
Come snow
Come snow

- Brazell, Karen, ed. Traditional Japanese theater: an anthology of plays. Columbia University Press, 1998.