Getting to noh

A Tribute to Richard Emmert - a man with a constant vision

Presented in London, January 2020

Getting to noh...
Richard Emmert
An extraordinary man with aconstant vision and many talents:
performer, composer, director,
academic, teacher and international
friend

2

CONTENTS
Background & Introduction		

6-9

Tributes

Eliza. Richard Emmert (Nochishite).
Umewaka Noh Theatre. May 1990

- Japanese teachers & friends

16-43- Noh scholars			

44-55- Intercultural collaborators & friends

56-75- Theatre Nohgaku colleagues

76-89- English noh collaborators		

90-125Credits				

126

6

Getting to noh ...

Richard Emmert

This tribute to Richard Emmert in his 70th year gives recognition
to his lifetime’s contribution to our understanding, appreciationand engagement with the wonderful art of noh. It lists his
accomplishments and partnerships and includes tributes frompeople around the world who have been fortunate to know andwork with him.

There is a tradition that authors’ names are given prominencein the noh world. This comes from the fact that when noh was
first developed the performers were most often the writers andthey were writing for a form they ‘inhabited’ in their performance.
Rick often says the only thing he has not done in noh is written
an original noh. But this statement belies the fact that Rick has
translated existing classical noh into English and encouragedtranslations in other languages and, if we were to use the western
tradition of putting the composer’s name first, the current list ofEnglish language noh would be dominated by Richard Emmert.
Add to this that the majority of contemporary English noh writers
cannot compose noh music and you realise that the contemporary
English noh repertory only exists because Richard Emmert has
worked hard with others helping them to create these new noh
works.

To understand why Richard is so highly regarded, both inside andoutside Japan, one needs to appreciate that his uniqueness comesfrom the fact that few, if any, foreigners have achieved Richard’s
range and depth of engagement with noh. Richard is an academic,teacher, performer, instrumentalist, composer and director - anextraordinary range of talents for anyone to achieve in a lifetime.
However, Rick, as he is known around the world, is also a creative
leader extraordinaire! He has not only helped to establish noh
training projects together with his colleagues in Japan, the USA,UK, Mexico (and soon) Sweden, but also travelled the world
training or collaborating with those he feels have a serious
intention, or interest, in noh. Many friends and collaborators say
this is because of his kind and generous spirit.
But there has to be more than this that has bound him to stories
and artists internationally and given him the unique acolade of the
only person in the world who has composed and directed mostof the new English noh that have been developed in the 20th and21st centuries. His is truly a remarkable life.

Rick once said his own test for new work is: will it be rememberedin 200 years time? If humanity retains the humility, generosity andkindness that Richard Emmert has shared throughout his lifetime
then there is a good chance, but only because Rick is willing toshare everything he knows about this extraordinary art form. Why?
It is simple; he knows that noh has already stood the test of time 650 years and counting...

7

Introduction
8

Richard Emmert is a professor of Asian performance atMusashino University in Tokyo. He has studied, taught andperformed classical noh in Japan since 1973 and is a certified
Kita school noh instructor.
The founder and former artistic director of Theatre Nohgaku,
a company dedicated to performing noh in English, he has led
performance tours of the company in the United States, Europe
and Asia and specific noh performance projects in Australia,
Canada, China, Colombia, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Mexico, Switzerland, Singapore, the UK and the US.

Creative leadership
As an example of his creative leadership, Professor Emmert andothers in Theatre Nohgaku continuously explore training support
for the longer-term sustainable development of noh internationally.
They have established Noh Training Projects since 1991 in Tokyoand subsequently in the USA, the UK and soon to be established
in Sweden. Specifically, Richard directs an on-going Noh Training
Project in Tokyo, has for twenty years lead a summer Noh Training
Project in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania (USA), and has led an
intensive summer Noh Training Project UK sponsored by Royal
Holloway, University of London as co-founder and Artistic Director
since 2011. Richard continues to be invited as guest faculty for noh
training internationally, having undertaken 30 such commitments
since 1984, either working with Japanese professional noh actors,
or leading training events in other countries.
This book brings together the voices of his teachers, students,
collaborators and friends who wish to pay tribute to his
lifetime achievements in the art of noh and to mark his special‘koki’ (70th) year.

9While teaching at Musashino University, Mr
Emmert separately created a theatre group called‘Theatre Nohgaku’, an international performanceensemble dedicated to the performance of noh inEnglish and Japanese. Embracing the philosophyof creating noh written in the language that lives
within him, Mr Emmert has given countless
opportunities to those who do not understandJapanese to access and engage with noh.

10

In February 2019, an English-language noh
project Between the Stones, a collaboration
with Jannette Cheong, was introduced through aseries of lectures and demonstrations in various
venues in the UK, including the Embassy. Noh,as an art form, may be difficult even for Japanesepeople to understand. Yet, somehow, when
performed in English, it seemed that the very
core of the art form unfolded before us. Whichis to say, the efforts of Mr Emmert to make noh
accessible in English, has itself opened up new
possibilities for understanding noh, even forJapanese people. I have no doubt that his efforts
are not over, and that he will continue to promoteand expand the possibilities of noh for years tocome.
Takeshi Ito
Minister for Public Diplomacy and Media
Director, Japan Information and Culture Centre
Embassy of Japan in the UK

Lecture-demonstration, Oshima Kinue (costumed), Oshima
Teruhisa and Emmert (chorus), Embassy of Japan, London.
February 2019.

Richard Emmert
a remarkable lifeBorn in Bluffton, Ohio, USA on
28 December 1949, Richard
finished his first degree in history
and Japanese at Earlham College,
Richmond, Indiana in 1972.
Richard moved to Tokyo to study
at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts
where he completed his masters
and the coursework for a PhD inmusicology in 1985. His training innoh began in 1973 and continues tothis day.

Tokyo University of the Arts. Noh chant club. Instructor:
Kita School shite performer Fukuoka Shusai sensei. (April
1978)

Childhood home. Near Bluffton, Ohio (1970)
Siblings singing together around the piano. Front:
Joan, Sally (at piano). Back: Rick, Jan, Jim.
(March 1969)

Richard & his mother in the neaby pond (1950)

Performing a shimai on the Asaba Inn outdoor noh
stage, Izu, south of Tokyo. (1977)

Singing chant with taiko drum played by Gentaro
Mishima sensei in small home recital with students ofMishima-sensei. 1980?

Noh Performance Training:
1973-1979 Utai/Shimai with Matsui Akira (Kita school)
1975-1978 Utai with Fukuoka Shusai (Kita school)
1979-present Utai/Shimai with Omura Sadamu (Kita school)
1975-2004 Nohkan (flute) with Isso Yukimasa
1975-1983 Kotsuzumi (shoulder drum) with Sumikoma Akihiro
1977-1985 Otsuzumi (hip drum) with Kakihara Takashi
1977-present Taiko (stick drum) with Mishima Gentaro

16
Major Noh Performances in Japan:
2007 (December) main role (shite) in noh Sumidgawa in SadamuKai recital, Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo
2002 (December) main role (shite) in noh Kiyotsune in Sadamu-Kai
recital, Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo.
2000 (October) main role (shite) in noh Kantan in Sadamu-Kai
recital, Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo.
1994 (September) main role (shite) in noh Momijigari in SadamuKai recital, National Noh Theatre, Tokyo.
1991 (December) main role (shite) in noh Fujito in Sadamu-Kai
recital, Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo.
1987 (November) main role (shite) in noh Kurozuka in Sadamu-Kai
recital, Kita Noh Stage, Tokyo.
1986 (September) Director/composer/jigashira for the English noh
Drifting Fires, Zojoji Temple, Tokyo.
1985 (August) Director/composer/jigashira for the English noh
Drifting Fires, Tsukuba Science Exposition, Tsukuba.
1983 (October) Nohkan performance of Sanbaso in the Yucho-Kai
Performances, Tessenkai Noh Stage, Tokyo.
1982 (May) Director/composer/nohkan of the English noh, At the
Hawk’s Well, Umewaka Noh Stage, Tokyo.
1978 (May) main role (shite) in noh Kumasaka in Kisho-Kai
Performances, Ginza Noh Theatre, Tokyo.

