Noh Masks (面, Men): The Spirit of Noh Theatre
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2018
- Japanese noh theatre has over 650 years of continuous performance history, making it the oldest theatre form with this status in the world. Noh is the embodiment of seven centuries of Japanese culture and society, embedded it its history, art, music, dance, storytelling, and social values. Each of its components, from ancient texts to contemporary performers, represents generations of development and refinement. Artisans and musicians bring the weight of their traditions to performances today that contain spectacular theatricality. If the statement "what's old is new" holds true in any way, then noh is one of the newest things on stage today.
One of the most distinctive aspects of noh are the masks that performers wear. In many ways, the masks are what give noh its unique, mysterious feel. This documentary takes you deep into the world of noh masks: from the trees they are made from, through their carving and painting; from their selection prior to a performance, to their handling after a performance; and from the hands of collectors to the newest creations, all while revealing the tremendous variety of masks and characters of noh. This film serves as a great introduction into noh with its overview of noh history and form, its performance footage, and its insightful backstage footage.
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I just love how thoroughly Japan maintains their traditional customs and crafts like this. It's fantastic!
Agreed. They value the past while seeking the future. Very admirable.
Just imagine the US not throwing the bombs and they would've to end it nitty-gritty.
Just imagine the fighting in the European Theatre and you know how much could've been lost.
It's undortunately a privilege to be able to do so. And overall Japan has been very lucky historically
Unlike America, where all things traditional are being destroyed every day.
I just like how the Mask represent the state of mind or in other words, the present moment of feelings.
So very true!
The best documentary I've seen so far that focuses on Noh masks. Thank you for sharing this wonderful masterpiece with us.
Thanks for the kind words.
The stubble on the shite's chin (playing a young woman) at 34:30 had me
The vitality of a mask is a concept similar to the ancient Roman concept of genius. According to the ancient Romans when people lived together in a place or used objects over time a certain spiritual force was generated, this force could represent the unity of a family or of a troup of soldiers, or the collective spirit of a home and its inhabitants, but also the individual spiritual power of a man or woman. Cherished objects also would develop genius over time. Interestingly the female form of the spiritual force was referred to as iuno. This word was also used to indicate the most powerful female Roman diety, the goddess Juno.
There is great overlap between Greco-Roman theater and Noh theater.
interesting!
英語分からないけどサムネのお面がどれも素晴らしいもので大変見入りました。神社にお参りすると、たまに奉納されたとっても上質なお面を見ることが出来ますが、神様の顔が本当にそこに在るかのように神聖で見ていて飽きません。そのかわり、あまり質の良くないお面には良くない存在が入っていることが多く、それがお面の良くない側面だといつも思います。なんにせよ、能面も神楽のお面も底無しに素晴らしいと思います✨職人さんはほんとうにすごいです✨
3:33 I feel that now Im getting closer to being an adult.
in 2009 I backpacked Japan and stumbled on a Hannya Mask in a little antique shop in Kyoto. I fell in love with it on the spot. As everything in Japan, it was packaged with great care so that it would survive the journey home. I've done some reading about the hannya mask and its background since, but never seen a documentary on the subject as exceptionally rich in detail as this one. Thank you so much for sharing!
Thats really cool, do you still own it?
Yknow, I didnt think id be watching a 46 minute video on something I never knew existed, and yet I did. Fascinating!
This is one of the most informative documentaries I've seen of any subject. It also provides excellent and diverse imagery using quality cinematography.
Thank you for watching. I have a film on noh costumes that I will be releasing this year and I hope you will find it as informative.
I just got two noh masks: a male and female that are vintage from Japan. This elderly lady was selling them at a yard sale. I’ve always wanted one. I almost purchased one at an antique store in Seattle for $375 US dollars. The two that I purchased at this yard sale were nicer than that one and much more detailed and beautiful than I’ve seen after looking all over on the internet. I think I purchased some very beautiful ones, possibly valuable. But I will never sell them. I love them.
Sounds like a great find!
I think you should get them checked from Noh expert. They can be valuable and hold some historical significance.
a few days ago, I bought two noh masks. 1 ceramic and 1 wooden. I like the ceramic mask more. they're both female. I kinda want a hannya.
Aloha from Hawai'i! Excellent video. I remember when I grew up here, before I went back to England, that the Japanese theatre arts were celebrated much more. Now, the americans have given us fast food, plastic, and particle board, a sad sad substitution. Hula has remained but Japanese performances are few and far between. Aloha ino!
Yeah, the pre-modern arts don't get as much attention anymore. Most of the focus is on Anime.
