Yoshino Shizuka

• Japanese: 吉野静 (yoshino shizuka)

Yoshino Shizuka is a Noh play featuring the shirabyôshi dancer Shizuka Gozen, who was also Minamoto no Yoshitsune's lover.

The play is said to draw upon sarugaku dance pieces known simply as Shizuka ga mai no nô ("the Noh in which Shizuka dances"). In the version performed today, Shizuka helps Yoshitsune escape from the men pursuing him by dancing for them, thus distracting and delaying them, and giving Yoshitsune a chance to get away.

References

• Shelley Fenno Quinn, Developing Zeami, University of Hawaii Press (2005), 60.