RICHARDEMMERTa manof many
talents

Tributes from Japanese
Teachers and Friends増田正造
武蔵野大学文学部名誉教授
能楽資料センタ
ー元センター長

バリ島の彼の別荘で５０の賀が催され、各国人に伍して７０歳の私も参加した。
そのエマ－トさんが７０ を迎えるという。
これからが直線コ－ス、ラ
スト・スパ－トはどんなにか素晴らしいものになるだろう。英語能ほか、能の海外普及の業績は、余人のなしえぬところである。
日本の研究者は、
ほ
とんど古文書に偏る嫌いがある。
アメリカ人でありながら、
エマ－トさんは喜多流ばかりか、能の囃子全般にわたって、プロに準ずる実技を習得し、能の実践者として希有の存在となった。
小泉文夫、横道萬里雄という碩学の教えに接し、能管の一噌幸政の懇切な指導を受けえたというのは、なんたる幸せであったことか。
それに喜多流の師であり、同志でもある松井彬、大村定との緊密な縁と、世界的な活躍。
私は「セント・フランシス」の映像で、来日前から彼に注目しており、やがて大学の同僚に迎えた.黒川能もバリも仲間であるが、あまりにその存在が大きすぎ、近すぎて、
いま改めて驚嘆することを恥じる。
「碧い目の太郎冠者」
ドナルド・キーン先生すでになく、それに続く文化功労者としてのエマ－トさんを讃えたい。

SHOZOHMASUDA
Professor
Emeritus,
Musashino
University
FormerDirector of the
University’s
Noh ResearchArchives

At the age of 70, I celebrated along with others from several
countries at his small hotel in Bali when he turned 50. And now
Emmert-san himself has turned 70. From here on, it is straightahead. How magnificent will this last spurt be? His contributions ofEnglish noh and the introduction of noh in various foreign countries
are something that others are unable to do. Most Japanese
researchers are mainly research classical texts. But even thoughan American, Emmert-san has mastered noh performance at aprofessional level in terms of both the Kita School of shite actors
as well as the four hayashi instruments, and in that sense is a rarepractitioner of the art of noh.
How fortunate for him to have been taught by the great scholars
Koizumi Fumio and Yokomichi Mario, and also receive thethorough guidance of Isso Yukimasa on the noh flute. And thenthrough the like-minded yet rigorous training under Matsui Akira
and Omura Sadamu of the Kita School, he has been able to share
his noh abilities throughout the world.
I knew of him through his performance in the film St. Francis even
before he came to Japan. Eventually I invited him to the faculty at
my university. Now, as a colleague interested as well in the artsof Kurokawa noh and Bali, his activities are so varied and he isso close to me personally that it is embarrassing to once again
extol his wide-ranging abilities. Donald Keene-sensei of Aoi Me no
Taro Kaja (The Blue-eyed Taro Kaja) fame has passed away. So inthat vein, I wish to next praise Emmert-san as a Bunka Korosha(Person of Cultural Merit).

Fujito. Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo. December 1991.
Emmert (shite). Yoshikatsu Tsukuda (okawa) andAkira Nakatani (nohkan).

19三島元太郎
能楽金春流太鼓方
人間国宝リチャード・エマートさん古希を迎えられまして、心から祝福申し上げます。
１９７７年５月２６日の日記にありました。
「今日稽古日、Rエマート
優秀だ。
「打込」
「打返」三度目マスター。」とあります。以来記録を調べる必要がありますが、４０余年、能のシテを相手したのは
「熊
坂」、
「黒塚」
でしょうか。数多くの英語に依る新作能。
イェイツの「鷹の井戸」、
バイチマンの「票炎」、マレットの「イライザ」も楽しかった。喜多流の人達と一ヶ月あまりのオランダの各地での演能もなにかと大変だったし、楽しかった。二人で招かれて行ったプロモー
ターのダシルバ親分の家のすごい蒐集品。
人生百歳時代。百歳を古来稀なり。
とする中国の詩に、九十、八十と並べて、七十は得ること多し。
とあります。
能を深く学ばれ，流暢な日本語を通しての日本文化の理解。
そして世界文化との交流の成果は心から讃えるに惜しみありません。
太鼓は豊かな掛声で自在。一噌流の笛は何でも即座に応じて流
麗足る音色。大したものです。益々の御活躍を祈ります。

GENTAROMISHIMA
Komparu School
Taiko drummer
Living National
TreasureFirst, I wish to give my heartfelt congratulations to Richard
Emmert-san as he reaches the age of 70.
I found the following in my diary for 26 May 1977.
“Today’s lesson, R. Emmert was excellent. He mastered uchikomi
and uchikaeshi (basic drum patterns) on his third try.” I am sure
I could find more entries since then. Over a 40-plus year period,
I have performed taiko for his shite of the Japanese noh plays
Kumasaka and Kurozuka. And I have performed in severalof his newly created English noh plays. Yeats’ At the Hawk’s
Well, Beichman’s Drifting Fires and Marett’s Eliza were all quite
enjoyable. The month-long performance tour of Holland with
the Kita School was difficult but it too was enjoyable. In Holland,
I remember when the two of us were invited to the home of thepromoter Da Silva to see his amazing art collection.
This is the era of living to 100. There is a Chinese saying that “it israre to live to 100, whereas there are many who live to 90, 80 and
70.”
Having studied noh deeply, his Japanese fluency has allowed him
to learn much about Japanese culture. I also must praise him forwhat he has done for cultural exchange throughout the world.
He has a rich kakegoe (drum call) voice when playing taiko.
Everything about his Isso School flute playing is exact and has an
elegant tone quality. All this is a considerable feat. I pray for his
continued success in all his activities.

Kurozuka. Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo. November
1987. Richard Emmert (shite). Sadamu Omura(hidden) and Akio Sato (koken), and Gentaro
Mishima (taiko).

21

Kumasaka. Ginza Noh Theatre, Tokyo. May 1978. Richard Emmert (shite).
Akira Matsui (koken) and Gentaro Mishima (taiko) can be seen at back left.

Richard Emmert performing the shite in Kiyotsune, December 2002.
Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo.

松井彬

御神酒徳利

能楽喜多流シテ方

リックの能稽古を指導始めたのは凡そ４６年前になろうか。
その一年後、東京で英語能「セントフランシス」の演出を手掛けた。
この時の音楽監督がリックであった。
これをきっかけに能を指導したのがそもそも御神酒徳利の関係にとつずく。
私にとっては能とは無関係な英語への世界に飛び込んだ。
この付
き合いが現在までつずいている。
この頃の思い出は、
この文章を書きながらも走馬灯のように思い出させる。余りにも書きたいことが多く、どこを切り取って書くべきかと思案している。
まず彼の能楽への功績を挙げるとすれば、何と言っても英語能と言う基礎を創り上げた事である。彼無くしてはここまで英語能が発展したか疑問である。私もそのおかげで幾つかの作品に参加ができ、とてもいい経験と成っている。

24

簡単に英語能と言っているが、勿論公演を実行するには英語が堪能な役者、演奏家を造らなければならない。
その為には自分自信の訓練をし演能可能な役者を育てなければならない。
ゼロからの出発。Noh Training Project Bloomsburgをアメリカに置き、能の基礎から囃子まで指導し、現在まで多くの仲間を輩出して居る。
これらの応援してくださる人達を育てあげたのも彼の力である。
海外(日本から言う)でのワークショップを始め、公演指導を共に数十年がかりであった。師弟関係では無く仲間のお神酒徳利。
能「猩々]の謡の中に「汲めども尽きぬ、飲めども変わらぬ」があります。
この謡文句の様に彼は今後も能楽発展のために尽きぬ力を注いでくれるものと期待をしている。

AKIRA
MATSUI
Kita School
shite actor

Omiki tokkuri (Sacred Sake Bottle)
It has been about 46 years since Rick began taking noh lessons
from me. A year after he began, I directed the English noh play
St. Francis in Tokyo. Rick was the director of music. It was throughteaching him and working together with him that our relationshipbecame like that of an omiki tokkuri (literally, “sacred sake bottle”
but is used to refer to people sharing sake as they work together).
For me, it was through noh that I jumped into the unrelated worldof the English language. That association continues today. As I
write this, memories from that time flash before my eyes. I would
love to write about so many of these that I am left to ponder what I
should tear off and write about here.
In regards to Rick’s accomplishments in the world of noh, morethan anything else he has created the foundation for noh inEnglish. It is doubtful as to whether English noh would havedeveloped this far without him. And because of that, I, too, haveparticipated in a number of performances, all of which have been
great experiences.
I mention English noh quite simply, but of course to perform noh inEnglish you have to train skillful speakers of English as actors andperformers of noh. For that, he himself took on the training of such
performers. Starting from zero. He began the Noh Training Project
Bloomsburg in the United States teaching the basics of noh chantand dance as well as hayashi instruments, and up until now hehas trained many students to become fellow noh performers.
Educating audiences to support such performances is also one of
his activities.
Beginning with giving workshops abroad, together we haveworked for several decades giving performances and lecturedemonstrations. We no longer have a teacher-disciple relationship,
but are colleagues sharing sake (omiki tokkuri).
The noh Shojo has the chant about a special sake barrel: “nomatter how much you dip, it never runs dry, no matter how
much you drink, it never changes.” Like these lyrics from noh, I
look forward to his strength “to never run dry” in working for theadvancement of noh.

