Back in the late 1960s, NASA alongside Dr. George Land conducted what is perhaps one of their most influential studies. In it, they aimed to measure creativity among children, having them take a test originally designed to identify creative talent among NASA’s engineers. With a sample of over 1,600 children, the study found that 98% of them qualify as creative geniuses. This discovery led to a myriad of studies on other fields, like psychology and especially pedagogy. However, one could argue that the arts were already aware of this centuries in advance. Children’s vivid imagination has, and will continue to be, an endless source of inspiration for artistic endeavours. Nowhere is this clearer than in Japanese Theatre, which has a strong tradition of exploring the perspective of childhood. And, one of their most profound applications is how Japanese theatre uses it to explore grief through innocence.
In today’s article, we want to tell you all about the subject of grief through innocence in Japanese theatre. Moreover, we want to let you know about Michinari Ozawa’s Our Cosmic Dust, a play that represents a big step in this artistically charged tradition. If you want to know more about this passionate subject and the play that promises to move it forward, keep reading.
Grief Through Innocence
However, before we dive into Japanese theatre and its unique approach, we must first understand the subject at hand. When we say “grief through innocence” we’re referring to how some stories make us confront loss through a perspective that can’t fully articulate it. The characters in these stories (usually, but not necessarily, children), find avenues that make their mind come to terms with the situation. These stories usually rely on metaphors to show our character may be innocent, but not naive, as by the end they acquire a nuanced perspective. With these stories, we as an audience are usually confronted with how little we know about grief ourselves. Their innocent metaphors can end up giving us a grounded take to confront loss in our own lives.
Now, to fully grasp this story telling technique, we’ll look at some modern day examples:
A Monster Calls
An illustrated novel that would later be adapted to a screenplay, A Monster Calls is a fantastic example of grief through innocence. In this story, our protagonist, a boy called Conor O’Malley, is constantly visited by a monster at night. This monster tells short stories to Connor, three true stories, and by the end, Conor is supposed to tell him a story back. The book/film shifts between the low-fantasy encounters with the monster and Conor’s daily life. Through this narrative device, we discover that Conor’s mother has terminal cancer, and thus the encounters with the monsters can be read as his way of coming to terms with it.
The story behind A Monster Calls is equally important. The novel was written by Patrick Ness, but the original idea came from writer Siobhan Dowd. Siobhan had cancer, and would die of it in 2007, four years before the novel was published. Ness took it upon himself to bring Siobhan’s story to life, and, in the process, came to terms with his feeling of Siobhan’s passing. To quote from a Guardian interview, Ness states: “I know that this is what Siobhan would have done. She would have set it free, let it grow and change.”
The Boy and The Heron
From none other than animation genius Hayao Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron is another brilliant example of grief through innocence. We have a full article dedicated to The Boy and The Heron, so we recommend you read it to get an in-depth exploration of its themes. For a summarized version, the story follows Mahito, a boy who’s recently lost his mother in a fire during the Pacific War. Mahito’s father ended up marrying his late wife’s sister, Natsuko, who Mahito is reluctant to accept. As a new and somewhat unstable family, they moved to Japan’s countryside looking for a new beginning. In it, Mahito encounters a grey heron that tells him his mother is alive. He then follows this Heron into a fantasy world, in search of her mother.
The movie is a masterclass in symbolism, as it uses the fantasy elements to explore Mahito’s grief and eventual overcoming of it. Moreover, it also explores family dynamics and the genuine opportunity to learn from them and grow into something richer. For all of these and more, the movie was awarded an Academy Award for Best Animated Film of 2024.
Pan’s Labyrinth
To conclude with our examples of grief through innocence, we have Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro. Another Academy Award winner, Pan’s Labyrinth takes elements from fairy tales and brings them thematically rich and complex context. Situated during the Spanish Civil War, the film follows Ofelia, a girl in love with fairy tales who recently lost her father. She, alongside her pregnant mother, moves to the mountains to meet her new stepfather, a fascist captain of the army. It soon becomes apparent the captain is a terrible person, and whilst the political and personal turmoil in the air aggravates, Ofelia finds and escapes by meeting a Pan inside a labyrinth. This creature tells Ofelia she is actually a princess, and in order to return to her rightful place, she must complete three trials.
