This is a video recording of a collaborative Noh drama performance held in 2013 at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] by SAKAMOTO Ryuichi, TAKATANI Shiro, and Kyogen performer NOMURA Mansai. As part of YCAM’s “Yamaguchi Art and Environment for Tomorrow” 10th-anniversary celebration, the performance was carried out in the “LIFE—fluid, invisible, inaudible ...” installation, which was a re-creation of the same installation from 2007 originally made by SAKAMOTO and TAKATANI during their time as resident artists. The piece utilizes Noh traditional theater, which was been around since far before the modern era, alongside art made using technologies from the same period, based on the celebratory event’s themes of art, environment and life. It incorporates contemporary Noh, theatrical drama, poetry and traditional Noh while bringing together things old and new, Japanese and foreign, as it explores the past, present and future.

The performance is divided into two sections: the first comprises three ancient performance pieces, and the second a theatrical drama created by Irish poet and playwright William Butler YEATS—who took inspiration from Noh—as well as a Noh piece.

---

UMEWAKA Kisho，NOMURA Mansai，OKURA Genjiro, ISSO Takayuki, KAMEI Hirotada, KOTERA Masato, SAKAMOTO Ryuichi and others
Direction / Composition: NOMURA Mansai, SAKAMOTO Ryuichi, TAKATANI Shiro
Movie: TAKATANI Shiro
Cooperation for Screening: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]

TOTAL TIME: 85:26