Rehearsing Teater Cahaya’s
Siddhartha, Akira Matsui and
Emmert, Bali, January 2003.

25

大村定

リチャード・エマートさん古希おめでとうございます。

能楽喜多流シ
テ方

エマートさんとは、
同年令で，彼が東京芸術大学卒業後、四十数年にわたって、能楽の指導をさせて頂いています。能も
「黒塚」
から
「隅田川」
まで、六番程舞われました。
能楽の稽古においては、
おぼえがはやいのに加えて、
とてもセンスが良いのには、驚かされます。
彼自身も英語能を作り、演じて，全世界に能楽を広く普及させている事は誠に素晴らしい次第です。
人生の普遍的テーマ、喜怒哀楽、愛別離苦などを題材として，素適な英語能の作品をも作り上げています。
これからも意欲的に世界に向けて、能楽を発達させて頂きたいと思います。

SADAMUOMURA
Kita School
shite actor

Richard Emmert, congratulations on reaching your 70th year.
Emmert-san and I were born in the same year, and now for over
40 years, ever since he was in Tokyo University of Fine Arts
and Music, I have been fortunate to be able to teach him noh.
During that time, he has danced six full classical noh plays, from
Kurozuka to Sumidagawa.
In his noh training, it is surprising how quick he has always been
to memorize as well as to demonstrate an excellent sense of
performance.
It is truly wonderful how he has created new English noh,performed them, and in so doing has spread noh throughout theworld. His English noh creations display universal themes which
run the gamut of human emotions—joy, anger, pathos, and humor,
or the pain of separation from loved ones.
It is my wish that he continue to be ambitious in fostering noh
throughout the world.

Left: Sumidagawa. Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo. December 2007. Richard
Emmert (shite). Sadamu Omura (koken).

27

水島敏夫
読売新聞元
ワシントン支局長

一九七一年晩夏、羽田から飛び立ったチャーター機の中で、
リッ
ク・エマートと初めて出会った。早稲田大学での留学を終えアーラ
ム大学に戻るリックと、早稲田からアーラムに留学する私の、太平洋を挟んだそれぞれの旅の終わりと始まりの交叉であった。
一㌦が三百六十円で沖縄は米国治政下、
ベトナム戦争が泥沼化していたころである。
アーラムでリックは聖フランシスの生涯を能楽風に描いた芝居を演じ、日本に再留学した際には、私が安アパートの四畳半で、漱石の「三四郎」をテキストに日本語を教えた。
その二十数年後、米国育ちの私の娘がコロンビア大学から早稲田の国際部に留学した九七年、なんと、今度は、リックが教壇から、娘に日本文化を教えた。
不思議な縁である。
リックは東京の中野坂上に四十年以上も住んでいるが、その場所は、私が学生時代に暮らしたアパートのすぐそば。
お互い頻繁に行き来したもので、青白い理想と甘酸っぱい夢が詰まった、ささやかな、
中野つながりである。

28

二〇一九年春。
リックは東京都心にある、ホールのステージに和服姿で現れ、能・狂言の公演に先立ち、ほとんどが日本人の聴衆を前に日本語で、滔々と演目の解説を行った。
さて、そのホールは
私が定年まで勤めていた新聞社のビルにあり、そのイベントの主催者でもあった。
これも、縁。
ざっと半世紀前、羽田発のチャーター便で始まった奇妙で貴重な縁は、まだまだ切れそうにない。二人とも古希を迎えた。

At the home of Toshio
Mizushima in Mito,
north of Tokyo. Wife
Junko (center). May
1976.

TOSHIOMIZUSHIMA
FormerWashington
Bureau Chief,
Yomiuri
ShimbunIn late summer 1971, I met Rick Emmert for the first time on acharter flight that had taken off from Haneda International Airport.
For Rick, who had finished a year as a foreign student at Waseda
University and was returning to Earlham College, and for me,
leaving Waseda to go to Earlham as a foreign student, it was anintersection over the Pacific Ocean of a journey just ending andone just beginning.
It was the time when a dollar was worth 360 yen, Okinawa was still
under the control of the United States, and the Vietnam War was
turning into a quagmire.
At Earlham, Rick had performed in a play in noh style about thelife of St. Francis. When he returned again to Japan as a foreign
student, I taught him Japanese in my cheap four and a half tatami
mat room using the text of Natsume Soseki’s novel Sanshiro. Thensome 20 plus years later in 1997, my daughter, raised in the UnitedStates, went as a foreign student from Columbia University to
Waseda University’s International Division where, lo and behold,she took a class on Japanese culture taught by Rick.
We have a strange connection.
Rick has lived in the area of Nakano Sakaue in Tokyo for over 40
years, which is very close to where I lived in my cheap student
apartment. So we are also connected through Nakano where
each of us has frequently come and gone and which now seems
modestly packed with our honest ideals and bittersweet dreams.
Spring 2019. On a stage in a hall in the center of Tokyo, Rickappeared before a noh and kyogen performance dressed inJapanese kimono, and in fluent Japanese gave a pre-performancetalk to a mainly Japanese audience. That hall was in the buildingof the newspaper company for which I had worked until myretirement and the event was sponsored by that same newspaper.
That too was our connection.
That curious and precious connection that began about a half
century ago on a charter plane from Haneda doesn’t look like it will
end soon. We both have just recently turned 70 years old.

29

近衞忠大
公益財団法人 十四世六平太記念財団 理事長 株式会社
curioswitch CEO／
クリエイティブ・ディレ
クターリチャード・エマート先生は今や喜多流、
いや能楽界に欠かせない方です。私が生まれた年、1970年に来日されて、1973年から能の稽古を始められているので、ほんの数年前からお能と関わり始めた私にとっては、実年齢以上の先輩でいらっしゃいます。
そしてお能の面白さと可能性を教えて下さった方でもあります。
先生の功績は既にメンションされていると思いますが、最大の業
績は６冊に及ぶ能の演目の英語版解説を作られたこと。
そして能の公演時に使用する事に関して自由にコピーが可能にしたことだと思っております。喜多能楽堂でもいつも使わせて頂いております。心より御礼申し上げます。
私は古い伝統文化に関わりの深い家に生まれたにも関わらず、ス
イスで幼少期を過ごしました。
そのため日本の伝統文化は身近で有りながら、極めて理解が難しいものでした。
お能もその最たるものです。

30

エマート先生が続けていらっしゃるNoh Training Projectを初めて観たのは2017年でした。全く日本語が出来ない参加者が殆どの中、初日から正座で反復練習だけ。
日本人の能楽師と同じような稽古に衝撃を受けました。
そしてそこから僅か三週間ほどで行われた発表会では更なる衝撃を受けました。想像以上の完成度と、何より参加者全員がお能のファンであり、理解者になっていた事に、あらためて能の魅力を再認識させて頂きました。
なかなか席が埋まらない公演、少ない若年層の観客と若手能楽師。
能の魅力を伝えきれていないのでは、という自責の念と、自分自身が理解できていないという焦りとで理事の仕事が重荷に感じていました。
しかしNoh Training Project以来、理事としての仕事は俄然楽しくなりました。能の魅力は時代や言葉を越え、若い層にも、海外にも通用するんだと実感できたことが大きな勇気に変わりました。
エマート先生。
これからも日本の能楽界を支え、応援して下さい。

TADAHIRO
KONOE
Chairman,
Kita Roppeita
XIV Memorial
Foundation
CEO/Creative
Director,
curioswitch, inc.