As we follow Ofelia’s perspective, grief manifests for both her late father and the loss of innocence itself. Her pure love of fairy tales is questioned by her new stepfather, as her innocence is seen, through his fascist point of view, as inherently weak. In grieving her father, she ends up doubling down on her innocence and love for fairy tales. By doing this, she is able to find an avenue to stand up against his stepfather’s perspective.
Japanese Theatre Tradition
Having now an understanding of the subject, let’s see the exploration of grief through innocence in Japanese theatre. It should be stated that the previous examples were contemporary, and thus come with modern storytelling structures. Japanese theatre, on the other hand, leans more towards the symbolic aspects of innocence and grief. Their portrayed innocence is not as clear, but is definitely as or even more evocative. So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
Noh Theatre
Image credit: Osaka Info
Dating back to at least the 14th century, Noh is Japan’s oldest major theatre art that is still regularly performed. So, what is Noh? Noh is a theatre form structured around song and dance, with a plot being told through movement, costumes, poetry and mask. The stories themselves are often a representation of historic events, legends, important literature and, on occasion, some contemporary events. Furthermore, all actors in a Noh play are traditionally male, with the props, mask and costume turning them into a diverse cast of characters.
As you might’ve guessed, Noh theatre as a form of art prefers to allude rather than to tell. As for how this manifests into the theme of grief through innocence, is a nuanced approached. For starters, there aren’t many direct roles related to children (Kokata as they’re called) in traditional Noh theatre. Parents mourning their young, however, is a much more common topic, with them grieving over their child’s robbed innocence. This is further compounded by Noh theatre’s view of childhood: a beautiful bygone era of innocence. As an example, there is the famous Noh play Sumidagawa, in which a mother of a kidnapped son eventually encounters his spirit.
Indeed, in the Noh stories that feature child characters, they are often presented as spirits. And, in showing them like that, almost pure in their existence, the theme is reflected upon us. We, as an audience, are confronted by grief by their lack of it, as their child perspective transports us to a different time and place, where things made more sense. By doing this, Noh offers a unique avenue for understanding loss.
Bunraku Puppetry
Image credit: Reuters
Bunraku Puppetry dates back to the Edo period and has only grown ever since. As the name suggests, this art form tells its story through puppets, which are about one-half life-size. The puppets themselves can be operated from one up to three performers (in these cases, a main puppeteer and two assistants), depending on the importance of the character. No strings are used, rather, the performers controlled everything from limbs to eyelids, creating realistic non-verbal expressions. Furthermore, the puppets’ performance is aided by a narrator, who also voices all of them. Needless to say, this task requires immense talent and a wide range of vocal expressions.
As for the theme of grief through innocence, Bunraku has a lot going for it. Its main strength in this department are the puppets themselves, often beautifully crafted to be as appealing as possible. In their stylised details and expression, the audience can often find the innocence of childhood being portrayed. And, sometimes, stripped away by the circumstances the play is presenting. In Bunraku, child characters are often left to wrestle with their own fragility, thrown into complex situations they don’t comprehend.
Similarly to Noh, child characters are rare, and adults mourning their kids is a more commonly found motif. Nevertheless, Bunraku’s use of symbolism has consistently managed to add depth to these child characters. In one of the best Bunraku plays, Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami, we see this. The main character is put in a situation where he must sacrifice his own child in order to save his master’s son. When he encounters his son, the performance emphasizes his fragility and innocence. For a moment, we see things through his perspective: something isn’t right, but we’re unable to put it into words.
