Noh

• 1. Introduction

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  Noh is a major form of classical Japanese dance-drama with roots stretching back to the 14th century, making it the oldest major theater art in Japan still performed today. Picture a nearly bare stage of unfinished Japanese cypress, a single painted pine tree on a panel at the back, no curtain, no scenery that shifts, no darkening of the house lights. The audience watches in full brightness as a figure in a carved wooden mask enters along a narrow bridge, moving with a slowness that feels almost geological. How did a form this austere survive for seven centuries? And what explains the grip it has held not only over Japanese aristocrats and shoguns, but also over playwrights, composers, and musicians from Samuel Beckett to David Byrne? The answers reach back to rice fields, imperial courts, and the patronage of a teenager who would shape the future of Japanese culture.

• 2. Roots in Sangaku and Sarugaku

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  Sangaku, introduced to Japan from China in the 8th century, was the oldest forerunner of Noh. At the time, the term described a wide variety of performances: acrobats, song and dance, comic sketches. As sangaku adapted to Japanese society it drew in elements from dengaku, the rural celebrations tied to rice planting; from sarugaku, which included acrobatics, juggling, and pantomime; from shirabyoshi, the traditional dances performed by female dancers in the Imperial Court in the 12th century; from gagaku, the music and dance of the Imperial Court dating to the 7th century; and from kagura, the ancient Shinto dances of folk tales. Each of these streams fed into what eventually became Noh and its comedic companion form, kyogen.

  Studies of the genealogy of Noh actors in the 14th century reveal that performers belonged to families specializing in the performing arts, with craft passed down through bloodlines. The Konparu school, considered by historians to be the oldest tradition of Noh, traces its verifiable founding to Bishao Gon no Kami during the Nanboku-cho period in the 14th century, though legend ties the school all the way back to a figure named Hata no Kawakatsu in the 6th century. The genealogical chart of the Konparu school claims Bishao Gon no Kami descended from Hata no Kawakatsu after 53 generations. A competing theory, put forward by scholar Shinhachiro Matsumoto, proposes that Noh developed partly through the efforts of outcaste performers seeking higher social standing by appealing to the newly powerful samurai class.

• 3. Kan'ami, Zeami, and the Shogun's Favor

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  During the Muromachi period, which ran from 1336 to 1573, father and son Kan'ami Kiyotsugu and Zeami Motokiyo transformed the scattered performance traditions they had inherited into the form Noh takes today. Kan'ami was celebrated as an actor of exceptional range: he could play graceful women, 12-year-old boys, and powerful men with equal conviction. When Kan'ami first presented his work to the 17-year-old shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, Zeami was a child actor in the company, around age 12. Yoshimitsu fell in love with the young Zeami, and the favor Zeami enjoyed at court meant Noh was performed frequently for the shogun from that point forward.

  The relationship between the shogunate and the court had strengthened after the transfer of the shogunate from Kamakura to Kyoto at the start of the Muromachi period, and Noh rose with it. With Yoshimitsu's strong support and patronage, Zeami was able to establish Noh as the most prominent theater art of his era. A generation later, Konparu Zenchiku, who was the great-grandson of the Konparu school founder Bishao Gon no Kami and also the husband of Zeami's daughter, added elements of waka poetry to Zeami's Noh and extended it further. By this period, four of the five major schools had been established: the Kanze school, founded by Kan'ami and Zeami; the Hosho school, founded by Kan'ami's eldest brother; the Konparu school; and the Kongo school. All four descended from the sarugaku troupe of Yamato Province, though the Ashikaga Shogunate granted patronage exclusively to the Kanze school.

• 4. Aristocratic Art Under the Tokugawa

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  During the Edo period, Noh remained an aristocratic art sustained by the shogun, by feudal lords called daimyo, and by wealthy commoners of refined taste. Where kabuki and joruri pursued novelty and experimentation for a middle-class audience, Noh held to its established standards and stayed largely unchanged. Performers reproduced every detail of movement and position to capture the essence of great masters before them, which over time produced an increasingly slow and ceremonial tempo.

  The Tokugawa shogunate formally appointed the Kanze school as the head of the four schools during this era. A Noh actor named Kita Shichidayu, who belonged to the Konparu school and served Tokugawa Hidetada, went on to found the Kita school, the last of the five major schools to be established. The elaborate robes given to actors by noblemen and samurai during the earlier Muromachi period were gradually developed into the formal costumes of Noh during the Tokugawa era, turning gifts of silk brocade from patrons into a codified performance tradition.

• 5. Crisis, Recovery, and Preservation

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  The fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 and the formation of a modernized government cut off the state financial support that Noh had relied on, pushing the entire field into major financial crisis. Shortly after the Meiji Restoration, the number of Noh performers and Noh stages shrank dramatically. Support from the imperial government was eventually restored, partly because Noh held appeal for foreign diplomats. The companies that survived the Meiji era widened their audience by performing at theaters in major cities such as Tokyo and Osaka.

  In 1957, the Japanese government designated nogaku as an Important Intangible Cultural Property, giving a degree of legal protection both to the tradition and to its most accomplished practitioners. The National Noh Theatre, founded by the government in 1983, stages regular performances and runs training courses for actors in the leading roles of nogaku. In 2008, UNESCO inscribed Noh on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity under the name Nogaku theatre.