Richard Emmert-sensei is indispensable to the present, to the Kita
School and to the noh world. He first came to Japan in 1970, thevery year that I was born, and began taking lessons in noh in 1973.
As someone who only from the last several years began to havea relationship with noh, he is more than just my senior in terms ofage. He is also someone who has taught me what is interesting
about noh as well as its possibilities.
I am sure sensei’s accomplishments are mentioned elsewhere. I
think his most significant contribution is the series of six books
in which he explains in detail all of the 240 plays in the classicalnoh repertory. He also made it possible for presenters of noh tofreely make copies of each play when it is being performed. We
always use these explanations for plays performed at the Kita Noh
Theatre. I thank him for this.
Even though I was born into a family that has a long relationshipwith traditional Japanese culture, I spent much of my childhoodin Switzerland. For that reason, even though it should have beenclose to me, Japanese traditional culture was extremely difficult forme to understand. Noh was conspicuously so.
In 2017, I first saw the Tokyo version of the Noh Training Project
which Emmert-sensei originated. Most of the participants who
could not even speak Japanese sat Japanese style seiza fromthe first day. I was shocked to see them receive the same kindof training as Japanese professional performers. And from there,
within a short three-week intensive period, I was shocked again in
seeing the final recital. With an unimaginable level of perfection,clearly all the participants had become fans of noh and hadcome to understand it. From that, I was able recognize anew thefascination of noh.
It is difficult to fill all the seats of a noh performance, and there arefew young members of the audience as well as few young noh
actors. Finding it difficult to communicate the attraction of noh andblaming myself for it, I was feeling the weight of my work on theboard of directors and becoming impatient with my own lack ofunderstanding. But since the start of the Noh Training Project, mywork on the board of directors has suddenly become enjoyable. I
have come to understand that the attraction of noh can cross ages
and language, and young people as well those from abroad cancome to appreciate it. That has given me a new found courage.
Emmert sensei. Please continue your support and encouragement
for noh and the noh world.

31

Kantan. Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo. October
2000. Emmert (shite), Keichiro Kaneko, Takehito
Tomoeda, Yasumasa Izumo (chorus).

Momijigari. National Noh Theatre, Tokyo.
September 1994. Emmert (shite), Jun Kunikawa(okawa).

井上和博
写真記者

私は、
いつも仕事帰りに寄る居酒屋ののれんをくぐると、日本人とは違うカン高い声が聞こえて来た。
片手に猪口を持ち、青い眼の外国人が笑いながら楽しんでいった。
流暢な日本語を話している。
「何者かな！」と。私が彼と出会ったのは酒の縁であった。
「能を勉強している！！」と聞き、ビックリである。
「能は複雑な音楽劇です。会話劇ではなく、詩的な文章でできています。能は表現を少なくして、不必要なものを削ぎ落とすことによって、最大の表現を深く見せていくものです。能の演者は力量がないと勤まりません。観る側が感動するにも、想像力が必要です。」
何、何、
この人は何を言っているのか！？！と二度ビックリ。面白いことを言う人だな。。。
？と思いました。興味を持った。

34

当時自宅を尋ねて2Kの日本畳部屋のアパートに住んでいた。窓を開け放すと、目の前は墓地で、墓石と卒塔婆の向こうには新宿の高層ビルが林立していた。部屋の壁には、東南アジアのお面や絵、民芸品が所狭しと飾られている。足の踏み場がないほどに、世界各国の芸能の本が並んでいる。家を尋ねて来る人は、海外からの芸術家が多い。面白い人脈たちだなと。増々興味を持ち，刺激された。
精力的に世界を飛び回る彼に多方面のジャンルのパフォーマンス公演に同行をさしてもらい、私も、世界の舞台公演を撮影している。
日本人よりも日本人らしいと言われるエマート。彼は異国である日
本人らしさを突き詰めることで、かえって普遍性を獲得したのだ。
インドの女性だけ描くミテラ絵の取材。
イタリア、
アメリカ、
アジアを
めぐり、各国の伝統芸能を融合させた「ドラゴン・ボンド・ライト」の舞台も撮影した。
役に立つものであれば、すぐに何でも取り入れ、勉強し、エネルギ
ッシュに行動を起こす前衛的な能楽師である。
日本と西洋、
アジアをつなぐ、世界交流を推進する人間味あるリチャード・エマートさんである。彼の写真を撮り続けます。

KAZUHIRO
INOUE
Photo-journalist

Lifting the short noren entrance curtain to the Japanese pub I often
dropped by on the way home from work, I heard a high-pitchedvoice that was different from a Japanese. There sat a “blue-eyed”
foreigner with a sake cup in hand laughing and enjoying himself.
He spoke fluent Japanese. “Who is that?” I thought. Our chancemeeting came about that day due to sake. I was surprised to hear
him say, “I study noh.”“Noh is a complex form of musical theatre. It is not dialogue
theatre, but rather built on poetic text. Noh cuts out unnecessary
physical movement, and in so doing demonstrates a much deeper
expressiveness. Noh actors cannot perform without skill andstrength. For the audience members to be moved, they must use
their imaginations.” What? What? I was surprised for the second
time wondering what this person was talking about. He certainly
said interesting things, and my curiosity was aroused.
I visited the “2K” apartment he lived in at the time, having a kitchen
and two rooms, one of Japanese tatami-style. The back window
opened onto a cemetery with headstones and Buddhist gravetablets, and in the distance in a line stood the high-rise buildingsof Shinjuku. Masks and paintings from Southeast Asia hung on thewalls of the room and other crafts ornamented the narrow space.
Books on performance from around the world were lined in shelvesleaving very little room to pass. The people who visited his housewere generally artists from abroad. What an interesting network ofconnections! My curiosity was further aroused.
I traveled with him to photograph stage performances as heenergetically flew around the world performing with a variety of
performance genres.
Emmert is said to be more Japanese than a Japanese person. But
he has also probed into what for him is the foreign quality of theJapanese psyche, and as a result has come to possess a universal
sensibility.
With him, I have traveled to India to photograph Mithila paintings
made solely by women. I have traveled to Italy, the UnitedStates and throughout Asia to photograph the preparations andperformances of Dragon Bond Rite featuring the collaboration of
traditional performances of several Asian countries.
He is an avant garde noh performer whose energetic activities
come to the fore as he finds something of interest and studies it.
Richard Emmert demonstrates his humanity by promoting world
exchange as he ties together Japan and the West with Asia. I plan
to continue to take photos of him and his activities.

Left: Emmert performing the maibayashi ofYorimasa, Kita Noh Theater, November 1996.
For other Inoue photographs see pages: 24, 34, 42 (bottom), 53,
54, 55, 58 (centre & bottom), 59 (centre), 64, 66 (all), 68 (left)

35

大島衣恵

能の伝道師

能楽喜多流シテ方

エマートさんはジェントルマンだ。物腰柔らかく、誰にでも優しい。
けれど同時にとても頑固者でもある。作品作りのミーティング中、人の意見に対してエマートさんが腕組みをして
「うーん、
どうでしょ
うかねぇ」
と言い出したら要注意だ。彼が声を荒げて反対意見を言うことはないけれど、
そのかわり梃子でも動かない。絶対に自分の信念を貫く、意志の強い人なのだ。
そうでなければ日本という異国の地で40年以上もの長い間、能の道を歩き続けることは出来なかっただろう。
それも、多くの人々に能の魅力を伝え、巻き込んで、母国アメリカのみならず世界各国で能を広めて来られた。
まさに能の伝道師だ。
「能は日本人だけのものじゃない。世界の人が共有できる文化なのです。」
エマートさんの確信に満ちた言葉には説得力がある。

36

私がエマートさん率いるシアター能楽と一緒に仕事をするようになって15年ほどになるが、彼らの能に対する真摯で熱意溢れる姿
勢に、エマートさんの信念が皆に伝播している事を実感する。
これまで偉大な仕事を成してこられたとは思うけれど、能を世界へ広める伝道師として、
まだまだ更なる飛躍をお祈りしたい。
エマート
さんどうか健康で長生きしてください！

Left: Emmert and Kinue Oshima, lecture-demonstration, UK schools,
September 2009. Middle: Discussion on noh with Emmert and Kinue
Oshima. Noh Training Project, Bloomsburg 2006.

KINUE
OSHIMA
Kita School shite
actor

A Noh Missionary
Emmert-san is a gentleman. He has a soft manner and is gentle
with everyone. At the same time, he is quite stubborn. In the midstof a meeting for creating a piece, you should be careful if he folds
his arms and says, “hmm, I wonder about that”! Though he won’t
raise his voice to express the opposite opinion, he refuses tobudge. He absolutely sticks to his convictions. He is strong-willed.
If he hadn’t been, he probably would not have been able to stay forover 40 years in a foreign country following the path of noh. And
doing so, he was able to spread noh to not only the United States
but to countries around the world, impart his fascination with noh
to many, and draw them into the noh world. Clearly he has been anoh missionary.
“Noh is not only for Japanese. It is a cultural art belonging to theentire world.” Emmert-san’s words full of his strong conviction
have a persuasive power.
I first began working with Theatre Nohgaku led by Emmert-sansome 15 years ago. Already then, I felt strongly that Emmert-san’s
convictions had been transmitted creating in the entire company
an overflowing sense of earnestness and enthusiasm for noh.
While I believe that he already has accomplished a great deal, I
pray that he will be even more active as a missionary in spreading
noh throughout the world. Emmert-san, please stay healthy andlive long.