Nicely done! Don't use automatic captions: "Shinto" becomes "Sheepdog" ;)
Also they already have English subs that aren’t automatic which is better so…
I LOVE SUBTITLES
After watching the "Japanology" episode with Peter Barakan about noh theatre, I wanted to learn more about noh and found this documentary. Thank you very much, it was enjoyable and informative. :) Noh is fascinating!
Thanks for watching. My documentary on noh costumes has even more information on noh, if you want to delve even deeper into it.
Watching a Noh performance is something traditionally special which you don't see everyday, I wouldn't mind watching one of these performances, And that's coming out of a normal 20 year old.
I'm so thankful that this beautiful documentary is available to everybody, thank you for making and sharing this!
Thank you so much for watching!
An incredible documentary showcasing the long tradition of the Japanese obsession with subtly and refinement.
Thank you for watching!
This puts the video game "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" in a whole new light. While it is not the only Zelda game to feature masks, they are the central mechanic of this particular entry in the series. Most of the masks in the game are rather whimsical, however a few do somewhat resemble some shown here. It may interest you to know that the most powerful mask the player can use is called the "Fierce Deity Mask". It is not easy to obtain as you have to first get all the other masks in the game then trade them away. The final boss will then give you this mask once you have none left.
The Fierce Deity Mask is one of four masks in the game with a peculiar quality: transformation. You play as Link, a young boy around 10 years old (in this game), and these four masks will almost completely transform you into a different character. I say "almost" because there are hints of Link still in each transformation. Even so, some of the characters you turn into are seen by other characters in the game as the person they know. That is because these masks are more or less made out of dead people, or perhaps more accurately their spirit, allowing you to become them. The origin of the Fierce Deity Mask is unknown, and when you transform you resemble adult Link from Ocarina of Time, however with a different outfit.
The Legend of Zelda is no stranger to putting references to Japanese folklore and history into its games. Most famous is perhaps the "Hand in the Toilet", which also made its first appearance in Majora's Mask, and is in at least three games. Nintendo drawing upon these masks and others for inspiration does not surprise me. Much like the Noh masks being uncomfortable, the transformations that Link undergoes seem rather painful. It only makes sense since his body is completely changing into something/someone else.
At any rate this video was quite interesting. I hope I didn't bore you too much with all the Legend of Zelda lore. It was the Fierce Deity and the concept of character transformation that helped me make the connection. I hope you found it equally interesting. There is a sort of happiness in knowing old entertainment traditions can have an influence in modern day entertainment.
Wonderfull, many thanks, ....!
Thanks for watching.
BEST DOCUMENTARY ON NOH ON TH-cam I VE LOOKED THRU SO MANLY LECTURES AND PSEU DOCUMENTARY FINALLY ONE WHO EXPLAINS EVERYTHING THOROUGHLY
Thank you for your your kind comments. Working on a documentary right not on Noh Music, so please subscribe so you won't miss it when it comes out next year.
@@Dymsensei cannot wait
能面コレクション、良いですよね。うちも、コレクションしてますよ！
I sincerely appreciate the captions added to the video. It's an often overlooked feature but makes these documentaries much more accessible ♡
Absolutely epic
I did not know about Noh Theater but thank this program I learnt a lot. Thanks!
This is a very informative documentary. Thanks for sharing it with us!
Thanks you for producing and posting this highly informative film! As an artist and art historian I'm fascinated by both Noh and Kabuki Theatre, and greatly appreciate the fine points of Noh Theatre identified in this film! I just returned from a 3 month trip to Japan and came away with ever more interest in Japan's fascinating culture. Hopefully I can return one day when a performance is actually being conducted, and because of your film, have a fuller appreciation for the art form. Interesting that there are western practitioners/actors of this art. Stephen Marvin's collection of masks was indeed a remarkable treat!
Loved this film! I would love to see your work expanded to the other forms of Japanese theater.
Best documentary I've ever seen about Noh! Thanks!
Thanks for watching. Glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks for uploading this, pretty inspiring stuff for the nō lovers
Thanks for watching!
Incredible documentary! Love it immensely !
Thanks. I'm just finishing up a documentary on Noh Costumes and I will post sometime this year. I hope you will check it out too.
This was beautiful!!!
This is very much appreciated. Thank you.
your resources are of an incredibly high standard. Unbelievable how many beautiful Noh masks you are presenting. thanks for this great documentary, respect.
Thanks. I have a documentary on noh costumes coming out shortly that I hope you will enjoy as well.
@@Dymsensei that is amazing! Please do that!
So, if I'm not mistaken the mask allows the actor to see enough as to move around the scenery but in reality the play itself is a mind projection, it all happens mentally and the actor perform in the fictional event, as a vehicle of the character perspective and as an element to fabricate the zeitgeist of the moment.
