The photo above shows you the faces of new friends whose language I cannot speak, whose faces I have thus far seen only in photos. Yet what we are doing together, however indirect our contact must be, is increasingly a source of new hopes and pleasure for me. When creative others adapt one of my stories and capture its spirit in the form of drama, it delights me. I consider the many forms that "theater" can take to be something close to magic. Now I myself have a chance for participation in such transformation!

My connection with this exciting new development opened on December 10, 2007, when I received my first e-mail from Yumiko. She was using her knowledge of English to approach me on behalf of a group of talented friends, who like Yumiko herself were mothers of students attending a private kindergarten in Japan. These young mothers had created a dramatic adaptation of my story THE MOUNTAIN THAT LOVED A BIRD that had proved overwhelmingly successful with the children, teachers, and family at their own school. They now hoped for formal permission allowing them to offer what they had created in other schools, using the name of The Ohanashi Quintet. (You know from the photo above that there are only four of them, not five -- but I'll explain that soon.) They also hoped to be allowed to make available at modest cost the script and music to others wishing to stage the presentation themselves, and to offer a CD of "Joy's Song," a song that was central to the production. Yumiko offered to send me a DVD showing me the production, and a CD with the song in two versions.

When those discs arrived they elicited something far beyond simple approval! Even without understanding the language, I could appreciate how well the familiar tale was being offered. The music immediately won my heart. In the initial appearance of "Joy's Song" the bird is introducing herself to the mountain, explaining that because of her need to care for her children she must continue to search for a place where there are trees for a nest, and water to drink. I might not understand the Japanese words, but the tenderness of the song is eloquent as Joy attempts to help a mountain that knows nothing of life understand maternal devotion. The lyrics in Japanese, and their literal translation into English, are here. If you'd like to follow the song as it is sung, you might want to print them out. Make sure the volume on the audio of your computer is set at high level, and you too can listen to Joy's song.

The theme of that melody reappears as occasional background music as the drama proceeds -- and then the entire song returns with more elaborate accompaniment as the story ends, with the audience joining in for its final repetition. Here's the joyous finale.

Right away, I saw possible uses for what this group had created beyond those for which they were asking permission. Their succinct and moving presentation requires no set, no costumes; the tale unfolds as a dramatic reading enhanced by music and images. The production in the group's school used projected images and a synthesizer -- yet if provided with the script and music, even a school with no access to technology could present a moving performance. Children holding up a series of large drawings could provide the visual elements, and that song would still be lovely carried by the unaccompanied voice. The possibilities I saw were exciting, and I quickly wrote to Yumiko that I was ready to offer this talented group not just permission to offer their work publicly as the Ohanashi Quintet in Japanese, but encouragement to consider sharing this appealing adaptation of the tale outside of Japan as well as within it. And I'd help them do that any way I could.

Yumiko was as excited by those new possibilities as I, and the e-mails began to fly back and forth between us. The formality between us evaporated, overwhelmed by our enthusiasm for what we were hoping to do together. I cherish the giddy note she sent me on Christmas Eve, written with the casual simplicity of one sharing a triumphant event with a close friend:

... The member of the groups are very happy to hear your message.
And they have done their first play to public as Ohanashi Quintet today.
There were many people visited there
And they were so impressed their play.
They were crying and watching their play!
I will write more tomorrow.
Sorry I promised to read your story tonight to my kids, and now, time to go to bed.
Speak to you tomorrow again
We will sleep with JOY tonight!
Merry Christmas HoHoHooo

Love, Yumiko

Meanwhile, I gradually learned more about the group to which Yumiko was my link. I was puzzled by the name they had chosen for themselves. Why did they call themselves a Quintet? Yumiko's letters had made it clear that there were four members rather than five. They explained the name to me through Yumiko early in January. The five elements in the "quintet" were not the members of the group, but the dimensions they were using as they created their drama. The list began in a way that did not surprise me:

"We would like to continue to play with WORDS, MUSIC ..."

but it ended with a final quality that I didn't expect:

" ... and the ONE which is sensitivity of our audience."

I suspect that last element is hard to phrase in English, but if we substitute "imagination" for "sensitivity" this final ingredient is a most interesting and appropriate one. This group understands that the magic of theater relies on involving the audience's imagination, so that what is offered by the other four elements onstage will be transformed to a vivid and seamless presentation in an imagined reality -- a drama that can echo in the memory.