Right: Kinue Oshima and Emmert, watching Pagoda rehearsal,
London, Dec. 2009.

37

徳丸吉彦
聖徳大学教授お茶の水女子大学名誉教授38

エマートさんとの出会い
リチャード・エマートさん（愛称リックさん）に私が初めて会ったのは、
リックさんが東京藝術大学の大学院で日本音楽の研究を始めた頃で、1975年のことでした。
アメリカのアーラム大学で、
日本の地歌・箏曲を専門に研究しておられたレナード・ホルヴィク
教授の薫陶を受けてから来日されました。
すでに日本語に堪能で、日本語でダジャレを連発する能力をもっていました。
リックさんは、大学院で能を研究テーマにしていましたが、尺八の山口五郎師（1933-99）のもとで尺八も学んでいました。
1970年代は、日本が世界に向けて日本とアジアの音楽を積極的に発信することを始める時期でした。例えば、日本の国際交流基金は他のアジア諸国との音楽的な交流を盛んにするとともに、その成果を録音や映像で世界に発信しました。1974年に、私は、東京藝術大学の小泉文夫(1927-83)、
大阪大学の山口修とともに国際交流基金
から新しいプロジェクトの推進を委嘱され
ました。
それが、
『アジア伝統芸能の交流』（
英語名 Asian Traditional Performing
Arts、略称ATPA）と呼ばれる15年に及ぶ
長期プロジェクトです。
その第一回の会合が東京で開かれたのが1976年です。演奏者と研究者によるセ
ミナー、公開の演奏会、そして、録音・録画が行われました。
そのすべての過程で、
日
本語と英語話す研究者として重要な枠割を果たしたのがリックさんでした。
その報告書が翌1977年にAsian Music in an Asian
Perspective (Tokyo: Heibonsha)として出版されました。
これは英語による出版でしたので、リックさんは、編集にあたった小泉・徳丸・山口をassistant editorとして支えてくれました。第二回以降のATPAで、彼はさらに大きな役割は果たしました。

ATPAに対しては、民族音楽学の会合で、主としてアメリカの研究者から、「日本がアジアの音楽を変質させている」という批判が寄せられました。
これは、
まったくの
誤解です。例えば、タイの伝統音楽家たち
が、ATPAで多様な音楽を聴いて、自分たちも「新しいこと」を行いたいと考え、普段は行なわない編成を試しました。
それを私た
ち日本の監修者が録音・録画して公開した
のです。
それが、
「伝統は過去のもの」と考える研究者から批判を受けたのです。
しかし、ATPAの目的は、
アジアの音楽を固定して記録することではなく、それぞれの伝統の担い手が起こす変化を認めて、伝統を「生きている」
ものとして存続させることにありました。
言い換えれば、ATPAの背景には、「伝統には未来がある」という信念がありました。
これは、日本の能楽にも当てはまることです。
能楽が明治維新後も、また、第二次大戦後も、生きた伝統として存続したのは、新しい作品が生まれ、古典に対する新しい解釈が生まれてきたからです。
リックさんが行ってきた英語能も、能を活性化する試みです。
そして、それは、長い歴史をもつ能が、文化と言語を越えて、新しいものを生成する能力をもっていることを示しています。
リックさんの英語能が、
さらに世界の楽劇に新しい刺激を与えることを期待しています。

TOKUMARUYOSIHIKO
Professor,
Seitoku
University
Professor
Emeritus,
Ochanomizu
University

My Encounter with Emmert-san
The first time I met Richard Emmert-san(nickname, Rick-san) was in 1975 when
he was beginning to research Japanesemusic in the graduate school of Tokyo
University of the Arts. He came to Japanafter studying at Earlham College in the
United States under Professor Leonard
Holvik who was a specialist in the researchof Japanese jiuta and koto music. Rick-san
already skillfully spoke Japanese and had
the ability to pun in rapid succession. He
had noh as his graduate school research
theme, but also learned shakuhachi under
Yamaguchi Goro sensei (1933-99).
The 1970s was a time when Japan became
proactive in introducing the music ofJapan and the rest of Asia to the world.
The Japan Foundation actively begansupporting musical exchanges with other
Asian countries recording and filming theseexchanges to introduce to the world. In
1974, myself along with Koizumi Fumio(1927-83) of Tokyo University of the Arts
and Yamaguti Osamu of Osaka University,
were asked by The Japan Foundation tolead a new project. This came to be knownas Asian Traditional Performing Arts (ATPA)
and it became a long-term project thatlasted for 15 years.
The first weeklong event for this was heldin 1976. It consisted of a seminar withperformers and scholars, performances
open to the public, and recordings andfilm documentation. During the entire
process, Rick-san had an important role
as a researcher who spoke both Japaneseand English. The report of the event was
published in book form in 1977 entitledAsian Music: an Asian Perspective (Tokyo:
Heibonsha). Since this volume was inEnglish, Rick-san took a major supportrole as the Assistant Editor to the Editors
Koizumi, Tokumaru and Yamaguti. Rick-san
took on an even larger role from the second
ATPA.

At an ethnomusicology conference,
there was criticism of ATPA mainly from
American researchers that “Japan isaltering the music of Asia.” That was acomplete misunderstanding. For example,
there were Thai traditional musicians wholistened to the variety of music at the ATPA
events and decided that they wanted to“create something new,” and attempted amusical arrangement that normally was not
done. That arrangement was recorded andpublished by the Japanese supervisors of
ATPA. As a result, the scholars who seemedto think “tradition is only something fromthe past” were critical of our process.
But the goal of ATPA was never to record
the music in order to “set” the tradition,
but rather to recognize that each bearerof tradition can cause change and thattradition is a “living” entity that allows for its
continuation.
In other words, in the context of ATPA,
there was the conviction that “within
tradition lies the future.” Japanese noh canbe said to have the same. After the Meiji
Restoration (1868) and again at the end ofWorld War II, its living tradition was able tocontinue because new pieces were created
and a new interpretation of classical noh
was born. The English noh that Rick- sanhas created is also an experiment ininvigorating classical noh. It too shows thatnoh with its long history has within itself theability to cross both culture and language
to form something new. I envisage that
Rick-san’s English noh will stimulate anew
musical theatre throughout the world.

39

北澤秀太
能面打師

エマートさん70歳のお誕生日おめでとうございます。
新作英語能に使う能面製作の仕事をさせていただき15年になります。
そ
の間英国、
フランス、
中国、香港、
シンガポール、
オーストラリア、
アメリカといろいろな国を一緒に旅しましたね。
どれもとても良い思い出です。
中でも2009年のパゴダは、私にとって人生の大きな転機になりました。文化庁の助成を受けた企画で、エマートさんが面打師として私を、原作者のジャネットさんと喜多流大島家に推薦してくれました。限られた期間で新作面4面と舞台の作り物を製作するという大変な仕事でしたが、ヨーロッパツアーに同行させていただき、観客の拍手を聞いて、今までにない満足感に浸ることができました。
エマートさんとの仕事はいつも、今までどこにも無い面を創作しなければならない難しい仕事です。
しかし信頼して仕事を依頼してくれたことを意気に感じて、少しでも良い面を作ることが職人の心意気だと思います。

40

エマートさんの頭の中には、まだまだ新しい英語能のアイデアがたくさんあると思います。
どんな注文にも答えますよ。
これからも一緒に旅をしましょう。

BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS(MAESHITE)BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS(NOCHISHITE)EMILY (MAEISHITE - OLD MAN
MASK)HIDETAKITAZAWANohmaskmaker

Emmert-san, congratulations on reaching your 70th birthday.
It is now 15 years that I have worked with Emmert-san making masks for
new English noh. During that time, we have traveled together to various
countries including the UK, France, China, Hong Kong, Singapore,
Australia and the United States. All of them have been excellent
experiences. Among them, the 2009 tour of Pagoda was a major turning
point in my life. That project had the support of Japan’s Agency for
Cultural Affairs. Emmert-san recommended that I create the new masks
and introduced me to the author of the play, Jannette Cheong, and theOshima Family of the Kita School. In a limited time, I had the importanttask of creating four new masks and the Pagoda stage prop. I alsojoined the performance tour of Europe and on hearing the applause of
the audiences, was filled with an immense satisfaction that I had neverpreviously experienced.
The work I do with Emmert-san is difficult as it always entails creatinga new mask that has never existed elsewhere. But being trusted for thecommission of such a work gives me the enthusiasm and the will to create
the best I can, which I feel is the spirit of a craftsman.
Certainly, Emmert-san must have the ideas in his head for many more new
English noh. I will be glad to work on anything he requests. And I hope tohave many other chances to travel with him.