  Women's access to Noh expanded slowly and unevenly across these eras. During the Edo period the guild system tightened and largely excluded women, with exceptions for some performers such as courtesans in marginal settings. The Meiji era opened a partial path when Noh performers taught wealthy women and nobles, and female students insisted on female teachers. After women were allowed to join Tokyo Music School in the early 1900s, rules forbidding women from joining Noh schools and associations gradually relaxed. In 1948 the first women joined the Nohgaku Performers' Association, and in 2004 the first women joined the Association for Japanese Noh Plays. In 2009, there were about 1,200 male and 200 female professional Noh performers.

• 6. Masks, Stage, and the Philosophy of Objects

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  Noh masks are carved from blocks of Japanese cypress and painted with natural pigments on a base of glue and crushed seashell. There are approximately 450 different masks, mostly derived from sixty types, each with its own distinct name. Only the shite, the main actor, wears a mask in most plays, and through that mask the actor can portray youngsters, old men, women, or nonhuman characters including deities and demons. The masks do not abandon facial expression; they codify it. Facing the mask slightly upward, a technique called "brightening," lets it capture more light and appear to smile. Tilting it downward, "clouding" the mask, gives it the look of sadness or anger.

  The Konparu school, the oldest of the five schools, is said to hold the most ancient mask of all, reportedly carved by the legendary regent Prince Shotoku, who lived from 572 to 622. The legend itself is ancient: it appears in Zeami's Style and the Flower, written in the 14th century. Some masks belonging to the Konparu school are housed at the Tokyo National Museum and exhibited there regularly.

  The Noh stage is made entirely of unfinished hinoki, Japanese cypress, with almost no decorative elements. The poet Toson Shimazaki wrote of it: "on the stage of the Noh theatre there are no sets that change with each piece. Neither is there a curtain. There is only a simple panel with a painting of a green pine tree." The roof over the stage, supported by four columns named after the principal performers and their actions, derives its architectural design from the worship pavilion of Shinto shrines. The hashigakari, the narrow bridge at upstage right by which actors enter, signifies something aerial that connects two separate worlds, reflecting the supernatural character of many Noh plays. The fan, carried by every performer regardless of role, can represent any hand-held object over the course of a single performance.

• 7. Jo-Ha-Kyu and the Five Play Program

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  Jo-ha-kyu is a concept originating in gagaku, ancient courtly music, where it indicated a gradually increasing tempo. Noh adopted it and extended it to govern virtually every element of performance: the structure of each play, the songs and dances within plays, the basic rhythms of performance, and the ordering of a full program. Jo means beginning, ha means breaking, and kyu means rapid or urgent.

  A traditional formal Noh program consists of five plays, one drawn from each of the five thematic categories. The first play is jo; the second, third, and fourth are ha; the fifth is kyu. The five categories map onto distinct dramatic territories. God plays, or kami mono, typically feature the shite as a deity, often revealing a divine identity disguised in human form during the first act. Warrior plays, shura mono, stage the ghost of a famous samurai pleading to a monk for salvation before re-enacting the moment of his death in full war costume. Wig plays, katsura mono, place the shite in a female role and are prized for the smooth, flowing movements that represent female characters. The fourth category holds about 94 miscellaneous plays including madness plays, vengeful ghost plays, and present-day plays. The fifth category, kiri Noh or demon plays, closes the program with fast-paced, brightly colored pieces featuring monsters, goblins, or demons; there are roughly 30 plays in this group, most shorter than the others. At special occasions including New Year, the play Okina, combining dance with Shinto ritual and considered the oldest type of Noh play, is performed at the very start of the program.

• 8. Noh's Reach Beyond Japan

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  Benjamin Britten visited Japan in 1956 and saw Noh plays for the first time, calling them "some of the most wonderful drama I have ever seen." The influence appeared almost immediately in his ballet The Prince of the Pagodas in 1957, and later in two of his three semi-operatic Parables for Church Performance: Curlew River in 1964 and The Prodigal Son in 1968.

  W. B. Yeats wrote the essay "Certain Noble Plays of Japan" in 1916 and drew on Noh to write four plays using ghosts or supernatural beings as central dramatic figures for the first time: At the Hawk's Well, The Dreaming of the Bones, The Words upon the Window-Pane, and Purgatory. Yeats worked largely from imagination, given the limited resources available in England at the time. Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot has been read by scholar Yoshihiko Ikegami as a parody of kami Noh, the category in which a god or spirit appears before a secondary character as the protagonist. Bertolt Brecht read at least 20 Noh plays translated into German by 1929, and his Der Jasager is a direct adaptation of the Noh play Taniko.

  David Byrne encountered Noh while on tour in Japan with Talking Heads and was struck by its highly stylized practices, so unlike the naturalism of Western performance. According to Josh Kun, Noh theatre inspired Byrne to design the oversize business suit that became a visual hallmark of Talking Heads live shows. Composer Harry Partch absorbed two Noh plays, Atsumori by Zeami and Ikuta by Zenbo Motoyasu, into his work Delusion of the Fury, which he called "a ritualistic web." Partch himself wrote that "Noh has been for centuries a fine art, one of the most sophisticated the world has known." There are today more than 70 Noh theatres throughout Japan, while the current repertoire of 240 plays performed by the five schools represents only a fraction of the roughly 2,000 Noh plays known to exist.