Zeami

• Born: 1363
• Died: 1443
• Other Names: 観世元清 (Kanze Motokiyo), 秦元清 (Hata no Motokiyo)
• Japanese: 世阿弥 (Zeami)

Zeami was an actor, troupe leader, playwright and theatre theorist, generally considered the founder of Noh drama. He is considered the original author of many plays prominent in the Noh repertoire, as well as several secret treatises on performance, in which he articulates numerous concepts later incorporated into kabuki, jôruri puppet theatre, and other art forms, including the concept of jo-ha-kyû, and that of "the flower," an almost indefinable quality which marks the greatest of performances.

Biography

Zeami was born Hata no Motokiyo, the son of performer Kan'ami, with whom he was invited at a young age to become a court performer in service to the Ashikaga Shogun. While at the shogun's court, and charged with organizing entertainments, Motokiyo and his father developed rural dances known as sarugaku into the beginnings of what is now known as Noh theatre or Noh drama. There would eventually develop five orthodox schools of Noh performance, with the Kanze school claiming the most direct connection to Zeami, and claiming Kan'ami as its first head. Upon his father's death in 1384, Zeami succeeded him, becoming the second head of the Kanze school.

He began writing the Fûshikaden ("Transmission of the Flower, Forms, and Style") in 1400, completing it in 1402; during the intervening year, in 1401, he took on the art-name (gô) Zeami.

He was succeeded as head of the Kanze school in 1422 by his son, Kanze Motomasa. That same year, he took the tonsure, and began conveying his secrets to his sons more fully.

He was exiled to Sado Island in 1434, but eventually returned before dying in 1443. Most of his writings on performance were originally conceived as secret transmissions, to be treasured and guarded, and passed down only within the lineage of the Kanze school. Though some excerpts did end up leaking out and getting published in the 18th century, it is for this reason that these works were almost entirely unknown for hundreds of years, and were not published in anything resembling a complete form until 1909.

Selected Works

• Fûshikaden, also known as Kadensho ("Transmission of the Flower, Forms, and Style")
• Sandô ("The Three Paths")

Plays

• Seiganji

References

• Rimer, J. Thomas and Yamazaki Masakazu trans. (1984). On the Art of the Nō Drama: The Major Treatises of Zeami. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
• Quinn, Shelley Fenno. "How to write a Noh play - Zeami's Sandō." Monumenta Nipponica 48:1 (Spring 1993). pp58-62.