EMILY (NOCHISHITE HERBERT JONES MASK)PAGODA (MAESHITE - MEILIN
MASK)

PAGODA (NOCHISHITE MEILIN MASK)

41

Emmert with foremost noh scholar Yokomichi Mario(left) and foremost ethnomusicologist Koizumi Fumio(right), his most influential professors from Tokyo
University of Fine Arts, 1976.

Members of Tesarugaku no Kai on Sado Island noh stage
for summer rehearsals, August 1984. Includes Kinuyo
Kama (seated front row 2nd from left), Mitsuo Kama(kneeling front row right), David Crandall (back row 4thfrom right), Emmert (back row 2nd from right).

Students of nohkan teacher Isso Yukimasa on
excursion to Izu, 1986. Emmert (kneeling left), Isso
Yukimasa (kneeling right).

Emmert with Yamaguchi Goro, his long-time
shakuhachi teacher. 1986.

Emmert performing the maibayashi of Yorimasa,
Kita Noh Theater, November 1996.

Emmert and Masanobu Oshima, post-performancetalk for Pagoda, Southbank Centre, Dec. 2009.

Publications:
Books
Author44

2017 The Guide to Noh of the National Noh Theatre (NNT), Book 6 (Tom-Z).
Tokyo: National Noh Theatre. 136p.
2016 The Guide to Noh of the National Noh Theatre, Book 5 (Sh-Tok).
Tokyo: National Noh Theatre. 146p.
2015 The Guide to Noh of the National Noh Theatre, Book 4 (N-Se). Tokyo:
National Noh Theatre. 144p.
2014 The Guide to Noh of the National Noh Theatre, Book 3 (Ko-M).
Tokyo: National Noh Theatre. 147p.
2013 The Guide to Noh of the National Noh Theatre, Book 2 (H-Ki). Tokyo:
National Noh Theatre. 158p.
2012 The Guide to Noh of the National Noh Theatre, Book 1 (A-G). Tokyo:
National Noh Theatre. 143p.
1997 Noh Performance Guide 7: Aoinoue (co-authored with Monica
Bethe). Seventh booklet in a series of guides to the plays of classicalnoh. Tokyo: National Theatre. 80p.
1996 Noh Performance Guide 6: Ema (co-authored with Monica Bethe).
Tokyo: National Noh Theatre series. 83p.
1995 Noh Performance Guide 5: Atsumori (co-authored with Monica
Bethe).Tokyo: National Noh Theatre. 92p.
1994 Noh Performance Guide 4: Tenko (co-authored with Monica Bethe).
Tokyo: National Noh Theatre series. 84p.
1993 Noh Performance Guide 3: Miidera (co-authored with Monica
Bethe). Tokyo: National Noh Theatre. 88p.
1992 Noh Performance Guide 1: Matsukaze and Noh Performance Guide
2: Fujito (co-authored with Monica Bethe). Tokyo: National Noh Theatre.
80p. and 72p. respectively.

Books
Editor2017 Noh time like the present…A Tribute to Akira Matsui.
Programme accompanying performance. Editor. Co-produced with
Jannette Cheong and Unanico Group. London. 58p.
1990 Noh in English (editor-conception). Notes accompanying compact
disc of same name containing musical selections from two classicalJapanese noh plays and four original noh plays in English. Tokyo: Teichiku
Records.
The JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance (translation co-editor).
Series of 9 volumes of notes to accompany 30-video set. Japanese edition
edited by Fujii Tomoaki et al. Translated in collaboration with Smithsonian/
Folkways Recordings. Japan Victor Corporation, Tokyo.
1983 Dance and Music in South Asian Drama. The Report of Asian
Traditional Performing Arts 1981. (Co-editor with Hasumoto Izumi,
Matsushita Hitoshi and Okada Maki. Project supervision by Koizumi Fumio
et al.) Tokyo: Academia Music and The Japan Foundation.
1980 Musical Voices of Asia. Report of Asian Traditional Performing Arts
1978. (Co-editor with Minegishi Yuki. Project supervision by Koizumi
Fumio, Tokumaru Yoshihiko and Yamaguchi Osamu.) Tokyo: Heibonsha
and The Japan Foundation.
1978 Asian Music in an Asian Perspective. Report of Asian Traditional
Performing Arts 1976. (Assistant editor. Edited by Koizumi Fumio,
Tokumaru Yoshihiko and Yamaguchi Osamu.) Tokyo: Heibonsha and The
Japan Foundation. Reprinted 1984 by Academia Music, Tokyo.

Recent TV
Appearances

2013 (July) NHK World, “Zeami: Pursuing the Flower.” http://bestofnhk.tv/
2012 (March) NHK BS-1, NHK World. Begin Japanology. http://bestofnhk.
tv/

RICHARDEMMERTa scholarof nohEmmert performing
maibayashi of
Takasago, Kita Noh
Theater, Tokyo, 1982?

THOMAS
HARE
Author,Professor
and Chair ofComparative
Literature
Department,
Princeton
University

ミドルベリの思い出
An Acrostic Sageuta-Ageuta
Happy 70th, Rick!

歌Emmert performing
the maibayashi of
Yamamba, Kita Noh
Theater, 1995.

47

しTom Hare, Fall 2019

Emmert performing
nohkan for Makura
Jido with Isso
Yukimasa (koken), Yarai
Noh Theater, Tokyo
1983.

歌

Oh happy day . . . hip hooray . . .
But when was it?
Once upon a time we were classmates,
Once upon a time we were classmates:
Conversation, kanji practice,
Don’t trip over the language pledge:That’s a pass I gotta get through. Whew! It’s Saturday,
hanging over, just a bit, to Sunday.
One thing I remember, though, with a smile:
Rick-san’s Takasago
There in front of the dorm,
Rick-san’s Takasago.

MONICABETHE
Noh Scholar/
TeacherRick, was it forty years ago that you came for the first time to
Kyoto to spend an end-of-the-year hayashi gathering with me?
What a long way you have come, yet already then you spoke ofstaging noh in English. Few people manage to fulfil their life vision
so explicitly and fully. Congratulations.
Since that first encounter, our lives have interwoven at times tightly
and at other times more loosely. There was tesarugaku, then early
productions of English noh with talk of costumes, masks, musicalrendition, possibilities and parameters. Next, the many years
producing books together for the National Noh Theater. In addition,
Theater Nohgaku took off. With that you began to implement youridea that training was at the core of building a core of people able
to effectively perform noh in English. I was pleased to contributemy small bit when this expanded to understanding costumes.

MICHAEL
WATSON
Professor ofClassical Japanese
Literature, Meiji
Gakuin University

I am told you are entering “golden” years. I am not sure myseventies can be described as “golden”, but I definitely hope yoursare.

48
Series of six volumes
entitled The Guide to
Noh of the National
Noh Theatre publishedby the National Noh
Theatre, 2011~2016.

Series of seven volumes entitled Noh Performance Guides
co-authored with Monica Bethe and published by the National Noh Theatre,
1992~1997.

Many other tributes will surely focus on Rick as a performer,
teacher, and as founder and artistic director of Theatre Nohgaku,celebrating his long career devoted to opening up the traditionsof noh theatre to non-Japanese performers and to audiences
outside of Japan. Others will certainly focus on his achievementin creating, directing, and performing in original noh plays in
English, not as a one-off experiment, but in a disciplined way that
others can learn from and emulate. There is now an ever growing
repertoire of English-language plays on striking new topics.
Here I should like to pay tribute to another lasting contribution,
one that moves the study of noh from a text-centered approach
to one that focusses on dramatic structure and performance. The
six volumes of The Guide to Noh of the National Noh Theatre:
Play Summaries of the Traditional Repertory (2012–2017)
take us through astonishing range of plays, 238 in total, each
one carefully analyzed. The copyright notice specifically allows
organizers of noh performances to provide photocopies of plays
being performed. The entries go far beyond bald plot summaryof earlier guides. They cover essential elements of staging, fromcostumes and masks to variant performance traditions, with closeparaphrases of key passages. The scene-by-scene analysis greatly
enhances the appreciation and understanding of those who watcha noh performance, as valuable for regular theatre-goers as for
those experiencing noh for the first time. Although the first English
translations of noh appeared some 140 years ago, we are still very
far from having reliable translations of the entire canon of plays in
the performance repertoire. Future generations of theatre-goers,
readers, students, and scholars will forever be in debt to Rick’s
distillation of his life-time involvement with noh.

