Desperately Seeking Young Blood: The World of University Noh Club Amateur Practitioners

• In Event: Scanning the Horizon: New Hopes for the Future of Noh Theatre

Abstract

Amateur practitioners constitute the economic foundation of the Noh theatre establishment since the Meiji restoration. However, after the burst of the economic bubble in the late early 1990s, the amateur population has been steadily declining. Noh amateurs are also patrons of the art, hence this decline has also impacted the size of the regular audiences, and is now posing a serious threat to the economic stability of the professionals. While research on Noh amateurs often focuses on elderly practitioners, this paper will explore another side of Noh amateurism: that of university clubs. Such clubs differ from the usual amateur practice groups: its members train intensively over a short period of time (usually 3-4 years) until graduation, and some of them may become semi-professionals, working with their teachers. Noh is not only a hobby for the elderly: it is also a passion for young individuals who are not born into professional kinship groups, but nonetheless wish to upgrade to the status of professional, thus becoming involved in full-fledged performances. Drawing from extensive fieldwork, this paper will introduce the activities of university Noh clubs, discussing the role of amateur practitioners in the professional establishment and in the transmission of the Noh tradition to posterity.

Author

• Diego Pellecchia, Ritsumeikan University