Passion Attendance: Becoming a “Sensitized Practitioner” in Japanese Court Music

Abstract

This article investigates three different ‘modulations’ of anthropological concepts, modified by contact with specific circumstances in the field. It looks at the practice of Japanese court music (gagaku) within Nanto gakuso, a group of amateurs active in Nara, and explores instances of “enskilment”, “emplacement” and “enactment” from the overall paradigmatic trajectory of embodiment. Advocating an apprenticeship-based methodology, the article puts forth the notion of ‘passion attendance’ to describe how lovers of Japanese court music articulate their participation. Ultimately, the article suggests that the concept can be useful in summing up different co-occurring processes, while remaining close to practitioners’ self-descriptions and understandings. In this way, the analytical tools employed by the researcher can resonate more fully with the lived experiences of his or her research participants.