49

SHELLEY
FENNO
QUINN
Professor ofJapanese
Literature,
Ohio State
University

I have known Rick Emmert as a colleague in the field of JapaneseStudies for about thirty years. During that period, I have seen
him grow into a skilled and innovative actor, musician, andcomposer, as well as a dedicated teacher and scholar. As I recall,
our acquaintance began at the 1988 Midwest Japan Seminar at
Rick’s alma mater, Earlham College, where I attended a student
performance of St. Francis (1970), a noh play in English. Rickwas in charge of the musical adaptation and he was co-directorof the production. I remember being struck with the level of Rick’s
commitment to developing and staging English noh. At the time heseemed a lone voice, and I recall wondering whether there would
be enough support and enough likeminded performers for him topursue such a goal.
Turns out I needn’t have worried. By the time Rick co-founded
Theatre Nohgaku in 2000, he had succeeded in bringing together
a group of talented artists who shared the commitment to bringing
noh to English-speaking audiences. Build it and they will come.
During these nineteen years, the troupe’s explorations into theexpressive possibilities of noh techniques as contemporary theatre
have led to a series of beautiful and provocative productions.

50

I want to offer hearty congratulations to Rick upon his seventiethbirthday and to recognize him for all the building he has done.
I also want to emphasize how much I look forward to Theatre
Nohgaku productions going forward.

LIM BENG
CHOO
Associate
Professor,
Dept ofJapanese
Studies,National
University ofSingapore

When I first went to visit Rick at his office at Musashino University
more than twenty years ago, I did not know that it would be an
important visit that answered, over time, a key question I have had.
Then I was a graduate student trying to establish a meaningfulconnection between noh and the world I was in. Studying chanting
and dancing at Rick’s noh classes turned out to be not justabout learning to perform noh, but also about actually navigatingthat connection that I thought was forever lost to me. The mostmemorable moment was when I did a shimai donning the nohmask. Through that little slit of vision frame I saw that noh itself isthe connection, and observing Rick’s teaching and performances
I have understood that the connection will always be there – be it
in a different time frame, language or cultural context. I am just so
glad I made that visit to his office. Thank you very much, Rick, may
there be many more opportunities to see you teach and performagain.

JONAH SALZ
Ryukoku
University
Director,
Noho Theatre
Group, Kyoto

Praising with superlative Ps
I was introduced to Tokyo Geidai graduate student Richard
Emmert when commissioning him to compose the score for Yeats’
At the Hawk’s Well for the Noho Theatre Group’s program ofKyogen and Beckett on noh stages in Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyoin 1981. After this one-time only event of like-minded performers,
I proposed we form a company sharing noh and kyogen training
skills. We would perform plays by Beckett, Shakespeare, andYeats, bilingually alongside Japanese professionals. I would
produce and direct. Those who had lived and studied noh andother Kyoto arts for far longer replied, “Who are you (25, little
Japanese or noh-kyogen knowledge) to decide on play production
and direction?” Yet Noho remains a small company now in its 40thyear.
Rick, however, re-directed the Hawk in Tokyo, then continued toassemble a group of sympathetic performers, leading eventually
to Theatre Nohgaku. How was he able to fulfill his vision? Rickhas the performance skills, in song, instruments, and dance
to command immediate respect. He has the patience to teachnewcomers, often through an interpreter in foreign countries,
endlessly repeated basics. Although well-versed in noh’s poetry
and philosophy, he emphasizes the practical: how to harness
the power of noh’s musical structure and physical expression for
lyrical storytelling.
As the high priest of noh performance, Rick is an artfully gentle
proselytizer. His relaxed personality is built on genuine curiosity.
Comingling with his good humor is his intense passion for noh as
sublime human achievement for all to share and appreciate. I am
in awe of Rick’s tentacular social interactions, having taken a more
solitary path as a scholar and director. With a humble bow, I tip mykyogen eboshi to his profound, historical achievements.

Rick and Jonah in New York
City, August 2018.

51

JADWIGARODOWICZCZECHOWSKA
FormerAmbassador of
Poland to Japan,
Noh scholar andplaywright52

Before I met Richard Emmert in person, I knew about him for many
years from papers on experimental noh forms. I heard of him only
after finishing my scholarship at Tokyo University in 1979, andduring writing of my PhD thesis on noh at Warsaw University in
1982.
Although I studied the classical form of the noh, especially thetheoretical treaties by Zeami Motokiyo and later dramatic texts
as well, I was always interested in theatre in the actor’s skills
and understanding of his own body, both as an instrument oftransmission of the word and as vehicle for overcoming limitsof everyday behavior. Polish theatre director and thinker Jerzy
Grotowski (1933-1999) influenced my generation, at least in mycountry. During my scholarship in Tokyo I studied noh technique
at Tessenkai under Kanze Shizuo (later Tetsunojō VIII). I knew fromsome of my training mates of a certain American man who waslearning the noh with the Kita school and I envied him from afar
because I knew that if he wanted, he could actually become one.
As I was writing about the noh I read then about the first noh inEnglish to which Richard Emmert composed the music. It was
At the Hawk’s Well – the legendary play which “commuted”
between Europe and Japan, starting with W. B. Yeats’ drama fordancers, then the Yokomichi Mario’s Taka no Izumi in 1949 with
Kita Minoru’s music, and now, in 1981 in an English version of
At the Hawk’s Well. I also read about more of his achievements- rearrangement and re-composition of music in noh style for
the English noh Saint Francis (text authored by Arthur Little,
original music by Leonard Holvik) and his new creation of the nohmusic for another English noh Drifting Fires (libretto by Janine
Beichman).
I think I first met him in person in the nineties, perhaps in Tokyo at
the symposium organized by the Tokyo National Research Institutefor Cultural Properties in 1991, or maybe it was in London at theconference at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and I saw
him playing the nōkan. His play was great, with the shrilling soundof the flute piercing through the space, after which everybody
became silent. Perhaps it was at that time that I received the CDwith the musical selections from two classical Japanese noh plays
and four original noh plays in English, published by Tokyo
Teichiku Records. This served me a lot since, as I for years I wasteaching to the students of both Japanese Studies (at Warsaw
University), and Theatre Studies (at Theatre Academy, Warsaw).
Richard Emmert’s work and creation is an example of how flexible
the spirit is.
It was in the nineties, when Japanese friends from the noh world
started to talk to me about Emaato-san as a very important figure
in linking noh with the Western culture. And finally we were able tomeet more often, when I started to work for the Polish diplomatic
service and was posted to Japan for many years, including mylast mission as an Ambassador. It was fantastic to have Emaatosan come together with Matsui Akira for a special presentation of
the noh and kyōgen in Visegrad Countries in 2014. He played thenohkan, performed and made a workshop for Polish participants.
People were struck by the energy, accomplishment and ease withwhich he explained most complicated matters pertaining to the artof noh.
I wish Emaato-san, by now Emaato Sensei would come more often
to Poland. I can hardly express the respect I feel for him and myadmiration.

The Legendary
Emaato-san

CAROLYN
MORLEY
Professor ofJapanese,
Wellesley
CollegeI met Rick through David Crandall in the 1980’s when we werestudying noh in Tokyo. Rick, David, Jane Corddry, and I spent
New Year’s together at Monica Bethe’s house in Kyoto. Jane had
been studying with Mansaku sensei for a number of years andinvited me along. I was really the outlier in the group as I wasneither a musician nor a dancer while the others were experienced
performers. I watched from the sidelines as they practised together
with noh actors from the Kyoto area.
On New Year’s Eve we climbed a hill outside Kyoto and in thebitter cold we rang in the New Year. I can still feel the cold, theexcitement of the starry night, the warmth of being with friends,
and an astonishment that I was there at all. The conversation was
full of Rick’s and David’s dreams for English noh and their recent
performance of Crazy Jane. We made plans for attending as
many of the New Year Okina/Sanbaso performances as possible,
tossing out ideas for a study of Okina, for performances in theStates; anything and everything was possible that evening. Later,
we ate Monica’s warm homemade bread and German Christmas
cookies around the kotatsu. I remember Rick recounting how hehad performed the flute for a noh performed in the Tohoku region.
We asked how he was received, and he responded, “Oh, it was
kind of like being the dancing bear.”Classroom ofMusashino University,
1994.