I hope that guess is right. And although I can only know them indirectly through Yumiko's help, I am growing to feel I shall have new friends too, in the four members of the Quintet. Here they are again, and it's time to tell you their names:

Midori, on the left, wrote the script and the lyrics for the song. Next to her, in the grey sweater, is Momozoh, the composer of the music. (That's her professional name. Her first name in personal life is Tomoko.) The next one in line is Kazuko, the pianist, and on the far right is Junko, who sings Joy's song for us.

When I first saw their play on DVD, the only disappointing dimension was the visual one. The slides projected during the drama were drawn from Eric Carle's illustrations for the story. Japan is the only country in which that art is still used for THE MOUNTAIN THAT LOVED A BIRD, and what is offered in that edition isn't ideal for the group's purposes. Carle's design contains only 10 double spreads of actual illustration of the tale, fewer than most picture books. Many of the collages seem essentially decorative, and don't reflect the emotions of the story with any vividness. When the words tell of how the mountain comes to life, the images offer scant detail. When I told my new friends I could send them a new edition with art that might work better for them, they were immediately interested.

When the edition illustrated by Stephen Aitken arrived early in January, Yumiko was rapturous. She wrote me:

What a great delight! I just receive your book of Tulika edition when I meet OHANASHI QUINTET today.
I love those images! I felt energy, and strength.
I don't know how to explain my pleasure! It was a lot different from Eric Carle's version.
Now I do understand image is really important for Picture book. Both of the versions use your story but affection is a totally different.
When I watch only images, it seems unlikely that those are the same story book.
I like the JOY. Colour is unbelievably sensitive.

I e-mailed Steve, who immediately gave permission for the Ohanashi Quintet to make use of his art for the story in their dramatization if they wished, and I sent that permission through Yumiko along with access to a PDF file that offered the art without text -- a useful resource if they wanted to create new slides from it. Yumiko's next letter started with the comments of members of the group, with whom she by that time had shared his art:

How wonderful images! So lovely!
We have not imagined that the images are such beautiful! We impressed the illustrations with flowers and insects ... Of course all pages are beautiful ...

They began immediately planning to create new visuals for their drama -- perhaps even several versions tailored to audiences of different ages.

Meanwhile, Yumiko and I were already making an English translation of the script. She put the Japanese text into English in a literal translation, and my job is to be sure it flows naturally. Polishing most of the script was a relatively simple task -- but creating English lyrics for Joy's Song was HARD. Translation of what is phrased with the precision of wording used by a poet is always hard -- a word in one language, literally translated to another, has different overtones. And because this was a song, I needed at the same time to make the English fit properly with the rhythm of the music.

I found that the original Japanese script featured a column in which one could indicate stage directions; it seemed a logical place to indicate when slides could change as well. I couldn't resist using the PDF of Steve's art to make a PowerPoint series of slides myself, and seeing how various images might be perfect for parts of the script. It was great fun taking details that seemed designed for the script. When an insect remarked with pleasure on the environment the formerly barren mountain offered, this new art offered a choice of insects that one could be!

I'm not very skilled at working with PowerPoint -- or with PhotoShop, which I knew could let me do more professional-looking slides for some spots -- but before long I had a whole slideshow that didn't look bad to me. I put it on a memory stick and sent it to Japan, and they liked it too!

Meanwhile, I wasn't the only one who was enjoying being connected with what was going on in Japan. Steve Aitken loved the music as much as I did, and asked if he might have permission to use the introduction of the finale version of Joy's Song as background music for a video trailer he was making -- his first experiment with some new software. Of course the Ohanashi Quintet said "yes." So here is the video (note: wmv format) we can use to help call attention to the new edition of the story in Tanzania!

Although there could be no attempt to match the graphics with the emotional nuances of the music, the video gives a hint of how well this new art may work in the Japanese dramatization.

Because I was besotted with Joy's Song, and indeed with all the music created for the production, I wanted to learn more about the composer. I thought I had found a way to try that without bothering Yumiko; communication more essential was already consuming a lot of time for this young mother! Yumiko had earlier sent me a file with the insert created for the CD she had sent, so that I could make copies to take with me to share with friends in India, where I would soon be traveling. The gentle art was created by a cousin of the writer of the lyrics.

I noted that there seemed to be a URL that appeared to be the website of the composer, since it was offered just beneath the name to which the music was credited. I went to the website but was immediately confused -- and not because the site was of course in Japanese. There were two photographs as graphics; one showing what seemed to be a portion of an electronic keyboard, and the other something a bit of technology I could not identify. A mixer? A non-keyboard portion of a synthesizer?

