{"id":43,"date":"2009-02-01T01:51:23","date_gmt":"2009-02-01T05:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/?p=43"},"modified":"2009-02-01T01:51:23","modified_gmt":"2009-02-01T05:51:23","slug":"kurokawa-noh-%e9%bb%92%e5%b7%9d%e8%83%bd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/kurokawa-noh-%e9%bb%92%e5%b7%9d%e8%83%bd\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese Culture: Kurokawa Noh (\u9ed2\u5ddd\u80fd)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hello everybody!\u00a0 Let me start off by asking, do you like festivals?\u00a0 I sure hope so, because today is the Kurokawa Noh Festival (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u9ed2\u5ddd\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>).\u00a0 This festival is held every year in the town of Kushibiki (<strong>\u6adb\u5f15<\/strong>) in the prefecture of Yamagata (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><span><strong>\u5c71\u5f62<\/strong><\/span><\/span>).\u00a0 If you&#8217;re also a theater junkie, this is also the festival for you.<\/p>\n<p>Noh (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>) is a type of Japanese theater.\u00a0 To be exact, it&#8217;s more like a broadway musical; minus the showtunes.\u00a0 Noh (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>) performances are based on classical Japanese stories.\u00a0 Noh (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>) actors are usually men.\u00a0 Even the roles that require a female character are played by men.\u00a0 A typical noh (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>) play will consist of a shite (<strong>\u4ed5\u624b<\/strong>).\u00a0 A shite (<strong>\u4ed5\u624b<\/strong>) is the main character of a noh (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>) play.\u00a0 The shite (<strong>\u4ed5\u624b<\/strong>) is always accompanied by the hayashi (<strong>\u56c3\u5b50<\/strong>) or the instrumentalists.\u00a0 The hayashis (<strong>\u56c3\u5b50<\/strong>) play traditional Japanese instruments like the fue (<em><strong>\u80fd\u7ba1<\/strong><\/em>), which is a type of bamboo flute.<\/p>\n<p>Pulling off a noh (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>) play is incredibly hard.\u00a0 The shite (<strong>\u4ed5\u624b<\/strong>) and the hayashi (<strong>\u56c3\u5b50<\/strong>) do not rehearse their parts together.\u00a0 The only time they\u00a0play together\u00a0is when the actual play starts.\u00a0 A noh (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>) play is like an improvisational act.\u00a0 The instrumentalists and the actors act in response to the reaction of the audience and to each other.\u00a0 Of couse, the stories that the actors have to recite are roughly the same and have been for many centuries.\u00a0 Despite that, noh (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>) plays are still difficult performances.\u00a0 The timing and music have to match perfectly without any awkwardness.\u00a0 You really have to know your art to make it look easy.<\/p>\n<p>Even if you can&#8217;t understand Japanese very well, noh (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u80fd<\/strong><\/span>) plays are a feast to the eyes.\u00a0 The actors will wear brightly colored costumes made of golden silk threads.\u00a0 In contrast, the hayashis (<strong>\u56c3\u5b50<\/strong>) will wear a black kimono (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><span><strong>\u7740\u7269<\/strong><\/span><\/span>).\u00a0 The instrumentalists are considered the supporters, not the primary actors of a play, so naturally their costumes will be subdued.<\/p>\n<p>To get an idea about what noh () plays are like, here&#8217;s a Youtube video :<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Noh Theater\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MUTG6N0KFj4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello everybody!\u00a0 Let me start off by asking, do you like festivals?\u00a0 I sure hope so, because today is the Kurokawa Noh Festival (\u9ed2\u5ddd\u80fd).\u00a0 This festival is held every year in the town of Kushibiki (\u6adb\u5f15) in the prefecture of Yamagata (\u5c71\u5f62).\u00a0 If you&#8217;re also a theater junkie, this is also the festival for you&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/kurokawa-noh-%e9%bb%92%e5%b7%9d%e8%83%bd\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2762,2799],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","tag-japanese-plays","tag-noh"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}