The Noh Theater and its Gestures

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The Noh Theaterand its Gestures
Guerino Mazzola guerino_at_mazzola.ch U ETH
Zürich Internet Institute for Music Science
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Kunio Komparu The Noh TheaterPrinciples and
Perspectives Weatherhill/Tankosha, Tokyo New
York 1983
http//www.artsci.wustl.edu/rlneblet/noh
http//etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/noh/index.h
tml
http//www.iijnet.or.jp/NOH-KYOGEN/english/english
.html
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• Muromachi period 1336-1568
• Nohgaku Noh Kyogen accomplished
  entertainment
• 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)

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• Art of time-space continuum, perfection gt
  stylization/formalization
• Comparable to avant-garde music including
  improvisation and chance
• Utai-bon ( chant book) contains script, score,
  rules for performance gt 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!

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• Types of time and space
• Condensed time
• Slippage of time
• Vanishing time
• Reversed time
• Split time
• Shift of space
• Oscillating space
• Floating space
• Expanding and contracting space
• Space that brings the audience onstage

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Noh experience, responsibility, not
appreciation! Like tea ceremony, unique in
lifetime, not reproducible! There are no Noh
stars... Never forget the beginners mind! A
Noh program lasts whole day 5 Noh plays Kyogen
are performed
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• There are five Noh principles
• Sancticity magic
• Stages of beauty
• Actor and audience
• Aesthetic of discord
• Five element theory

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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 minds eye is
opened and the soul grasped the true Noh,
hithertoo invisible, comes alive...
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• 2. Three stages of beauty
• Hana appearant beauty blossom/flower
• Yugen invisible beauty performed sublimity
• Rojaku(old quiet) quiet beauty

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• 3. Actor and audience
• Self and other, active fusion

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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
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• 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.

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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 gt 10 categories in plays
two time categories x five play categories
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Masks
Clothes Craft
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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-sub-ject and
mirrorperson to the shite.
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Instruments of hayashi
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Utais fushi units
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kata movement patterns
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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!)

Everything is modular!
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• Noh gestures are reduced to unit patterns (kata)
  and made symbolic.
• This enables much richer communicationto
  audience than by eveyday gestures.
• Very important for us
• Shite waves a web of fantasy in curves.
• Waki draws reality in straight lines.

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• 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., zig-zag beginning of end of
  many dances, or extended fan
• Three categories
• Pure dance
• Descriptive
• Dramatic

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Have the gliding walk, transports characters
horizontally through space gt white socks! One
could understand Noh by observing feet!
Interesting performanceonly in upperhalf of
body!
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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