Noh Theatre: Beyond Words, Beyond Borders

Kita Noh Theatre
21 November 2015

 
This programme is specially organized to present the age-old high art, Noh theatre, in an accessible form to the wider audience and to transcend language barriers. Noh artists of the Kita School (Shigeru Nagashima, Ryoichi Kano and Teruhisa Oshima among others) perform with artists of other schools who have already the experiences of performing bilingual Noh and Kyogen (Noboru Yasuda, Doji Shigeyama and the Ohio-born Richard Emmert who has studied Noh for more than 40 years in Japan).

Featured on the programme are the bilingual Noh “Kurozuka” and Kyogen (a comical play performed between the Noh acts), as well as three language versions of Shimai (dance to the singing without music instruments and without Noh costumes or masks), in Japanese, English and bilingual. For “Kurozuka”, keep up with the drama thanks to the real-time explanations to be provided by live tweets (follow @noh_borders): check how the shades of emotions (grudge, sorrow…) of the protagonist, a female demon, will be revealed in interaction with the travelling monks whom she happened to accommodate in her hut in Adachigahara. As a bonus to the international spectators, Noh masks, costumes and music instruments will be displayed to try on and play with before the theatre performance. All seats are reserved.