The research of the cultural properties policies regarding the protection of folk performing arts

protection measures by local communities: The study of local communities’ structures for the succession of folk performing arts

Abstract

A majority of Japanese folk performing arts is protected under the cultural properties protection law set in 1950. It must be noted, however, that the current cultural properties protection policies are not always effective in ensuring the succession of the arts, with the gap between successful cases and unsuccessful ones widening. Furthermore, needs to reassess the policies that can be led not only by the government but municipal governments have emerged as these smaller units of governance have increasingly employed their own protection measures in recent years. In this research, the problems surrounding the succession of folk performing arts are studied as a challenge for the cultural properties protection policies as a whole, not as a separate individual case as has been in the conventional discourse. This particular paper examines five succession cases of folk performing arts, including Kowaka-mai of Ohe in the southern Japan of Fukuoka prefecture, to compare and study local communities’ structures aimed at ensuring the succession of the arts. The diversity of these structures is not only deeply connected to either a success or a failure of a succession of the arts but is also an important element that determines the direction of the succession and support system going forward. Trends in local communities’ use of the cultural properties policies in the protection of folk performing arts and the issues and problems regarding the successions will be discussed in the next paper.