Kan'ami and Zeami refine Noh theatre under shogunal patronage
- Date
- 1374
- Category
- Culture, arts & philosophy
- Region
- Japan
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
In 1374, the actor-playwright Kan'ami Kiyotsugu (1333 to 1384) and his troupe performed sarugaku at the Imagumano shrine in Kyoto before the young Ashikaga shogun Yoshimitsu (1358 to 1408), who was so impressed, particularly by Kan'ami's eleven-year-old son Zeami Motokiyo (1363 to 1443), that he became their patron.
This shogunal favour freed the troupe from its roots in popular entertainment and allowed Kan'ami to elevate the rustic forms of sarugaku and dengaku into a refined, aristocratic dramatic art by incorporating elements such as the kusemai song-and-dance style. Zeami went on to perfect Noh as both performer and theorist, codifying its aesthetic ideals, above all yūgen (subtle, profound beauty) and monomane (imitation or role-playing), in influential treatises such as the Fūshikaden (Teachings on Style and the Flower), begun around 1400. Fusing poetry, music, masked dance, and Zen Buddhist sensibility, the form they created became Japan's classical theatre and one of the world's oldest continuously performed dramatic traditions. Noh's conventions, repertoire, and performance schools established in this period endured through the Tokugawa era and survive to the present day.
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Empires active in 1374
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE to 1900 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE to 1644 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE to 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE to 1974 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE to 1453 CE
- Golden Horde1242 CE to 1502 CE
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Further reading
The wider story
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