A Guide to Japanese Theatre Studies Resources

Dictionary for Nō, kyōgen on JapanKnowledge (Japanese)

Plays for kyōgen on JapanKnowledge (Japanese)

This is a collection of representative works of the distinctly Japanese art form.

The plays of the fifth group, with their great variety, can be divided into a number of subgroups. However, it is often difficult to draw clearcut lines between groups as classifications differ from school to school, and from one scholar to another. The classification attempted in this book is based strictly on the dramatic and structural characteristics of the individual plays.

Translations of six shura (battle)-Noh that have for the main character the ghost of a warrior whose story is told in the Tale of Heike. Each Noh has a detailed introduction and footnotes.

Presents a translation of Fushikaden', the fifteenth-century classic text by Zeami, founder of the No theatre. After describing the art of the theatre, this book provides teachings on the aesthetics and spiritual culture of Japan. It is accompanied by an introduction and a translation of one of Zeami's most celebrated No plays, 'Atsumori'. This is a new translation of 'Fushikaden', the fifteenth-century classic text by Zeami, founder of the No theatre. In addition to describing the art of the theatre, it provides valuable teachings on the aesthetics and spiritual'

For over five centuries the essays of Ze-Ami - considered, with his father Kan-Ami, to be the founder of Noh, the classical dance-drama of Japan - were kept secret. They were not shown to more than one Noh actor in each generation until recently. Though they contain a large number of paradoxes and contradictory statements as well as a great deal of repetition, they were regarded as a Bible by actors in the Noh technique. As repetition was a constant feature in training and in techniques in many arts in Japan, and as paradox had often been used in the search for the truth in Zen, so Ze-Ami's essays were accepted, despite their repetitions, paradoxes and contradictions. They were not. however, easily translatable, and they benefit from being edited. In this work therefore, Ze-Ami's ideas are dealt with in eight chapters: The History of Noh: Five Groups of Noh Plays: Training: Acting: Writing a Play: Public Tachiai Competitions and Grades of Acting: The Audience: and Hana. This arrangement presents Ze-Ami's ideas with some order and consistency. Relevant sections of eighteen essays by Ze-Ami are translated and discussed. This volume is a most useful introduction to an understanding of Noh history, practice, and technique, for all readers in the West, written as it is by a trained Noh actor.

How do classical, highly codified theatre arts retain the interest of today's audiences and how do they grow and respond to their changing circumstances? The eight essays presented here examine the contemporary relevance and significance of the "classic" No and Kyogen theatre to Japan and the West. They explore the theatrical experience from many perspectives--those of theatre, music, dance, art, literature, linguistics, philosophy, religion, history and sociology.

The Japanese noh theater has enjoyed a rich, continuous history dating back to the Muromachi period (1336-1573), when virtually the entire repertoire was written. Some of the finest plays were inspired by the eleventh-century masterpiece of court literature, The Tale of Genji. In this detailed study of fifteen noh plays based upon the Genji, Janet Goff looks at how the novel was understood and appreciated by Muromachi audiences. A work steeped in the court poetry, or waka, tradition, the Genji in turn provided a source of inspiration and allusion for later poets, who produced a variety of handbooks and digests on the work as an aid in composing poetry. Drawing on such sources from the Muromachi period, Goff shows how playwrights reflected contemporary attitudes toward the Genji, even as they transformed its material to suit the demands of the noh as a theatrical form. This book includes annotated translations of the plays, many of them appearing in English for the first time. The translations are preceded by essays covering the history of each play and its use of Genji material. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Examines Japanese later life learners involved in Noh theater.

