Noh Performance

Last Saturday (02/14) I went to Yarai Nogakudo to see a Noh Performance. This place is located near Kagurazaka Station, about 40 minutes from TIT’s Ookayama Campus.

What is Noh? It is one kind of Japanese traditional theater that starts in 14^th century. This theater combines poetry, drama, music, and dance into a full beautiful performance. Some character in Noh performance always wore masks while the others wore Japanese traditional clothes. The one who wore masks is the main character of the performance. The usually get a bigger part in dance and poet performance. Noh has been declared a world heritage treasure by UNESCO

This time Noh performance was held in Yarai Nogakudo. Although it looked like an ordinary Japanese house from the front side, it is actually a dedicated Noh Performance Theater which has a big wooden stage inside the building. The building itself has the capacity to accommodate 300-500 viewers. I could not take picture inside the building since it was forbidden by the theater’s administrator.

This performance was free for me as well as other Tokyo Tech international students. Mr. Ichiro Nakamura, Noh performance instructor at the World Civilizations Center was provided the free ticket for TokyoTech International Students. The actual ticket prize was 5000 Yen for normal ticket and 2000 Yen for Students Ticket.

I saw 4 performances. The performance duration was different for each performance. The 1^st and 3^rd one was about 40-60 minute and the 2^nd & 4^th one about 20 minutes. All performances were played in Japanese language so it was very difficult to understand the story. Even for the Japanese people, Noh dialog is hard to understand because it uses old, polite, uncommon vocabulary. That is the one of the real characteristic of Noh performance. Actually we were given papers about English translation of the Noh performance so we can still understand the plot. However, we cannot catch the beautifulness of Noh’s poetry.

Although some people says that Noh performance is boring (I personally think about that so ^_^), you have to watch this at least Once in your life. Actually it is a beautiful performance. If you understand the plot and tried to imagine the meaning of the poetry, you may get the relaxing sensation when the music and dance hypnotize you. I enjoyed the 1^st and 2^nd performance very much. But I occasionally slept at the 3^rd & 4^th performance.

Actually there might be 5^th performance. However, I left the theater after 4^th performance ended because I have to get back to my lab to clean my specimen framework. Once more, you have to watch it, at least once in your life…

Further reading :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noh

http://www.micheleyounglive.com/typesoftheatre.htm