Name: Just Say Noh. But Also Say Kyogen: Crash Course Theater #11
Uploaded: 2019-05-05T14:07:22.000Z
Duration: 12 min 55 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hey there I'm Mike Rugnetta, this is crash course theater and today

we're exeunt in late medieval Europe and headed to late medieval Japan introducing one of the world's most distinct and

Lasting theatrical styles, Noh. What's that York? No. It's no it's called Noh.

The H is silent, handle it dude. Anyway, we'll be tracing Noh's origins showing how it flourished in the 14th century

We'll look at Kyogen, the farcical scenes between Noh plays which act as a nice reminder that the world isn't all

We'll also look at Atsumori, Zeami Motokiyo's

Flute playing samurai Noh drama so put on your favorite spirit mask and let's go

We don't exactly know when or how theatres arrived in Japan

But the mythical version goes like so. 
One time the sun goddess Amaterasu

Was teased so badly by her brothers that she hid in the heavenly rock cave and the world went dark.

Not great, so the gods tried to get her to emerge

But nothing worked until Amano-Uzumeno, the goddess of dawn mirth and revelry came up with a brilliant plan

She would sing and dance while taking off her clothes, so she does this and the gods go

that the sun goddess pokes her head out and is like what's all this fuss about

Light returns to the world and maybe also stripping gets invented. Stripping, theater, and light a natural tree, oh really.

In terms of non-mythical origins sacred dance was part of Shintoism the traditional religion of japan

particularly important was Kagura or God music a dance performed by priestesses

But in the 6th century CE, Buddhism arrived and with it Japan adopted

Additional forms of dance and ritual we know about some of these from a 712 CE. text called Records of Ancient Things

In 782 some killjoy Nobles nix palace entertainers who were then taken in by Buddhist and Shinto

Temples at which point worship got a lot more exciting

Maybe you're noticing some similarities with the rise of liturgical drama in the West. Noh has two more

immediate predecessors Dengaku, or field music possibly originated in Korea

it was associated with spring rice sowing and fall rice harvest festivals and

included comedy juggling and dance Sarugaku, or monkey music possibly originating in China featured animal acts and

Nudity more significant for no Sarugaku also included dance theater in which the chorus would speak the lines for the main

character when the dance became too vigorous in the 12th century Buddhist temples adopted Sarugaku Noh a

Teaching tool even without animal acts were still a pretty long way from no proper

Though the real funny moment came with Kiyotsugu Kan'nami an acclaimed Sarugaku Noh performer .

When he shows up Japan is structured as a Shogunate meaning that while there's an emperor most of the ruling is done by the Shogun the

highest-ranking general the Shogun in the late 14th century is Ashikaga Yoshimitsu.

And he is big-time into culture he becomes a patron at two Kan'Ami and then a patron and lover of Kan'Ami

Classical Japanese sources like The Tales of Genji and then ties the whole thing up with a Buddhist bow

Perfects it, and write some theory about it

Because I mean come on someone's got to be doing theory at your theater, right?

Zeami, also writes about a hundred of the plays

Considered Noh canon and guess what we still have 21 of them yes sources.

Noh plays are short only 10 or so pages long, but they take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours

To perform, which may seem like a nice reasonable evening at the theater

But when there are five types of Noh play and court entertainment includes one of each type

Performances could last a but numbing eight

hours each play consists of two scenes and most involve a ghost a demon or a

Tormented human who can't rest the language is a mix of verse and prose

Every Noh play ends with the dance the five types of noh

Play are the Kami Mono, which involved the sacred story of a Shinto shrine.

Shura Mono plays are about warriors like Atsumori

We're gonna meet him soon Katsura Mono plays or wig plays are about wigs. JK(just kidding)

They're about ladies who were played by wig wearing men because surprise surprise dudes only.

the fourth type of no play is basically a grab-bag

Though it often included Gendai Mono plays which told

naturalistic stories or the Kyojo Mono aka mad woman plays which are

Sad wig plays about a woman who loses a child or a lover and then goes insane.

the final type the Kichiku mono or demon plays feature

Also, this Noh dramas are philosophical and somewhat

static they're heavily influenced by Shinto ideas about our connection to nature and Buddhist ideas concerning the

Transitory nature of life and the destructiveness of desire there's not a lot of action and the goal is to convey a mood

Rather than to tell a story each play has at least three characters and some have four or five

The three essential types of characters are first the Shite, or main character

This is the only character to wear a mask second the Tsure the Shite's

companion and third the Waki or witness or

antagonist sometimes the Shite is disguised in the first scene and

Reveals himself in the second scene sometimes as in Atsumori the Shite plays two different characters

Between subsequent Noh plays and sometimes between the scenes of one play

Comedy scenes called Kyogen were staged these were probably a nice change of pace because Noh plays

Funny? There are two kinds of Kyogen, parodies of know which are like satyr plays and

scenes of everyday life based around stock characters, which resemble Roman comedies

But in both cases. There is one big difference Kyogen are never vulgar

And though the language is more casual than in Noh they are still very

Carefully performed the Noh stage is pretty rad the main part the Hon-Butai is

Roofed like a shrine and held up by four pillars

Jars are embedded under the stage to help with acoustics and a pine tree is painted on the back wall

Okay, no not enough. No  enough time for a pine tree stage right stands a bridge called the Hashigakari also roofed

This is dotted with three pines representing heaven earth and man

This is where the main characters enter and exit

But actors wear beautiful costumes of embroidered silk and carry hand props

The fan is the most important object as it can symbolize rain

Wind the Sun the moon and a lot of other things a three or four person Orchestra called the Hayashi sits at the back of

traditionally the orchestra a flute and two or three drums

Follows actors rhythms and movements in addition to the main cast a six to ten person chorus sings

Narrates and takes over the lines of the Shite when he's busy dancing like the Sanskrit theater

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Just Say Noh. But Also Say Kyogen: Crash Course Theater #11

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