Anne Bergmann

In the autumn of 1986, I spent all of my spare money to travel from Bonn to Brussels to see a performance of “The Kabuki” by the Tokyo Ballet. As a student, I never imagined that twenty years later Sasaki Tadatsugu, the founder and long-term manager of this troupe would take time to see me and talk about his life and experiences as an impresario. However, that is just what happened between autumn, 2006 and spring, 2007.
Arts and culture are of secondary interest to the Japanese government. Government subventions and cultural policies seem to be almost non-existent. The Bureau of Cultural Affairs, founded 1968, concentrates on the preservation of arts and historical monuments. Essential steps toward developing a concrete cultural policy began in the 1980’s due to the vision of Prime Minister Ōhira Masayoshi
(1910 –1980). He believed that increased governmental support for the arts would usher in “The Era of Culture”.
Unfortunately, neither the establishment of new support programs such as the “Arts Plan 21” in 1996 and its successor, “New Century Arts Plan” in 2002, nor the passage of new laws like the “Foundation for the Promotion for Arts and Culture” in 1990 and the “Fundamental Law for the Promotion of Culture and the Arts” in November, 2001 have brought about significant changes. In spite of the gradually increasing budget of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, subventions remain largely focused on the preservation of monuments, as well as traditional arts and crafts, and the construction of new facilities, like cultural halls and centers. Fundamental support for the unknown, creative/innovative artist is still rare. There are indeed big names in film and theatre which benefit from support by the Japanese government. However, that support came only after they had been recognized and acknowledged abroad. The trend of support being offered only after success has been achieved persists.
The broad contribution Sasaki Tadatsugu has made in the field of opera and ballet in his native country is well-known outside of Japan. His numerous foreign awards and orders speak for themselves. In 2006, Sasaki and the Tokyo Ballet, which has never been decorated with any official award by the Japanese government, were presented the Stage Art Award of the Asahi Newspaper, their very first award in Japan. Even though Sasaki Tadatsugu seems indifferent to prizes and official awards, his vast engagement in ballet and opera deserves a little more respect and appreciation.
Sasaki Tadatsugu himself believes that this attitude toward art and culture in Japan is a remnant of an Edo-period view of the performing arts. During that time, artists and actors were officially treated as outlaws and had no place in the strict social order system of samurai, farmer, craftsman and merchant. During the first half of the 19th century, the Meiji government, admiring Western culture and achievements, tried to westernize the people while putting aside all things Japanese. Sasaki believes that this experience of forced westernization, combined with disapproval of Japanese tradition, is one reason for the relatively low status of artists and the performing arts in Japanese society today.
During the last couple of years increasing interest in the traditional arts and a renewed appreciation of Edo-period culture is apparent in Japan. However, music education is still dominated by Western values and content. The trend toward children studying ballet or piano from early childhood has become almost standard practice. This interest in classical music or ballet does not seem to go any further, perhaps due to the lack of affordable opportunities to see performances or disinterest on the part of adults. At any rate, all this youthful study does not result in a large, enthusiastic adult audience for ballet and classical music. This discrepancy between early education and adult participation in cultural activities is something that Sasaki Tadatsugu has tried to overcome since the beginning of his career as an art director and producer of classical music, opera, ballet and theatre in the 1950s.
Since his early childhood, Tokyo-born Sasaki was attracted to theatre, concerts and opera, Western as well as Japanese. With his mother’s support, he convinced his father to allow him to study in the Department of Fine Arts at Nihon University. After graduation, he polished his talent by directing all kinds of productions. In 1957, NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, produced the first Italian opera performance in Japan. Sasaki was himself involved in the production and saw first-hand the great difference between the Western and Japanese way of managing productions. He observed the critical and respectful teamwork on the Western side. In contrast, the dictatorship of the main star in Japanese productions was impossible to overlook. In order to overcome these outdated ways of production; a group of young conductors, directors, stage technicians and others came together under Sasaki’s direction to found the “Staff Club” in 1957. Until it was dissolved in 1965, this team of then-young enthusiasts carried out many successful productions for big production companies and concert associations. In 1961, Sasaki abandoned Japanese opera productions altogether. He had always aimed for the best quality in his work, but the organizations he worked with at that time did not seem to share his commitment to creating the highest quality productions.
In 1964, he founded the Tchaikovsky Memorial Tokyo Ballet. He was first offered the opportunity to manage its predecessor, the then-bankrupt Tchaikovsky Memorial Ballet School, which had been founded by the initiative of the President of the Communist Party of Japan. However, instead of reorganizing the ballet school, Sasaki founded a new ballet troupe. He thought that this structure would better suit his ambitious plans. Because of his extensive experience in organizing opera productions and his profound understanding of the challenges of educating future opera singers, he realized that only limited goals could be achieved in a school setting. Instead, he chose to focus on ballet as a nonverbal performing art, where he saw a chance for a Japanese troupe to match the standard set by international high-ranking troupes. Of course, Japanese bodies are different from those of Westerners. The success of Sasaki’s concept depended on the perfect Corps de Ballet, with emphasis on the beauty of the Japanese body and choreographies and costumes specifically designed to suit it. His daring methods bore fruit in 1966 when the Tokyo Ballet was invited by the Minister of Culture of the Soviet Republic to perform in the Bolschoi Theatre in Moscow. Motivated not by profit and business calculations, but by a desire to reach the top of the profession, he crossed the Iron Curtain in an adventurous, three-day journey with the troupe. In Moscow, then regarded as the heaven of ballet, they realized the first-ever performance of a Japanese ballet abroad.
Sasaki’s philosophy of cultural activities seems to reflect not so much an adoration of Western art and culture, but a willingness to embrace and enjoy its best aspects, even if that requires hard work and patience.
