Mastery with Age: The Appeal of the Traditional Arts to Senior Citizens in Contemporary Japan

This article examines the involvement of senior citizens in the traditional arts in Japan. In these arts, elderly practitioners command respect from their audiences and students for their long years of training and experience. They are venerated as the repositories of embodied knowledge and skill. in contrast, youthful and middle-aged practitioners are considered “works in progress” who must continue to perfect their skills to approximate their elderly counterparts. Drawing on case studies of senior citizens who join classes in the traditional arts of Noh chanting and dance and calligraphy, we explore the ways in which the traditional arts give senior citizens a new horizon for growing and striving into later life. We theorize that the promise of mastery in very old age has special appeal to retirees in Japan. Through various certification processes, many are able to work their way up to attain leadership roles in old age. This growth possibility serves as a counter force against the loss of social role that many retirees experience after they leave the workforce. These arts also provide a unique framework for transforming the risks associated with old age into opportunities for realizing human maturity.