Zeami (1363-1443), Japan's most celebrated actor and playwright, composed more than thirty of the finest plays of no drama. He also wrote a variety of texts on theater and performance that have, until now, been only partially available in English.
Zeami: Performance Notes presents the full range of Zeami's critical thought on this subject, which focused on the aesthetic values of no and its antecedents, the techniques of playwriting, the place of allusion, the training of actors, the importance of patronage, and the relationship between performance and broader intellectual and critical concerns. Spanning over four decades, the texts reflect the essence of Zeami's instruction under his famous father, the actor Kannami, and the value of his long and challenging career in medieval Japanese theater.
Tom Hare, who has conducted extensive studies of no academically and on stage, begins with a comprehensive introduction that discusses Zeami's critical importance in Japanese culture. He then incorporates essays on the performance of no in medieval Japan and the remarkable story of the transmission and reproduction of Zeami's manuscripts over the past six centuries. His eloquent translation is fully annotated and includes Zeami's diverse and exquisite anthology of dramatic songs, Five Sorts of Singing, presented both in English and in the original Japanese.
- CONTENTS
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABBREVIATIONS
- Introduction
- Transmitting the Flower Through Effects and Attitudes
- An Extract from Learning the Flower
- Oral Instructions on Singing
- A Mirror to the Flower
- A Course to Attain the Flower
- Figure Drawings of the Two Arts and the Three Modes
- The Three Courses
- Technical Specifi cations for Setting a Melody
- A Collection of Jewels in Effect
- An Effective Vision of Learning the Vocationof Fine Play in Per for mance
- Five Ranks
- Nine Ranks
- Six Models
- Pick Up a Jewel and Take the Flower in Hand
- Articles on the Five Sorts of Singing
- Five Sorts of Singing
- Learning the Profession
- Traces of a Dream on a Single Sheet
- The Flower in . . . Yet Doubling Back
- Two Letters to Master Konparu
- APPENDIX 1: Music, Dance, and Performance in Sarugaku
- APPENDIX 2: On the Manuscripts
- APPENDIX 3: Zeami’s Languages
- GLOSSARY
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
- TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ASIAN CLASSICS SERIES
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