- 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, and which is that which captures the audience's interest.[1]
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 Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. 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. With the monetary wellbeing of the troupe now in his hands, Zeami took steps to adapt the style of his more provincial Yamato-based troupe, to better compete with those situated closer to the capital (Kyoto) and closer to Kyoto tastes. His own Yamato style, as passed down from his father, took the portrayal of women and of demons as its greatest strengths, for example, but these were precisely the things which were not much appreciated by more sophisticated Kyoto audiences. Zeami attempted to resolve this by adopting elements of the Ômi troupes' aesthetic of yûgen, not adopting it wholesale, but refashioning it so as to maintain Yamato traditions and styles of performance, while making Yamato performance more sophisticated and appealing to Kyoto audiences.[2]
Zeami began writing the earliest and today most famous of his treatises, 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. One exception is the Shûdôsho ("Learning the Profession"), which was meant for widespread circulation from the beginning, and which was published in a popularly accessible woodblock book form in 1772 by Kanze Motoakira (1722-1774). Though some excerpts of the other texts did end up leaking out and circulating in either manuscript or published form over the centuries, it is for this reason that these works in their entireties were almost entirely unknown for hundreds of years, and were not published in anything resembling a complete form until 1909.
Thought
Selected Works
- Fûshikaden, also known as Kadensho ("Transmission of the Flower, Forms, and Style")
- Sandô ("The Three Paths", 1423)
- Kakyô ("A Mirror to the Flower", 1424)
- Sarugaku Dangi ("Conversations on Sarugaku")
- Shûdôsho ("Learning the Profession")
Plays
References
- Thomas Hare, Zeami Performance Notes, Columbia University Press, 2008.
- 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.