JAPANESE THEATER

JAPANESE THEATER

The traditional form of popular theater

began at the end of 16th century and soon
became the most successful theater
entertainment in the light districts of the
great cities. NOH is considered the most
important Japanese contribution to World
Theater. Both NOH and KABUKI are unique
and genuine expressions of the Japanese
spirit and culture.
 VOCAL PATTERN AND
TECHNIQUES

1. Ipponchoshi or the continuous pattern- used in

speeches building up to an explosive climax in the
aragoto( oversize, supernatural, rough hero) style, it
requires an extraordinary breath control that only few
experts succeed in achieving
2. Nori technique- adapted from the chanting of
joruri, implies a very sensitive capacity of riding the
rhythms of the shamisen (string instrument )
declaiming each accompaniment
3. Yakuharai technique- the subtle delivery
of poetical text written in the Japanese
metrical form of alternating seven and five
syllables.
 There are four main types of traditional theater in
Japan. These are noh, kyogen, kabuki, and
bunraku. Each of these forms of theater performance
is very distinct and unique from the another.
 NOH

Noh theater, also called nogaku, is a form of

musical drama. The Japanese started
performing Noh in the fourteenth
century. Most of the characters in these plays
are concealed by masks, and men play both
the male and female roles. The subject matter
consists of a few historical stories.
NOH
PERFORMANCE STAGE
 KYOGEN

The earliest scripts for Kyogen theater date back to

the fourth century. Kyogen was performed to give
Noh theater an intermission between acts. It would
link the Noh play's theme with what was going on
in the world at the time by using slapstick and
farce. The difference between Noh and Kyogen
performances is that the Kyogen performers do not
wear masks and the Noh performers do.
KYOGEN PERFORMANCE
 KABUKI

Kabuki is a form of Japanese theater that combines

drama, dance, and music and is the most well-known to
people around the world. Kabuki theater is very
lively. Swordfights and wild costumes are the norm in
the stage productions. Until about 1680, the plays used
real swords.
KABUKI
 BUNRAKU

Bunraku, Japanese traditional puppet theatre in which

half-life-size dolls act out a chanted dramatic narrative,
called jōruri, to the accompaniment of a
small samisen (three-stringed Japanese lute). The term
Bunraku derives from the name of a troupe organized
by puppet master Uemura Bunrakuken in the early 19th
century; the term for puppetry is ayatsuri and puppetry
theatre is more accurately rendered ayatsuri jōruri.
SAMISEN
 Puppetry appeared around the 11th century with kugutsu-
mawashi (“puppet turners”), traveling players whose art may
have come from Central Asia. Until the end of the 17th
century, the puppets were still primitive, having neither
hands nor feet. Before the 18th century the puppet
manipulators remained hidden; after that time they emerged
to operate in the open. Dolls now range in height from one
to four feet; they have heads, hands, and legs of wood
(female dolls do not have legs or feet because premodern
dress hid that part of the female body). The dolls are
trunkless and elaborately costumed. Principal dolls require
three manipulators .
Naugata is one of the most popular shamisen music
and it is very flexible, can be performed by one
shamisen or by an entire orchestra of twenty
musicians, of which ten are shamisen players, while
other play flutes ( fue taken from no) and drums
( small drum-kotsuzumi, waist drum-otsuzumi, stick
drum-taiko)