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Noh is a major form of classic Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. This title introduces the work of the Noh mask artist Michishige Udaka. It presents photographs of 32 typical Noh masks shot in dynamic lightings and close-up angles. It features captions that explain characters of each mask. Noh is a major form of classic Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing both the male and female roles. The repertoire is normally limited to a specific set of historical

"Intrepid journalist and novelist William T. Vollman's colossal body of work stands unsurpassed for its range, moral imperative, and artistry." --Booklist   William T. Vollmann, the National Book Award-winning author of Europe Central, offers a charming, evocative, and piercing examination of the ancient Japanese tradition of Noh theatre and the keys it holds to our modern understanding of beauty.  Kissing the Mask is the first major book on Noh by an American writer since the 1916 publication the classic study Pisan Cantos and the Noh byEzra Pound. But Kissing the Mask is pure Vollman--illustrated with photos by the author with provocative related side-discussions on femininity, transgender, kabuki, pornography, geishas, and more.

This book traces the history of noh and kyōgen, the first major Japanese theatrical arts. Going beyond P. G. O'Neill's Early Nō Drama of 1958, it covers the full period of noh's medieval development and includes a chapter dedicated to the comic art of kyōgen, which has often been left in noh's shadow. It is based on contemporary research in Japan, Asia, Europe and America, and embraces current ideas of theatre history, providing a richly contextualized account which looks closely at theatrical forms and genres as they arose.  The masked drama of noh, with its ghosts, chanting and music, and its use in Japanese films, has been the object of modern international interest. However, audiences are often confused as to what noh actually is. This book attempts to answer where noh came from, what it was like in its day, and what it was for. To that end, it contains sections which discuss a number of prominent noh plays in their period and challenges established approaches. It also contains the first detailed study in English of the kyōgen repertoire of the sixteenth-century.

In this inventive mix of criticism, scholarship, and personal reflection, Carrie J. Preston explores the nature of cross-cultural teaching, learning, and performance. Throughout the twentieth century, Japanese noh was a major creative catalyst for American and European writers, dancers, and composers. The noh theater's stylized choreography, poetic chant, spectacular costumes and masks, and engagement with history inspired Western artists as they reimagined new approaches to tradition and form. In Learning to Kneel, Preston locates noh's important influence on such canonical figures as Pound, Yeats, Brecht, Britten, and Beckett. These writers learned about noh from an international cast of collaborators, and Preston traces the ways in which Japanese and Western artists influenced one another. Preston's critical work was profoundly shaped by her own training in noh performance technique under a professional actor in Tokyo, who taught her to kneel, bow, chant, and submit to the teachings of a conservative tradition. This encounter challenged Preston's assumptions about effective teaching, particularly her inclinations to emphasize Western ideas of innovation and subversion and to overlook the complex ranges of agency experienced by teachers and students. It also inspired new perspectives regarding the generative relationship between Western writers and Japanese performers. Pound, Yeats, Brecht, and others are often criticized for their orientalist tendencies and misappropriation of noh, but Preston's analysis and her journey reflect a more nuanced understanding of cultural exchange.

By examining the life and career of the most prominent noh practitioner of the fury noh composer, Kanze Kojirō Nobumitsu (1435-1516), the author showcases the critical presence of the late Muromachi period in the history of noh.

This is the first comprehensive study of the noh plays of Komparu Zenchiku, an actor, playwright, and theoretician of noh drama in fifteenth-century Japan. A renowned performer in his own time, Zenchiku was rediscovered in the modern period as the author of numerous treatises on his art, which he studied under the tutelage of his father-in-law Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443). Yet, Zenchiku is also a major playwright in the Japanese dramatic tradition, and his plays have only recently begun to receive the attention they deserve. Revealed Identity begins with an introduction on the cultural, philosophical, and sociopolitical contexts in which fourteen fascinating plays that have been attributed to Zenchiku were produced. The plays are then grouped into five thematic clusters: the relationship between humans and the nonsentient world, transgression and the suppression or subjugation of the demonic, divinity and its intersection with landscape and the abject, the figuration of female characters as 'women who wait', and delusion and ambiguity in works based on the classic, Tale of Genji. which is defined as a relentless nondualism coupled with a sense of drama as an opportunity to reveal the true nature of a character, rather than illustrating a transformation of that nature. In this regard, Zenchiku's attitude toward noh diverges from that of his contemporaries and challenges the classic western view of drama that defines it in terms of conflict and action.