Nomai Dance Drama A Surviving Spirit of Medieval Japan

Subjects:

• The Arts » Dance
• Literature » Drama
• Anthropology » Cultural Anthropology
• Multicultural Studies » Asian Studies

Reviews:

• This book covers new ground in its approach and focus, and is accesing blend of a diverse number of performing traditions from both the court and lower classes of medieval Japan and the way it draws on religious practices including Buddhist chant and folk Shinto music...both the general and specialist reader may gain from the extensive experience of this author ensuring that we may have insights into these traditions that are inherited across so many centuries of Japanese history.
  —Ethnomusicology Fall 2002
• ...an important contribution to scholarship....bound to engage the curiosity of any student of Asian performance, folk traditions, or performance studies.
  —Theatre Journal October 2001

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• Introduction
• Historical Background
• Artistic Growth Fueled by the Emerging Warrior Culture and Popular Buddhism: Cultural Antecedents
• Shamanic Beginnings: Dramatic Antecedents
• Shugend=o Religion and Folk Dance Drama: Religious Antecedents
• N=omai Theater
• Keepers of a Tradition: Performers and Cultural Setting
• A View from Within: Performance Practices
• Sacred Chronicles, Tales of Valor, and Humorous Yarns: Repertoire
• N=omai Music
• Drums, Cymbals, and Flute
• Poetry and Narrative in Song
• Epilogue: Musical N=omai in the 20th Century--Balancing Tradition and Change
• Appendix: Transcriptions
• Glossary of Japanese Terms
• Bibliography
• Index