2024–25
Join us for our most expansive season yet as we honor our tradition and continue our training while exploring noh in new languages and through new media.
This is Theatre Nohgaku at 25.
Blue Moon over Memphis in Japan
Text by Deborah Brevoort
Music by Richard Emmert
Direction by John Oglevee
On a pilgrimage to Graceland, Elvis Presley fan Judy encounters a restless spirit, ultimately revealed as the ghost of her idol. Brevoort’s meditation on celebrity and loneliness is elevated through the language of noh into an unforgettable “summoning” of the King of Rock and Roll. Presented with the maibayashi from Takasago, with shitekata Oshima Kinue and jigashira Matsui Akira, and the kyogen Fukuro, featuring Shigeyama Sennojo and TN members Lluis Valls and Jubilith Moore.
John Oglevee (shite)
Laura Sampson (Tokyo)/Mika Oskarson (Kyoto) (waki)
Shigeyama Sennojo (ai)
July 19, Okuma Auditorium, Waseda University, Tokyo; July 21, Kongo Noh Theatre, Kyoto
Presented by Compagnie Sangaku and Theatre Nohgaku
Medea
Image courtesy Julien Jovelin
Text and stage direction by Maxime Pierre
Music by Richard Emmert
Based on Seneca’s work, Pierre and Emmert’s Medea is the first French noh, telling the story of a mother driven to an unthinkable act of violent vengeance. Features performer/choreographer Masato Matsuura in the lead role with professional instrumentalists Okura Eitaro (otsuzumi), Omura Kayu (kotsuzumi), and Nakata Kazuha (taiko) joined by Theatre Nohgaku members Ashley Thorpe and Laura Sampson (chorus) and Lluis Valls (scenic director, head costumer).
November 14, Guimet Museum of Asian Arts, Paris; November 18, Bouillon Cultural Center, Orléans; November 20, Theatre des Capucins, Rainy Days Festival, Luxembourg
Additional information: https://www.sangaku.fr
“For the good of humanity through all the ages…”
Phoenix Fire
A Film by Kevin Salfen
featuring
Matsui Akira (The Phoenix)
Richard Emmert (Kanō Jigorō)
Nick Ishimaru (Ichikawa Kon)
Lluis Valls (Food Vendor)
Jubilith Moore (The Universal Athlete)
Phoenix Fire is a feature film informed by the poetry, form, and music of noh. It imagines an encounter between Kanō Jigorō, founder of modern judo, who tried and failed to bring the Olympics to Japan in 1940, and filmmaker Ichikawa Kon, director of Tokyo Olympiad, the documentary about the 1964 games. Originally intended as a stage work to be premiered in 2020, Phoenix Fire was, like the 2020 Tokyo games, re-imagined because of the pandemic. It will have its film festival premiere in the 2024-25 season.
“She would not cease to visit me in dreams until I had visited her in art.” – Edith Newton
Theatre Nohgaku with Theatre of Yugen (San Francisco) and the University of the Incarnate Word (San Antonio) presents the premiere of
In a Memory Palace
(a dance-opera and multimedia community story-circle installation)
Text by Edith Newton
Music by David Crandall and Kevin Salfen
Directed by Jubilith Moore
In a Memory Palace tells the story of Hedwig Müller, a couturier for Viennese high society in the interwar period who fled to the United States with her Jewish husband. In the shifting rooms of the memory palace, love and regret, fear and hope emerge and recede, driven by the desire to be heard.
Details about the 2026 premiere tour will be announced soon.
Noh Exhibition at the Embassy of Japan in London
At the exhibition hall of the Embassy of Japan in London from September 2nd to December 27th, Theatre Nohgaku collaborates with the Between the Stones project and the Embassy of Japan in the UK for an exhibit entitled From Tradition to Modernity—Understanding nohgaku from its establishment 650 years ago to contemporary times. The exhibit will introduce key aspects of noh and kyogen, including their history, stage, costumes, masks, and influences on contemporary society.
Related events will be held at the Embassy including demonstrations by noh mask maker Kitazawa Hideta as well as a program of films of classical and contemporary noh. Additional events will be held at the Japan House, the British Library, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and Royal Holloway, University of London. Notably there will be several book signings by Kitazawa Hideta of the new book Noh and Kyogen Masks—Tradition and Modernity in the Art of Kitazawa Hideta (Prestel Press) by Jannette Cheong and Richard Emmert.
A listing of all the events will soon be available at the following: https://www.betweenthestones.com/
