Inaugural Conference of the International Yeats Society

Sean Golden, member of the Inter-Asia research group, spoke at the 1st annual conference of the International Yeats Society, A Writer Young and Old: Yeats at 150, at the University of Limerick Ireland, 15-18/10/2015, on the topic of:

The Ghost of Fenollosa in the Wings of the Abbey

 Abstract

Ernest Fenollosa’s unpublished manuscripts on Noh theatre influenced W.B. Yeats explicitly in 1913. Prior to that, Fenollosa’s publications on Chinese and Japanese art, and his theories of design, also influenced the works of Yeats. Correspondence among Yeats, Frank Fay, J.M. Synge and Lady Gregory in November 1904 regarding tree wings for the Abbey Theatre finds Yeats searching for an effect from Japanese prints he was researching at the British Museum and he confides in the taste of Pamela Colman Smith, in his own words, the only person who understood what he was seeking. In March 1909 Yeats is discussing Laurence Binyon’s Painting of the Far East, published in 1908, the year that Fenollosa died. Binyon wrote an obituary for Fenollosa in Littell's Living Age, and the Introduction to that book announces forthcoming studies on Chinese and Japanese art that Fenollosa’s widow would publish posthumously, prior to passing his papers on to Ezra Pound. Binyon’s studies draw heavily on Fenollosa’s published work. Pamela Colman Smith collaborated with Jack B. Yeats, and Lily Yeats, as well as W.B. Yeats. She studied design at the Pratt Institute in New York with Arthur Wesley Dow from 1893 to 1897, shortly before becoming involved with the Yeats circle and Edward Gordon Craig’s family. That was when Dow assisted Fenollosa in cataloguing East Asian art in Boston. Dow’s textbook on Composition draws heavily and explicitly on Fenollosa’s theories. The extent to which Fenollosa’s ghost inhabits the wings of the Abbey deserves greater scrutiny.

Japan for Sligo via W.B. Yeats and Ernest Fenollosa

With the support of the Japan Foundation and the Embassy of Japan in Ireland, and in collaboration with Blue Raincoat Theatre Company, The Model, the Centre for East Asian Studies & Research of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, the Yeats Society of Sligo and Sligo Institute of Technology, Sean Golden, member of the Inter-Asia research group, organised for the Yeats Foundation of Sligo from 10 to 13 November 2015 a four day festival dedicated to the influence of Japan on W.B. Yeats and on Sligo, past and future.

One hundred years ago Yeats learned about Japanese theatre through his contact with the manuscripts of Ernest Fenollosa’s work on Noh and through his meeting of the Japanese dancer and choreographer Michio Ito. The result was, as Yeats wrote at the time, that he “invented a form of drama”. The first example was his play At the Hawk’s Well. Yeats was already well-acquainted with Japanese art through his collaboration on set design with Edward Gordon Craig and Pamela Colman Smith. Fenollosa had been one of Smith’s teachers and she shared his esthetic with Jack B. Yeats and with Lily and Lolly Yeats.

It could be said that the Yeats family’s contact with Japan a century ago led to the globalisation of their work. A hundred years later we have an opportunity to consolidate Sligo’s contacts with Japan in order to renew the globalization of Sligo.

To this end the festival began with a contemporary performance inspired by a verse by W.B. Yeats. Composer and musician Trevor Knight, together with artist Alice Maher and the Japanese butoh choreographer and dancer Gyohei Zaitsu presented “A Skein Unwound …” on Tuesday, 10 November at The Model. This new work of art, especially created for the festival, demonstrated the continuing vitality of collaboration between Irish and Japanese artists.

Yeats was influenced by Japanese theatre but his own work has also influenced contemporary Japanese theatre. On Wednesday, 11 November, Masaru Sekine, theatre director and Yeats scholar, together with the producer Ms Noriko Kawahashi, presented his opera Hone-no-yume, based on Yeats’ play The Dreaming of the Bones at The Factory Performance Space.

On Thursday, 12 November, at The Factory Performance Space, under the heading of Japan for Sligo via Yeats and Fenollosa, Sean Golden made a multimedia presentation of the multiple links between the Yeats family, Sligo and Japan.

The festival culminated at Sligo Institute of Technology on Friday, 13 November, with a Brainstorming Workshop convened by Prof Vincent Cunnane, President of IT Sligo, for the purpose of outlining a strategic plan for increasing and consolidating relations between Sligo and Japan (by invitation).

Mr Chihiro Atsumi, Ambassador of Japan celebrated, “I am very happy that a series of events related to Yeats and Japan will be held this November to offer people the opportunity to learn more about the Japanese influence on Yeats”, and continued, “I hope that people all over Ireland will deepen their interest in Japan and its culture, and that the close connections between Japan and Ireland will go from strength to strength in the years ahead”.