BALLET
Lastly, I would like to point out another important issue in our ballet world. It relates to the death of Fukagawa Hideo, who died last year. After his death, his family members and coworkers, together with some influential people, founded the organization Fukagawa Ballet Welt to continue the legacy of Fukagawa’s artistic works. Their goal was to protect the copyright of his works while at the same time making them more available. We have so many world-standard productions and choreographers like Fukagawa in Japan, but these works can only be staged under the choreographers themselves and the rights are attached to them, so the works virtually disappear upon their death. No one inherits them, and there are no revivals. No one even thinks about treating the choreographic work as a “product” in itself. And there is no viable system that enables these established works to continue to be staged. Otsuka Reiko in Tokyo, Hara Mika in Kyoto, and Hatano Sumiko in Hyogo all revived Fukagawa’s well-established short pieces this year. But nobody knows whether his works will continue to be staged or whether we will be able to pay tribute to our ballet choreographers and 096
inherit their works as other countries do. I hope that an organization like the New National Theatre, Tokyo, will look into the possibility of establishing a viable system, not only to protect the rights of Japanese choreographic works but also to make it easier to stage them. Urawa, Makoto Urawa Makoto is the stage name for Ichikawa Akira. He is a former professor of Culture Studies at Shoin University and a former advisor to the Association of Public Theatres and Halls in Japan. He has written articles for newspapers and magazines as a dance critic. He has been a member of various committees such as the Agency of Cultural Affairs and served on the judging panels of various dance competitions and awards. (Translation: Ishikawa Mai and Donncha Crowley)