Yeah, that is one way to look at it.
This story is wonderfully told - a docu-theatre in itself. The masks are haunting, strange yet familiar.💐
Thanks for watching!
@@Dymsensei you are most welcome. This film will raise awareness of this compendium of arts. My best regards.💐
I’ve just started to get into Noh and this video was well done and very educational. Thanks.
Thanks for watching! I have a film on noh costumes that I am almost finished with that I hope you will like as well.
Looking forward to it.
Very informative!
Fun to find out interesting stories about Noh masks.
Superbe reportage.
Merci.
This was very nice, thank you sensei
I knew once I fell down the Kabuki rabbit hole it'd be all Japan all the time. I literally just learned Noh existed, and here it comes in my suggestions like I asked for it.
Fantastic documentary, thank you 👹👺
The idea of honmen reminds me of how people want and try to recreate the original Friday the 13th movie masks. The painters want the hockey masks perfectly like the originals just like the mask carvers want the wooden masks to be perfectly like the originals. What a strange parallel.
I love those mask's
I wish i could work as a mask carver.
If you are ever interested in trying your hand at mask carving Theatre Nohgaku runs a Noh Training Project for three weeks in Tokyo that will give you a chance to do just that.
@@Dymsensei thanks for reply
Incroyablement beau !!!!
Un travail de génie !!!!!!
I don't know how I got here, but I liked this very much.
Thanks for watching. Glad you enjoyed.
Me too now I’m here I don’t wanna go
Fantastic!
Thanks for watchign!
Bro, this shit hits different.
i bow before you with eternal gratitude
6:23 what looks to be a VERY early version hyottoko mask.
I don't know why I watched this and I'm glad I did.
These long format Noh videos are FANTASTIC!
Thank you so much for making them!
Thanks for watching. I have two more planned, if I can only get back to Japan.
@@Dymsensei OMG I'm already looking forward to it!
Gracias
i tried to watch a traditional japanese performance, but the actors had noh talent
Yeah, the main actor was shite
Now I've remembered something when watching this documentary.
There's a Noh drama made in 2005, called Isseki-sen'nin based on Einstein's theory of Relativity.
This is incredible! Informative and expressive art. 👏🏾
Thanks for watching.
Its like Stephen Marvin says: You _feel_ it.
I really really wish i had one. Some genuinely shock me at its realistic human character. Like, i actually jump at the sight of some.
Can someone please tell me de instrumental of minute 1:28, please. It appears in the Tale of Genji and wanted to know for so long.
Greek theater also had one single protagonist who wore a mask, were all men, and were performed to music. This started in the 6th century BC.
Thank you for sharing your experience with this ancient art form. This was truly fascinating. This nothing of what I was expecting. My only experience is from the movie memoirs of a geisha, which is nothing like this. This makes me think the aMErKin author didn’t really represent Japanese traditional theatre 🎭 at all. Is there any thing that looks like the kabuki performance in the movie, memoirs of a geisha?
Kabuki is much more energetic than noh. Kabuki actors often have sport lavish makeup.
I've been to this Theater! 👹👺 It's in Fukuoka in Ohori Park! 大濠公園能楽堂 😀
Theater in Fukuoka is really nice. I filmed a noh there last year that will be in an upcoming film on noh music that I'm working on.
🤓🤓🤓😲💖💜💜💜💜this documentary of Noh mask's and japan is so cool👺👹⛩🗼🏯🏯🗻🗾
I am an artist and I am studying this so I can draw them better :-)
Onryō-men masks are in my opinion the coolest masks by far 16:48
And what mask is this one called exactly? 39:27
42:36 I was gonna make a joke that the mask looked like elvis but that's what they were going for lol what a twist
I love the noh mask and the onii mask :000
Some elements of Noh are from japanese Gagaku. The woman mask is from Ayagiri. Gagaku had been for only noble people, budhists and Shintonists till 1868.
Great, just great! I've gotta wonder, if an exact copy is warranted, why not just make a mold and cast away? I guess the hand labor is thought to enhance the performance or something.
You clearly don't have artistic nor aesthetic sense... I mean, you can't cast away wood, the material has properties that is bound to the cosmos of the Noh theater. Much of what the so called expert from the US said is classical arrogant oversimplification, the Japanese are much more sophisticated than that.
@@TheGrmany69 Why not simply reply that wood is an integral part of the noh mask? Id agree with that, but confused why you feel the need to try and belittle me with baseless assumptions. Its comical, because I'm in fact a mask maker myself and have been performing and exhibiting art internationally for over a decade.