This was before I had received a listing of the members' names from Yumiko. I suddenly feared that "Momozoh" was the name not of the composer but of the remarkable synthesizer that had seemed like a full orchestra during the finale version of Joy's Song -- that might explain why the credit for the music was offered to only one word. I was embarrassed to ask Yumiko for clarification, so explained my confusion instead to one of my husband's Japanese colleagues, a young physicist who is a good friend to us both. He went to the website, and assured me that Momozoh was a composer and not a synthesizer. There was a link there, he said, that led to another site where I could listen to samples of other compositions of hers.

I followed that link, and found myself on a Japanese-language site so clearly laid out that even an English-speaker could easily listen to the samples -- you just click on the short names in blue. The "instruments" (I think they all are synthesizer voices) used for each sample were even listed in English. I enjoyed every sample. Some were lively jazz, but my favorite was a lonely melody on solo "violin." The name of that haunting piece seemed to be "fun" -- which of course may mean something quite different in Japanese! I also like "yama" -- featuring "piano, flute, and oboe." You may have different favorites. Listen, and decide for yourself!

By this time I had made reasonable progress with my attempt to translate the lyrics of Joy's song. I had done as well as I could with the song in which she introduces herself, the one with the simple piano accompaniment. I knew, though, that I hadn't really matched the gentle wistfulness of the original Japanese, which asks one to read between the lines more than does my version. You saw the literal translation of those lyrics when you listened to the song earlier -- here they are again, so you can be reminded of what I was trying to express in English in a way that fit the melody:

My name is Joy, I am a small bird
I fly all the way from distant lands
The spring light leads me to the mountain
From mountain to mountain in the endless sky

Are there any tall trees anywhere?
Are clear streams anywhere?
I will find the best place to raise my children
All my life, my dear children

My friends in Japan had asked me to send them a recording of my lyrics, expecting I would simply to sing them into a recorder. I could offer them better than that! My son David is an accomplished pianist, and to imitate the piano accompaniment on the CD was for him a piece of cake. His wife Erica, a soprano with a lovely, pure voice, is the doting mother of a young son. She could offer the song with both skill as a singer and true maternal warmth. She also, it turned out, could look at my lyrics from a singer's point of view and suggest helpful improvements.

Thanks to Erica and David, I can offer you -- and my friends in Japan -- Joy's Song in English. The English version differs from the finale as it is sung in Japan. That version repeats the song of introduction without any change in lyrics. I took the liberty of changing the words a bit for this final rendition of the earlier song. After all, at the end of the tale Joy need not fly away to look for the ideal place to build her nest -- the mountain can provide that! I hope that when the Ohanashi Quintet hears Erica sing this joyous English finale version of Joy's Song, they (and you) will feel that the changes I made are in fact a good idea. Here are the complete English lyrics for Joy's Song -- and here is Erica singing the introductory song in English.

The English finale version of the song can't yet be recorded with a synthesizer (although Momozoh is making me a "Karaoke version" that may permit that in the future!), and we can't include the important audience participation at the end. But you can imagine the glorious accompaniment, and others joining in, as you listen to the finale version in English.

What comes next? Our dreams are ambitious ones: we believe that children in many lands and cultures would be enchanted by what the Ohanashi Quintet has created. But none of us has done anything like this before. These busy young mothers don't have the time or energy necessary to run a demanding business venture -- nor do I. We are embarking together on an experiment, and are brainstorming about the next steps as I draft this new webpage.

Meanwhile, the four members of that Quintet are not the only ones wanting to "play" with the elements of the magic that any form of theater can involve. They have a network of new friends and allies grateful for the chance to play with them, all hoping to see what they have created shared as widely as possible: me in New York, artist Steve Aitken in the mountains of the Himalayas, David and Erica in California, and another Steve -- my oldest son, in the Seattle area -- who is helping me report this development on my website.

Perhaps we can just start by offering a packet with everything needed for production via website, at a nominal cost that will cover copying and mailing of all materials needed for staging, and see how that works.

If response grows to a level that is more than we can comfortably handle, diligent networking may lead us to an educational publisher or a non-profit organization that could become the work's distributor. We should soon have a sample in DVD format of a performance using the new art, a useful item to share with a suitable group expressing such interest.

Wish us luck! If you happen to have any helpful ideas for us, or if you'd like to be notified once we have the materials ready to offer in English, do let me know by e-mail (click here, or write to alicemclerran@mac.com).

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