Butoh Dancing
Image credit: Ritual of Earthly Survival
The youngest and last of the Japanese theatrical traditions we will discuss, we’ve arrived at Butoh Dancing. Born out of grief itself, Butoh is a dance form that aims to reflect upon post-nuclear bombs Japanese culture. Essentially, questioning what remains of us.
The movements in Butoh are often visceral, with repetitive, erratic and somewhat grotesque displays of what the human body is capable of. This being said, Butoh is also subtle and borrows many elements from classic Japanese theatre, mainly Kabuki and Noh. It isn’t, as some critics have tried to judge it, pure shock value; rather, a smart stance in constant dialogue with Japanese culture. If you’d like to know more about it, read our article on Mr O’s Book of the Dead. This is a groundbreaking Butoh film made by none other than Kazuo Ōno, one of the creators of the art form.
Focusing now on the theme of grief through innocence, Butoh might be the most interesting thus far. When watching Butoh dancers perform, “innocent,” definitely won’t be the first word that comes to mind. And yet, in their performance they’re constantly tapping into their “inner child,” as their erratic movements only make sense in the context of grief. Butoh, in one word, yearns. It yearns for the innocence of childhood, the vibrant culture that one was, and the now gone wonder of a kid’s perspective. Once you understand that, Butoh’s viscerality becomes endearing, like a child frantically moving when words won’t suffice.
Michinari Ozawa’s Our Cosmic Dust
Finally, we’ve arrived at Michinari Ozawa’s Our Cosmic Dust, a play that takes the theme of grief through innocence further. Michinari Ozawa shares the sentiment found by the NASA study. As he himself says in an interview: “I think children hold a richer imagination than adults.” Based on this, he constructed a fantastic play that dialogues with Japanese theatrical tradition, while also taking an approach akin to that of the modern example we’ve discussed before. All in service of one central question, entirely explored through a child’s perspective: where do people go when they die?
Our Cosmic Dust follows Shotaro, a school boy who sets on an adventure to find his late father among the stars. But Shotaro is not alone, following him there’s his mother, who’s constantly trying to bring him home. Together, their quest for acceptance takes the form of a cosmic adventure, meeting colourful characters that serve as powerful metaphors. By doing this, Michinari Ozawa immediately conjures into our mind a layered and fantastical tale of grief through innocence.
Furthermore, Shotaro is a puppet, while the supporting actors are played by a live cast. But Michinari Ozawa didn’t just want to blend puppetry with live performance. No, he wanted content and form to be one and the same. For that reason, he also added LED display technology. In his own words, “combining these two polar opposite forms seemed like a journey delving into the unknown.” This journey into the unknown is central to the play, as its ultimate purpose is to address what happens after death.
A Dialogue With a Purpose
Photography by Pamela Raith
The play is directly addressing the theme of grief through innocence in Japanese theatre by dialoguing with it. With its use of visual effects, costume design and puppetry, the play transports us to some of the most powerful moments of Bunraku and Noh. However, the roles have been reversed. We’re now following that young and lost child perspective, and the adult, the mother, becomes something like that audience surrogate.
In Shotaro’s exploration of grief through his adventures of the cosmos, we see how the mother (and us) can learn to come to terms with it. Just like Butoh, we’re forcefully transported to our inner child, full of imagination and wonder. But we no longer yearn for that period, on the contrary, we’re invited to use it to confront personal grief. In Shotaro’s innocence, we’re able to find a way to move forward when facing the loss of a loved one.
Last Words
The theme of grief through innocence is a fascinating subject, one that will certainly continue to inspire creative minds for generations to come. What we hope, for that not-so distant future, is that writers take inspiration from Japanese Theatre, some of the best to ever address it. We want, in short, more plays like Our Cosmic Dust: fresh, innovative, bold, accessible and in dialogue with tradition.
Michinari Ozawa’s fantastic play is making its english debut at the Park Theatre, supported by The Japan Foundation. Our Cosmic Dust performances are running through 5 July 2025, so don’t miss your chance and buy your tickets!