アーティストはきっと手を使う事で神に近づく事が有ると感じるのではないでしょうか？日本には物に宿る神が居ます、木に宿る見張りの神、鏡に宿る太陽と月の神、刀に宿るのが一つ目の鍛治の神、相撲の力士に宿るのが手力王という軍神のような神です😊私の叔父は刀鍛治です刀を打つ時は必ず白い服を着て山に入って僧侶のような生活をします、悪魔のような物が付かないように。祖父母や先輩から教わる物を大事にする心のようなものだと思います。😊
You know you’re dealing with a level of perfection only the Japanese respect when literally the first step is “wait 5 to 20 years, and then wait again 5 to 20 years.”
Distant vision. Ha! I know what that is! Been able to do it ever since I almost died from chicken pox as a child. Takes a great amount of concentration but it's a very VERY odd state of being.
why does it show dogu when he's talking about masks? 6:05
Noh masks are the most realistic masks.
I wonder what Stephen Marvin fells about having his masks stored and never used n brought to life in Noh plays.
Do you intend to make more vids about noh @Dym sensei
I have another on noh costumes and am working on two more. One on noh music and the other on warrior noh.
@@Dymsensei I’m excited! I love the series so far!
@@user-wz4le9yx2n Thanks for watching. I hope to have the one on Noh Music completed sometime this summer. But first I have a film on Japanese puppet theater that I need to complete.
The phase is "hell hath no fury."
Thanks so much for this documentary. If you could make more, I'd be very grateful; nothing on TH-cam comes close to this depth. (One episode could be done on the setting alone: the colours of the curtain, the movement from outdoor to indoor.)
Two questions:
I'm curious how Noh was affected by covid restrictions, whether the art suffered?
And finally, I've just finished Zeami's Fushikaden. I don't understand the strict rules around playing demonic/mad characters.
Thank you again!
Curious also about the Western actors who have begun acting in Noh. How did they become performers and are they accepted by Noh aficionados? Is there any hint that women may soon appear onstage? Haha sorry for all the questions it's just so fascinating
@@cmoran9103 Depending on the school, women do appear on the noh stage. As for how non-Japanese actors are viewed, that varies as well. Some welcome them and their works, others....
@@Dymsensei thanks. Glad to hear women performing Noh too; makes you think of the shift from Jacobean to Restoration theatre. Haha fair enough about non-Japanese performers. The info on Theatre Nogaku at the end is a good starting point, look forward to learning about their work.
16:03
"Fierce Deity"
Well now...I didn't expect to find the roots of a Zelda item here. 0.0
E tão lindo ver as traduções do Japão.
44:33 animation of mask
Ya’ll Spy mains love to wear the Noh Mercy huh?
We know what we know. We know what we don't know. We know where to go to find out what we don't know.
I thought Hannya represented a jealous woman.
At least that's what i was told when I lived in Japan by wood carvers in Hida Takayama.
18:00 the doco said that too
One slip - off comes a toe.
Fatal Frame 4 brought me here
Noice
Safin brought me here
00:30 headphone warning. Lol great Docu, but turn down your volume for a bit or your ears are going to explode.
"After being cut down, the tree is exposed to water for 5 to 20 years"
what
"And then dried for another 5 to 20 years"
WHAT
"Alright boss, I cut down the tree, what's next" "See me in two decades"
"Alright boss, it's been twenty years, what now?" "Pull it out of the water" "And?" "And then see me in another twenty years"
Oh and I forgot the best part
"Boss, it's been almost half a century since we met, I met a wife, started a family, went to war, I saw many wonderous and terrible things. But at last, I have returned, and the logs are dry. What is the final step to this journey?" "Alright get like three pounds of wood so we can make a mask for a play"
Are these masks good for Covid??
22:08 🤔 seems like a great metaphor for Japanese society...
In many ways it is.
too many adverts it was torture trying the watch this video
No wonder my gold leaf never shines right, I'm not polishing with a boar's tusk
It's the key tool! :-)
16:48 Orochimaru sama.....
Brahma Bro Man
日本人で英語分かんないけどみてまーす笑笑
日本語字幕あります。
@@Dymsensei ありがとうございます！
16:21 give us your MONEY!!!
28:14 밤에 길다가 만나면 지릴듯;; 귀신같네;;
Stephen Marvin could split me like a pistachio ..
Masks in Venice Carnival, in Shamanism, Nuo culture of the Tujis people and the anonymous symbol against oppressive regimes... served various purposes.
Japan culture, majority of which, is the reproduction of Chinese culture; Nuo, means (儺) in the south， Shamanism (薩) in the north, the witchcraft related to various exocistic religions becomes a transformed art. Amazing!