Noh Theater History
Noh comes from Kagura, the story
of the reemergence of Amaterasu, the sun goddess, from a cave. Therefore, the
origin of Noh not only explains the origin of theater in Japan but also serves
as an offering for the gods.
Kagura developed into Gigaku, which incorporated Korean motifs,
including songs, props, instruments and masks through Mimashi. During this period, there were also
musical influences from China and India (and Indo-China). Gigaku featured a
masked procession of Lions (like Topeng), Parody of the Princess (links to
Chinese story), and the Baroman (peroformance of the Brahman, India). Later,
there was the emergence of Bugaku which had strong links to India, Tibet and
China. Later, Dengaku emerged. Dengaku is related to the Vietnamese Water
Puppets in that its purpose was to entertain the water gods and performed by
rice farmers to ensure good harvests. Sangaku later emerged with heavy
influences from China- acrobats, comedy, dances and songs. Sarugaku featured
monkey-music, which is an obvious link to Monkey Gods in Hinduism (Hanuman).
No comments:
Post a Comment