From Dream to Reenactment: The Multimodal Structure of Imagination in Kokaji and Hashitomi
Taro Yokoyama
Department of Expression Studies and Cinematic Arts, Rikkyō University, Tokyo
Wednesday, 26 April 2023
10:00–10:30 am
Abstract: What does the audience experience when they watch Noh? Rather than perceiving the mediums on stage (gestures, sounds, and other stage representations), they perceive what is imagined through these mediums. While this is true of theater in general, Noh is a theatrical form in which imagination plays a particularly important role because the medium on stage is extremely abstract and is skillfully constructed to enrich the audience's imaginative experience. In this presentation, I will use the examples of the Noh plays Kokaji and Hashitomi, both collected on the Noh as Intermedia website, to analyze how the above-described imaginative experience for the audience is designed. Like many excellent Noh works, these plays are designed to evoke strong emotions in the audience at the climax of the story (the moment when the sword is completed in KoKaji and the moment when the ghost of Yugao asks the monk for condolences in Hashitomi, both of which are reenactments of historical events). Here, multimodal images rooted in narrative, performance, and the poetic function of language are mutually mediated, and the meaning of the climactic moment is multilayered and reinforced. These mechanisms are common to all good Noh plays, but they can also change over time. I will conclude this presentation by comparing these plays with Zeami's older works, suggesting that changes in the epistemology of dreams in Japan influenced Noh's design of the audience's imaginative experience.
About the presenter: Taro Yokoyama is a professor in the Department of Body Expression and Cinematic Arts at Rikkyo University since 2019. From 2002 to 2018 he worked at University of Tokyo and Atomi University as a full-time faculty. He received his Ph.D. from University of Tokyo in 2005. His major is theater studies, especially Noh, and the cultural history of the body. His main research topics are the historical transformation process of body technique and expression in Noh theatre and the reception of Noh in contemporary times. He is also engaged in interdisciplinary research that explores the interface between Noh and philosophy, contemporary theater, narrative theory, and ethnography.