ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how a performing art becomes meaningful when performed in a particular place, and examines the presence a place gains by having the art performed in it. It looks at the interrelationship between imperial court music, gagaku, and the historical city of Nara, a city listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site. In Nara, there were numerous events that utilized gagaku and its dance form, bugaku, but most were lost or reduced in scale during the late nineteenth century because of the drastic social changes that followed the 1868 Meiji Restoration. The chapter demonstrates how gagaku and the Kasuga wakamiya onmatsuri festival were transformed from being at the centre of aristocratic culture – strongly connected with imperial authority and a powerful clan – to become a local phenomenon infused with meanings as a cultural symbol of the city, Nara.
