Noh course: The body and the space

Noh was founded in Japan in the 14th century. Comprising dance and song, it is a performance art in which mask-wearing actors often play sprits, ghosts and gods.

Heavily influenced by Zen, the actors seek to be mediums.

In this discipline there is a repetition of forms and chanting in an attempt to understand the body as a microcosm capable of modulating the space between the actors and the audience.

Our aim is to work on our presence, how to appear before an opponent (that is to say the audience) and how to connect with it.

Noh techniques are very close to the martial arts (sabre, aikido). We will complement what you learn by taking a martial arts approach.

In the practice of Noh, the clean progression is not just a physical gesture, but this exercise allows to enter into resonance with the elements and into dialogue with the body and the space (gravity and air), ending up being immersed well beyond consciousness, as if going beyond the notion of time.

This is also part of the essence of the martial arts and probably the very essence of life itself.

– Basics of Noh

Kamae: position of the Noh performer, standing between heaven and earth

Hakobi: a basic step in Noh in which the foot slides along the floor, the basis of all Japanese traditional arts

Utai: chanting with the diaphragmatic voice like the voice of mediums

Shimai: choreography of the dance

Masato MATSUURA