Years ago, when I first met Mitsuhashi Ikuo in his bar Le Temps Perdu, he asked me, in French, if I spoke French. Yes, I replied (in French), but I’m American. That’s not what I asked, he said, I only asked if you spoke French. And so we did for the next ten minutes—me, haltingly; he, fluently. It was one of those quirky and interesting Noge-cho moments. And it was a good introduction to a quirky and interesting man. As I eventually learned, he also had a long, storied career as an international performer. This month, as the Noge performance festival kicks off again, it’s worth knowing who started it all and how.
When did you first consider becoming a mime and what was your motivation? How old was I? About 20. Before I became a mime, I had done drama and the stage, but the people doing drama at the time were tall, handsome and had good voices as a matter of course, and that’s not me at all. I thought, what would be my weapon, what would give me the edge? I just kind of settled on pantomiming.
What year was this? I would say about 1968. I think what blew me away was when I went to see a short film called “Two Men and a Wardrobe,” which was Polanski’s first work. Two men emerge from the ocean, carrying a wardrobe in a very surreal scene, and then at the end, you see them disappearing into the ocean, carrying the wardrobe. This left an indelible impression on me. Just about that time, when I realized that this was the kind of stuff I wanted to do, there were dancers all around me and Ohno Kazuo, the legendary Butoh dancer, came to teach at a pantomime studio.
So you entered that studio? How old were you? I was 20, a sophmore at my university. At the same time, Marcel Marceau came to Japan as well. Those two events overlapped and I realized, this is going to be my way in life.
A pantomime studio must have been rather rare. Indeed. In Japan there was only one. When I joined, I was a year and a half behind everyone and had to practice my ass off to catch up. Then someone in the studio formed a group and we started to perform. After graduating from the university, I entered the world of professional performers for three years. I did pantomime at a place in Asakusa called the Matsutake Theater, where everyone was doing comic dialogue, comic storytelling and stand-up. That theater is gone now, but celebrities like Hagimoto Kin’ichi and Beat Takeshi all came out of there. When Beat Takeshi was a student he was doing comic skits at a strip theater next door called Furansu-za, so he would come to watch my performance. After that, I was a regular for about a year on the NHK noon program “Present” and from Monday to Friday, I would perform every day, changing my routines. I became so well known that even when I went out into the country, little kids would point at me. After that, the TV director Ihara, who made some legendary TV programs, talked to me about starting a cabaret, so I joined that. It was a rather famous cabaret in Akasaka called Cordon Bleu.
What kind of cabaret are we talking about? A new kind of cabaret with performance as its main attraction. The shows were fast-paced and absorbing.
Not like the racy kind we have in Kabukicho now. (Laughter) No, it was bright and colorful, and rather expensive, too, so many celebrities were in the audience.
So you had quite a few amazing encounters. Nothing but amazing people. We’re talking members of the Four Leaves, the boy band that launched it all in the 70s– those kinds of people. Anyway, I did that job for a year and then while just musing one day, I began to feel as if I had become an empty shell. I had exhausted all my resources in that short time.
Between graduation and heading off to France, you basically did those jobs the whole time? My cabaret job overlapped with my NHK work, but about a half a year before I went to France, I read that the French Nicolas Bataille had opened a studio in Japan to develop young performers and I started going there. Meeting him, I realized that the performance techniques of what we thought of as pantomime were completely different from his. It was like stepping into a new world– whoa, there’s this means of expression, too! Everything changed after that. I realized that what I had been doing in Japan wasn’t the real thing.
And so even though you had achieved some level of fame, you threw it all away and went to France? Yeah, without a lingering thought at all, I gave up everything and went to France.
At the time, could you speak French? Not a word of it. But my teacher understood Japanese and my goal was to enter mime school anyway. We were pros in Japan and were therefore well above the level of the students, but what caused me a lot of trouble was that the teacher’s explanations were all in French. I couldn’t understand.
But I’m guessing that the language barrier gave rise to new ideas for you. Exactly, because you have to use your imagination, instead of relying on pre-existing concepts. Around Christmas, the teacher rented a hall for us and told us to do some of the material we had been doing in Japan. Although we had enough material to do roughly a one hour show, there was nothing to go in the space when we were changing our outfits. So we showed films of our performances on Japanese television and when the audience saw them, they burst into laughter. Then we would go out on stage and keep the laughter going. My one-year period as a student ended with that. With most of my money gone, I was thinking I had to go back to Japan, but my teacher said, wait, why don’t you stay and perform with me? Of the three of us who had come to France from Japan, one other guy stayed behind with me. Our teacher even rented us a place to stay and together with him, we traveled all over France, Europe and even the Carribean. This was just my second year in France–it was 1972.
And you also did street performances? I think I started doing street performances right about that same time. In my third year there, I left our teacher’s place and, going independent, started taking auditions on my own. I had been working closely with him for three years so I guess it was about my fourth year that I went completely independent. In my fifth year, I began teaching at a school.
A school in France? It was the Paris National Circus School and it was the first national circus school in France. I worked there as an instructor for about three years. So it would have been in about my eighth year in France that I launched the International Comic Festival.
That’s amazing. And you were what, only about 33 or 34? Yeah. I was 35 when I went back to Japan.
What did you do on your return? I already had a contract waiting for me in Japan. The president of the cabaret where I had worked ten years earlier had opened up a huge cabaret and restuarant theater inside the New Otani Hotel. He had even sent old friends of mine to France to tell me that he wanted me back. My performance fee was as much as 1.5 million yen a month (about 15,000 USD). Current stars like Korokke and Kataoka Tsurutaro were newbies then and performed there, too. I guess I performed there for about three months. Then I just decided to take it easy and after that break, I started my own pantomime studio and began teaching. A little later, I just started doing performances right outside my house and that was the beginning of the Noge Performance Festival (in Yokohama).
The Noge Festival? Incredible. That’s huge these days. Yeah, but it was even bigger in the past. After that–this would have been about ten years since coming back to Japan– I built some circus training facilities. At that time, just looking at my schedule was a shock to the senses.
Those were the 90s. So you basically did more producing at the time than actually performing? Well if you are performing, you can’t very well just perform a little. If anything, I just thought I would switch completely and refrain from performing. Production work continued to increase. When you are performing, you are in the public eye and you have to stay in shape, which is tough.
And so now you are in the position of a producer. That’s tiring too. But I do think that giving shape to an idea is an interesting job.
It seems to me that there aren’t too many people doing pantomime these days. What are your thoughts? That’s true, there aren’t so many people doing just pantomime these days. There are many who are using pantomime as an anchor and doing various other kinds of things. I think that’s the right way to go. Street performers have just exploded in numbers and I think that when it comes to charming people, pantomime’s colorfulness just isn’t up to the competition. Of course, I do still have some friends who are doing pure pantomime.
Lastly, what are your goals from here on out? My goals? I don’t really have any in particular. But, as I said, I do think giving shape to ideas is interesting work. None of the money I earned over the years remains in monetary form. I’ve bought things like the door to Benny Goodman’s house, staircases, stained glass. Since all my money survives in those things, I think I’d like to turn it all into a bar.
A performance bar? Please make it a reality!
