I think I was plotting to break down my own form through the use of narrative method. By standing on the boundary between dramaturgy and conceptual art and by adding the minimalism of dance and music to this position, I was attempting to create a performance of mixed media. A more important point was that an essence of Japanese culture should be supported in the text by the feeling that prevailed over all.

I drew references from the narratives of the Uilta tribe as well as that of my family. The materials for this performance were: 1) five drawings four meters long and a meter wide, 2) four video monitors, 3) two 8mm projectors, 4) a Polaroid camera, 5) a piano, 6) a set of drums, 7) four objects made of fish hooks, 8) a jug 30 cm high and 70 cm across (made in Shimane), 9) two vibrating objects each consisting of feathers and a rose attached to the body of an electric toothbrush, 10) an ax, 11) oil paper, 12) a bandage, 13) lipstick, 14) a small beacon, 15) a jugful of water, 16) a set of electronic sound equipment, 17) chalk for drawing diagrams on the floor, 18) a thirty-minute presentation on 8 mm film, 19) 36 slides, 20) an audio tape of a tango performance, 21) a cardiologist's tape of the sounds of the heart, 22) the sounds of ice and wind I had recorded on an audio cassette tape in Hokkaido, 23) a choir of ten people and an orchestra of seven, 24) one poet, 25) one astronomer, 26) D. Geld�nu, 27) a woman who can waltz beautifully, 28) three cameramen and 29) two video cameramen.

Three days before the performance, after everything was ready, I phoned Geld�nu. Until that time, I had not told him that I was a performance artist or discussed any of the various kinds of artistic work I did.

He seemed to be taken by surprise at this sudden phone call, but after I had explained the work I did and the progress on this forthcoming project including the fact that the concept for it had come in large part from Geld�nu himself, he seemed to understand. He offered to fly in from Abashiri the following day.

I needed Geld�nu's presence at the site of the performance, for he was crucial to me as a kind of talisman. Whatever the content of the performance, I always do or have something for luck. I have tied threads in five colors to my fingers, worn a gold earring and even made a tiny wound somewhere on my body in advance. On other occasions, the talisman has been an hourglass, the scent of oranges that I dispersed at the performance site, or an old chair that I never once sat on. These are not for effect: on the contrary, I must have them at the performance site much as some people must put up the rectangular charms with incantations written on them in their homes.

Ihis time, the charm was to be the presence of Geld�nu. He arrived in Tokyo on the evening of the following day and presented me with a large salmon and a newly made nipopo.

The performance continued for three days, December 7, 8 and 9. A large jug full of water was placed in the center of the small theater and the various materials and cast were placed surrounding it. Footage of the scenery of Tsugaru and Hokkaido on 8 mm film was projected toward the back, onto my drawings, and the sound of a heartbeat was heard the entire time in the darkened theater. This was the setting.

The action was comprised of ten parts based on a format hypothesizing the appearance of various primitive figures in different guises. My method was to take Polaroid pictures of myself in these various forms, record these pictures once more on video, then show the video on TV monitors.

I imagined my family dwelling in every part of my body as I performed these actions. A reference from the Bible. My song was one the Uilta use to study scales. The sound that was played from time to time in the theater was white noise edited to resemble the sound of ice. As a symbol of urban sensibilities, I danced a waltz with Ryoko Sakurai to a tune composed by Hiroshi Yamaguchi. Tatsuro Hattori and Ponta Shuuichi Murakami played a fabulous improvised accompaniment. In front of them I sat, playing the piano, nude, and remembering... I remember...

�@remember my father, my mother, remember my grandfather...
�@my eyes are my father's
�@my mouth is my mother's
�@my ears are my grandfather's
�@my nose is my grandmother's
�@my hands are my great grandfather's
�@my breast is my great grandmother's
�@my back is my great, great grandfather's
�@my belly is my great, great grandmother's
�@my feet are my great, great, great grandfather's
�@my penis is my great, great, great grandmother's

Geld�nu and I went to the studio together every day and rehearsed repeatedly, and after the performance was over, we would come back together again. On the last night, after celebrating the culmination of the performance in Ikebukuro with all my friends and staff, we got into a taxi, thoroughly drunk.

I was dead beat from the fatigue overtaking me once the performances were over and groggy with alcohol, but Geld�nu suddenly turned to me with dim eyes and exclaimed, "Mr. Hamada, why don't you come to Hokkaido!" His heavy, rough hand was gripping mine. "Mr. Hamada," he repeated, "Why don't you come to the Uilta."

Outside the taxi was a flood of light and the commotion of people. The flood of light and the commotion of people eventually merged into the sounds of a snowstorm and of ice.

After repeatedly pressing even members of my family to "give Mr. Hamada to the Uilta," Geld�nu left early the next morning for Abashiri.

"Please give Mr. Hamada to the Uilta tribe." Even now, I can still hear Geld�nu's voice in my ear, heavy and slurred with drink. What did he mean? What had he been thinking over the three days when he came to my performances for me?

One morning two years later, I received a letter from Kitakawa Junko, Geld�nu's wife. Originally from Sadogashima, she had met Geld�nu when she was in Abashiri doing research on minority tribes. After they married, she took a teaching position at a local elementary school and continued to help and encourage him. If Geld�nu could be compared to an ito, a kind of freshwater salmon living in the northern rivers, she was an oshorokoma, a small freshwater salmon trout that prefers warmer waters. She wrote:

After seeing you in Tokyo, Mr. Hamada, Geld�nu was more lively and enthusiastic than he had been in a long time. Every day since he returned, he talked about nothing else. How did you like the Okhotsk salmon we sent you last year? I am sorry to give you sad news, but Geld�nu died a few days ago. Thank you for all your kindness to him. Please visit Abashiri again some day.

It was in the middle of spring, a sad letter that I received just as the cherry blossoms were beginning to fade. As I looked out blankly, the falling petals of the cherry blossoms turned into snow and I was in the middle of a white plain in Okhotsk.

Tidings that the last shaman of the Uilta had died. The "Jukka Dofuni" is still there in the Oomagari area outside the city of Abashiri, in the forest that had reminded Geld�nu of the forests of Otas.

Someone who has visited Abashiri might know the place. It is behind a log cabin that is reached by wending one's way between some old public housing buildings. But without the enlivening influence of Geld�nu, the "Jukka Dofuni" is nothing more to me than another museum of northern native peoples. All the articles displayed there are full of memories for scores of Uilta, but now that they have lost their shaman, I have the feeling they will never sing and dance again.

Three years later, I visited Abashiri again in mid-winter, following an itinerary similar to that of my previous trip. About thirty minutes by car from Abashiri there is a small settlement, and about twenty minutes from it by foot is a large hill. Geld�nu's grave is midway up the slope. I reached it after wading through snow that came up to my chest. Like those of Ainu men, Geld�nu's grave was marked by a single pole which stood half-buried in the snow.