Transcript No Slide Title

The Noh Theater
and its Gestures
Guerino Mazzola [email protected]
U & ETH Zürich
Internet Institute for Music Science
Kunio Komparu
The Noh Theater—Principles and Perspectives
Weatherhill/Tankosha, Tokyo & New York 1983
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~rlneblet/noh
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/noh/index.html
http://www.iijnet.or.jp/NOH-KYOGEN/english/english.html
• Muromachi period 1336-1568
• Nohgaku = Noh + Kyogen
= accomplished entertainment
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Vocal music = utai
Instrumental music = hayashi (1 flute + 3 drums)
Acting technique = kata (dance poses + action)
Dance elements = mai (dance + utai + hayashi)
Fine arts, crafts = masks, robes, instruments
Architecture = Noh stage
Time = mode of production
Space = unified space (= stage + public)
• Art of time-space continuum,
perfection —> stylization/formalization
• Comparable to avant-garde music
including improvisation and chance
• Utai-bon (= chant book) contains
script, score, rules for performance
=> conductor superfluous
• Architectural space concept is
- modular
- universal/multi-purpose
• Negative space = ma = stillness/emptyness
before and after performance
• Positive space = stage properties and
dramatic activities
• These spaces are connected by time, no curtain!
Types of time and space:
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Condensed time
Slippage of time
Vanishing time
Reversed time
Split time
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Shift of space
Oscillating space
Floating space
Expanding and contracting space
Space that brings the audience „onstage“
Noh = experience, responsibility,
not appreciation!
Like tea ceremony,
unique in lifetime,
not reproducible!
There are no Noh stars...
„Never forget the beginner‘s mind!“
A Noh program lasts whole day
5 Noh plays + Kyogen are performed
There are five Noh principles:
1. Sancticity & magic
2. Stages of beauty
3. Actor and audience
4. Aesthetic of discord
5. Five element theory
1. Sancticity & magic
Sancticity of space:
Space of „sacred dialog with the gods“
Magic in technique (from mimes):
Acrobatics, mystical forces
will power, autosuggestion:
Merging self and other
mask + mirror
„...the mind‘s eye is opened and the soul grasped; the
true Noh, hithertoo invisible, comes alive...“
2. Three stages of beauty
• Hana = appearant beauty: blossom/flower
• Yugen = invisible beauty: performed sublimity
• Rojaku(old quiet) = quiet beauty
3. Actor and audience
• Self and other, active fusion
1.Curtain 2.Third Pine 3.Bridge 4.Second Pine 5.First Pine 6.Shite pillar
7.Eye-fixing pillar 8.Flute pillar 9.Waki pillar 10.Cut-through door
11.Back panel 12.Main Stage 13.Moat Steps 14.Pebble Moat 15.Side Stage
16.Rear Stage 17.Mirror Room
4. Aesthetic of discord
• Odd number important in Japan; against
symmetry
• Center of shape ≠ center of space:
Dynamic balance
Jo-Ha-Kyu = most important aesthetic principle:
Jo = „beginning“ position = spatial element
Ha = „break/ruin“ = destruction, disorder
Kyu = „rapid“ speed, time element
Production principle for Noh program:
Everything is dominated by Jo-Ha-Kyu.
5. Five element theory
(odd number!)
Elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, water
~ 5 breaths, 5 tones, 5 organs, etc.
Five Noh play categories:
god, warrior, woman, madness, demon
Have two time categories:
present time
dream time
=> 10 categories in plays:
two time categories x five play categories
Masks:
woman
Clothes &
Craft:
demon
mad
god
warrior
demon
god
woman
warrior
Every Noh play is one cross section of
the life of one person, the shite.
The shite has an appearance (demon, etc.)
and subject = one of the five elements
The waki is a
kind of co-subject and mirror
person to the
shite.
Instruments of hayashi
Utai‘s fushi units
kata: movement patterns
Why are gestures dominant in Noh?
Have three languages of human expression:
• Vocal
• Facial
• Gestural
• Facial is impossible because of masks
• Vocal is ambiguous in Japanese, bad for expression
of will, reserved to lyrical evocation
Noh is dance drama, no opera or ballet
All characters are choreographed
All movements consist of
units of movement = kata (patterns)
chant unit = phrase (12-syllabe line)
music unit = melodic + rhythmic units
space unit = za (hierarchy of places!)
Noh gestures are reduced to unit patterns (kata)
and made symbolic.
This enables much richer communication
to audience than by eveyday gestures.
Very important for us:
• „Shite waves a web of fantasy in curves.“
• „Waki draws reality in straight lines.“
Classification of katas
Three types:
• Realistic, e.g., hold a book in your hand,
jump into bell
• Symbolic, e.g., weep = hand to face and back
• Abstract, e.g.,
Three categories:
• Pure dance
• Descriptive
• Dramatic
zig-zag = beginning of end of
many dances, or
extended fan
Have the gliding walk,
transports characters horizontally through space
—> white socks!
One could understand Noh by observing feet!
Interesting performance
only in upper
half of body!
katachi = more than kata:
chi = deity, i.e., katachi = form/shape =
exterior form of kata +
characteristic usage
(mask, clothes, character)
Dance =
„text“ built from kata-units
by enchaînment
plus syntactical rules
mai = performed kata „text“ plus music
Classification of mai according to elements
(music, dance etc.)
Noh = enchaînment of 100 types of shodan segments
basically 4 types: spoken/chant/instrumental/silence