MUSIC AND DANCE AS EXPORT AND IMPORT: A CASE STUDY OF JAPAN IN EUROPE, AND HAWAI'I IN JAPAN

The essay combines the author's interest in Japanese and Hawaiian musics/dances with her interest in concepts of “the exotic.” She begins by looking at Japanese music and dance as performed in Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as “exotic other.” Then, as a delayed reciprocity, she looks at Hawaiian music/dance as an exotic performing art in Japan during the twentieth century. She notes the importance of participant-observation, that is, participating in music/dance, listening/viewing/beholding performances in which music/dance occurs, and studying context, process, and product, as well as the use of historic literature. She also notes the influence of the Japaneseiemotosystem in the importation of hula to Japan and suggests that memorizing music/dance pieces of other cultures simply captures them as exotic pieces in a performer's repertoire rather than learning them as a language which is understood and not just memorized.