Japan boasts one of the world's oldest, most vibrant and most influential performance traditions. This accessible and complete history provides a comprehensive overview of Japanese theatre and its continuing global influence. Written by eminent international scholars, it spans the full range of dance-theatre genres over the past fifteen hundred years, including noh theatre, bunraku puppet theatre, kabuki theatre, shingeki modern theatre, rakugo storytelling, vanguard butoh dance and media experimentation. The first part addresses traditional genres, their historical trajectories and performance conventions. Part II covers the spectrum of new genres since Meiji (1868-), and Parts III to VI provide discussions of playwriting, architecture, Shakespeare, and interculturalism, situating Japanese elements within their global theatrical context. Beautifully illustrated with photographs and prints, this history features interviews with key modern directors, an overview of historical scholarship in English and Japanese, and a timeline. A further reading list covers a range of multimedia resources to encourage further explorations.
Author: Jonah Salz Publisher: Cambridge University Press Published: 07/14/2016 Pages: 589 Binding Type: Hardcover Weight: 2.98lbs Size: 10.06h x 7.03w x 1.22d ISBN: 9781107034242
Review Citation(s): Choice 03/01/2017
About the Author Salz, Jonah: - Jonah Salz is Professor of Comparative Theatre in the Department of International Studies at Ryukoku University, Japan. As director of the Noho Theatre Group (established 1981) he works with noh and kyōgen actors to interpret texts by Shakespeare, Yeats and Beckett, successfully touring the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Avignon Theatre Festival, and throughout the US and Japan. A programme director for Traditional Theatre Training, he organises an intensive programme to teach noh, kyōgen and nihonbuyo dance to Japanese and foreign artists and scholars. He has published numerous articles and translations as a leading scholar of kyōgen comedy and Japanese interculturalism and has reviewed theatre and dance performances for three decades for English newspapers and monthly magazines in Japan.
