Message from‘UNAI’（劇団うない）,
an all-female theatre company from Okinawa
Unai is honored to be invited by the Hawaii United Okinawa Association with the support from Okinawan Prefectural Government to perform at Hawaii Okinawa Center on Sunday, October 27th, from 2:00 pm. We will present a Ryukyu Opera (or Okinawan musical) entitled ‘Nachijin Nundunchi’, a traditional Okinawan comedy “Teijo-gwa” and Unai’s signature Okinawan dance pieces along with music by Afuso-ryu Ongaku Kenkyuu Choichi Kai, Hawaii Chapter.
We are happy to have this opportunity to show such intangible cultural assets to the people in Hawaii and deepen our ties with those who are preserving and sharing Okinawan culture with us,
We are looking forward to seeing you on October 27th at Hawaii Okinawa Association Center.
August 27th 2013
Rituko Nakasone, Head of Unai
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History of ‘UNAI’
It’s been nine years since “Unai” has started its theatrical activities in 2004. However, in order to explain about its history, we would like to begin the story from 1949, when Theatre Company ‘Otohime’(乙姫), the first all-female troupe in Okinawa, started. Soon after the end of the cruel battle on Okinawa, Ikuko Uema, a distinguished Ryukyu dancer from the Tsuji district formed an all-female dance troupe with several girls she trained herself. Uema’s dance group encouraged the war-devastated Okinawan people who were trying to regain their identity through traditional performance like dances, classic music, and folk songs. Before the war, it was uncommon for women to perform in public and such tradition was mostly limited to the all-female Tsuji Courter which was given a distinct position in Okinawan society. The new era gradually changed the situation, and the Okinawan Civil Office, under the control of the U.S. government, encouraged the promotion of Okinawan performing arts as well as equal opportunity for women. Ikuko Uema took lead of this new cultural politics, and with more female members, founded “Otohime” as an all-female theatre company approved by the new government.
Since then, Otohime gained wide popularity all-over the Okinawa Islands for 52 years, it experienced thousands of stages, including the four-months tour in Hawaii in 1951. The repertoire of Otohime varied from Ryukyuan History Plays in Okinawan language to the fantastic and comical plays. Their most popular genre, however, was their fantastic opera, which included adaptations from western plays and movies such as “Tsukishiro Monogatari”(hinted from Jean Cocteau’s The Beauty and the Beast) and the Ryukuan Opera version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Otohime’s popularity overpowered other local theatre troupes for many years. After the reversion to Japan in 1972, however, the popularity of Okinawa plays decreased due to the new trend of entertainment and people’s change in their interests according to the drastic changes from “Yamato Era” to “American Era” and then back to “Yamato Era” again.
Nonetheless, after the turn of the century, backed up by the international sense of ethnic minority’s right of independence, such as UNESCO’s recognition of six Ryukyuan languages as endangered ones, the Okinawans are striving to regain their era again. According to this new trend, all of the performances presented in Okinawan languages including Okinawan history plays and Ryukyuan Operas, are regaining its popularity.
On this trend, Unai has started its theatrical activity in 2004, inheriting Otohime’s spirits and repertoire, for ‘Otohime’ disbanded after their second leader Hazama Yoshiko died in 2001. Unai was first led by Michiko Kaneshiro, who used to be one of star actors in Otohime for female roles. Currently, Rituko Nakasone, a veteran actor in men’s roles from her Otohime days leads Unai.
Gekidan‘UNAI:gekidanunai16@yahoo.co.jp
URL:http://gekidanunai.ti-da.net/
(by Shoko & Masae)