Japanese cultural policy after World War II, as previously mentioned, emphasized restoration and conservation. In 1966, the first National Theatre of Japan was built in order to provide an appropriate space to perform and preserve kabuki and bunraku. However, the Japanese government refrained from establishing a national acting troupe. At school, children were required to learn the Western scale notes, but the Japanese government put little energy into promoting and supporting classical concerts or musical theatre performances. The organization and financing of such performances was left to private businesses and investors, just as it had been during the Edo period.
The “First Report of the Policy Committee” of Prime Minister Ōhira, published in 1980, declared, “It is necessary that grand scale cultural institutions and activities, which are not easily realized through private initiative, should be tackled by the government. Consideration for culture in education processes, the holding of public cultural festivals, promoting international exchange etc. and the carrying out of long-term future-orientated measures could not be expected to be done on private initiative alone.” By the time this appeal for more governmental initiative and engagement in national, as well as international, cultural activities was published, Sasaki Tadatsugu had already realized ten international productions in Japan and several performances of the Tokyo Ballet abroad. (The troupe has now performed more than 670 times in renowned theatres and opera houses abroad.) In contrast to the view reflected within this committee report, it seemed to Sasaki and his numerous ballet and opera fans that Ōhira’s adjured “Era of Culture” had already begun, realized on private initiative alone.
In 1981, the Performing Arts Foundation (NBS, or Nihonbutaigeijustushinkōkai) was founded, with Sasaki as executive director. NBS was established in order to promote performances and performing arts, to train artists and technicians in techniques related to the performing arts, to promote international exchange in the performing arts, to collect materials and research pertaining to the performing arts and to publicize periodicals and other printed materials related to the performing arts. With only a few dedicated staff members, not reliant on the support of a large organization, Sasaki not only brought about the rise of his own ballet troupe, but also, in 1981, after sixteen years of negotiations, was the first to realize a performance of the entire company of Milan’s La Scala in Tokyo. In addition to numerous performances of other world famous opera troupes like the Vienna National Opera, Bavarian National Opera, British Royal Opera, Berlin State Opera, Berlin German Opera, Firenze Opera, he has staged performances of top-level ballet troupes in Japan, including the Royal British Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Maurice Béjart Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet. Concerts with world-famous conductors like Bernstein, Barenboim, Kleiber, Abbado, Dohnányi, Muti, Mehta have been organized. Leading orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the French National Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Berlin Staatskapelle have traveled to Tokyo for performances. During the 1980’s Sasaki invited prestigious choreographers of the 20th century to work with the Tokyo Ballet. The works of these choreographers, including Maurice Béjart, John Neumeier and Jiří Kilián, broadened the repertoire of the Tokyo Ballet. Second only to the Maurice Béjart Ballet, the late Béjart dedicated the performing rights for many of his masterwork choregraphies to this troupe.
In Sasaki’s view, modern Japanese society is dominated by institutions and irresponsibility. Courage and curiousity in civil life are overwhelmed by greed, materialism and abusiveness. He doubts that people without individuality can be creative at all in contemporary Japanese society.
He feels that it is not the lack of a compehensive cultural policy or extensive financial support by the government that is the biggest problem, but that the greater difficulty arises because the small subsidies actually granted by the government are allocated by civil servants who know very little about arts and culture. Sasaki sees the planning and construction of the second national theater, the New National Theatre, bulit in 1997, as the culmination of a civil servant-led cultural policy. Until the completition of this new theatre, operas could only be performed at the Bunka Kaikan in Ueno and the NHK Hall in Shibuya. Both houses stand off the beaten track, far away from the elegant Ginza district or city center. Both locations lack nearby opportunities for audiences to enjoy a talk after the performance over a glass of wine in a nice restaurant or bar. After enjoying a gourgeous opera or ballet performance, the special atmosphere- the precious escape from busy daily life- is destroyed the moment you leave the theatre and find yourself among booths of chicken barbecue or noodle shops. In Sasaki’s opinion a Japanese National Theatre needed to be placed in the Ginza or Marunouchi districts, where privately run commercial theatres such as the Kabukiza and the Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre have always been located. Sasaki was himself involved in the planning of the New National Theatre that now stands on the border between Shinjuku and Shibuya, again in the middle of nowhere, and only one train stop away from the red light district of Kabukichō. During the beginning of the planning process, he appealed to his fellow-planners to remember, and avoid, the drawbacks associated with the location of the established concert halls. In the end, his expertise as a very successful producer of opera and ballet was not considered at all. Due to this experience, Sasaki became very doubtful of the wisdom of leaving cultural policy in the hands of civil servants alone. Bureaucrats obviously concentrate more on institutions and facilities than on the content of the programs. Perhaps this is only a natural consequence of the national dependence on a century-long private initiative in cultural affairs.
Sasaki Tadatsugu now complains that all his efforts have been in vain and that nothing has changed in the public attitude toward culture and artists. “The Era of Culture” is still to come. Without any support from the government of his own country, the perfectionist Sasaki Tadatsugu, to whom only the best artists are good enough to present to an audience, has built the base for ballet in Japan. His dedicated effort has established international friendship not restricted to ballet, opera and classical music. One cannot imagine cultural life in Japan without the contributions of this great enthusiast.

1. www.bunka.go.jp/english
2. Bunka no jidai. Naikaku kanbō naikakushigishitsu bunshitsu naikaku sōridaijin hosankanshitsu 1980, pp 51-52

(Note from secretariat: Anne Bergmann is currently living in Berlin.
On January 22, 2008 LAIT had held a seminar on “Contract Negotiations for International Exchange in Performing Arts and Present Conditions in Japan” with the executing managing director of NBS and the director and manager of the Tchaikovsky Memorial Tokyo Ballet, Sasaki Tadatsugu as speaker.)