53

Noh mask
exhibition, Tokyo,
1994.

Right:
Tokyo apartment,
1994.

RICHARDEMMERT
56
Intercultural Collaborations:2017 (February) Composer/Director/Nohkan for the originalcollaborative noh/opera/ballet Opposites-InVerse (libretto by
Jannette Cheong). Performed at LSO St. Luke’s, London.
2014 (December) noh performer in Bedhaya Hagoromo,a classical Central Javanese bedhaya/noh collaboration in
Yogyakarta, Indonesia directed by Didik Nini Thowak.
2003 (October) Facilitator/Co-director/Performer in Siddhartha
featuring traditional performers from Indonesia, Malaysia andJapan making up a company called Teater Cahaya, Malaysia
Center in Kuala Lumpur.
2001 (November) noh performer in Bedhaya Hagoromo, anoh/classical Central Javanese bedhaya/noh collaboration in
Yogyakarta, directed by Didik Nini Thowak. Reworked and represented in Jakarta in October 2004.
2001 (September) Composer/Performer in Crazy Horse directedby Yuriko Doi for the Theatre of Yugen in San Francisco. With Nohand Native American performance elements.
1998 (October) Performer in The Mysteries of Eleusis by Greek
director Vasilios Calitsis in the BAM Festival at The Brooklyn
Academy of Music, New York.
1997 (May-June) Artistic Director/Choreographer/Performer inDragon Bond Rite featuring traditional performers from Japan,
Korea, Indonesia, India and Tuva. Performed at the Walker Art
Center in Minneapolis, Japan Society in New York, and the
Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Also in the Hong Kong
Festival, August 1998.

intercultural
collaborator
and friend

NTP Bloomsburg class with
Matt Dubroff and Gary Mathews,
2008?

Jannette Cheong, Emmert and Akira Matsui, Lecturedemonstration, East 15 Acting School, University ofEssex, February 2017

Below:
Home of Mithila painter Pushpa Kumari in frontof one of her paintings with her grandmotherrenowned painter Mahasundari Devi in Madhubani,
Bihar, India. Kazuhiro Inoue (left). March 1998.
Both Inoue and Emmert have collected many
excellent Mithila paintings.
Roof of home in Berkeley, California looking overGolden Gate Bridge. During semester teachingat UC Berkeley, May 1997.

Downtown Bellagio, Italy for Dragon Bond Rite
rehearsals. Korean drummer Choi Jong-Sil (left),
Emmert, Akira Matsui, and Korean singer Kang KwonSoon. October 1996.

Pine Barrens rehearsal photo, North Carolina
School of the Arts, September 2006.

RALPHSAMUELSON
Shakuhachi
player andteacher andSenior Advisorof Asian Cultural
Council60

A Magical Man
Rick, do you remember that time four of us were sitting around inyour living room, and we discovered that we were each born insucceeding years: me in 1946, two friends in 1947 and 1948 (wasit Niimi San and Alan F.?), and you in 1949? Well Little Brother, yourtime has come–-welcome to the golden years!
Although you’ve been living in Japan for so long, you are an Ohio
boy at heart, and I’m sure you recall a legendary figure in thehistory of 19th-century America named John Chapman. Kind,
generous, cheerful, and eccentric, he traveled westward from hishome in Massachusetts planting apple seeds, growing orchards,
and spreading cheer, and of course he was affectionately known
as Johnny Appleseed. He loved apples, he loved people, and heended up living in Ohio, I believe not far from your hometown.

BONNIE C
WADE
Professor
Emerita,
Departmentof Music,
University ofCalifornia,
Berkeley

Rick, you are the Johnny Appleseed of noh, just as passionate,
generous, knowledgeable, and cheerful. (But not quite as
eccentric; perhaps just a bit.) Your infectious spirit touches all whomeet you and, like Johnny, you are already a legendary figure.
I think we met in 1975 at the first ATPA (Asian Traditional
Performing Arts) symposium in Tokyo. Later, you helped me a
lot when you agreed to serve as the Asian Cultural Council’s
representative in Japan in the mid 1980s. And I still admire
your special words about Yamaguchi Goro in some of his earlyinternational LP liner notes. Most significantly, when the historyof the global reach of noh is written, your name will be at the top:
Rick Emmert, noh’s magical Johnny Appleseed. (Hmm, I’m alreadyimagining a new play…)

To my friend and colleague, warm words of appreciation.
I haven’t noticed any slowing down! Just think of all you haveaccomplished, what a rare path you have followed, the rich qualityof your life! It has been an honor and a pleasure to know you--andto learn from you.
Our acquaintance began in 1995 or 1996—very late, given ourmutual interest in Japanese traditional arts.
Little did I know that a windfall opportunity would arise at
University College Berkeley to fulfill a years-long wish to replace
my teaching in one term with a multi-departmental semesteron the noh. But suddenly the opportunity arose and the search
was on. Who might we invite to teach in both the Dramatic Arts
Department and the Department of music AND in conjunction withcourses in East Asian Languages and Literature on the historical,
literary, and cultural space of the noh? EALC selected Arthur
Thornhill as a visitor for that last, but who was qualified to offer
instruction in the music AND the movement AND be responsible
for end-of-term performances of a complete play sponsored by all
the departments? Not to mention assisting in bringing a Japaneseartist for part of the term? No problem for Theatre of Yugen in
San Francisco to know just who to recommend—you of course!
Who else had achieved Japanese accreditation as a shite actor,
had acquired the skills and knowledge from traditional teachers
to play nohkan and the drums of noh, was deeply knowledgeable
about the noh repertoire of plays, was on the faculty of aJapanese university, had extensive experience working with bothinternational students and the very special shite actor Matsui
Akira? No one but Richard Emmert!
Since 1997 we have reminisced together about your semester
at Berkeley but this tribute permits me to extoll you publicly forthat extraordinary experience for undergraduate and graduate
students, faculty, and a Bay Area audience. It was (mostly) fun,due to your spark, your persistence, your flexibility, your sense ofhumor, and your imagination--that included imagining that a playmight be effectively performed in Japanese by students whose
competence in Japanese was nil. You pulled it off! And provided
all of us with unforgettable moments in our lives. How very special
that you and I have been able to gather in Tokyo fairly regularly
with that exceptional cluster of individuals in the Japanese arts. All
the more precious now that the group is beginning to disperse as
we grow older. I wish you many more years in your exceptional life,
Rick.

Left: Georg Kochi who succeeded Emmert as Asian Cultural Council
Representative in Japan. Then Ralph Samuelson (sitting) with wife
Andrea (in front kneeling), and Emmert (standing in back). In the Tokyo art
conservation studio of Masako Koyano, leading art conservator, on the
day of her annual art class for children. 1992. Right: Ralph Samuelson and
Emmert on excursion while attending International Folk Music Council
conference in Seoul, 1983.

Funabenkei at theDurham Studio
Theater, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley,
May 1997. Departmentof Music, Department
of Dramatic Arts, andthe Department of
East Asian Languages
and Cultures. In thecenter of the front row
are, left to right, Akira
Matsui (Kita-Noh),
Bonnie Wade andRichard Emmert.

61

DAVIDHUGHES
Research
Associate andretired Head of
Department ofMusic.
Research
Associate,Japan
Research
Centre,SOAS
University of
London62

Wow, Rick Emmert is turning 70? Well, Rick, you’re still younger
than me!
Rick and I have known each other for more than half our lives. We
met in 1978 as students at Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku (“Geidai”, Tokyo
University of the Arts). We both eventually ended up as university
lecturers with active involvement in the performance of Japanesetraditional music/theatre genres. Both of us were raised in the USA,but our jobs have kept us based elsewhere: Rick in Japan eversince, and me in England since 1981.
Our time at Geidai involved us in a range of Japanese traditional
genres. Rick was particularly involved in noh, which of course
became his career focus, and I was researching my PhD thesis on
folk song (min’yō). But I also took lessons in noh from two Geidai
teachers, one of them a Living National Treasure of noh flute, andRick became a skilled player of folk shakuhachi.
Indeed, Rick performed in the Japanese folk world a bit. In 1979
he joined me, my wife Gina Barnes, and six other “foreigners” on
the NHK TV show Min’yō to tomo ni. We opened by playing someWestern folk instruments while singing the American song “RedRiver Valley”, then we made a quick swap and did a trad min’yō,with Rick on shakuhachi.
Rick also tooted shakuhachi on two songs, and sang a chorus or
two, on the min’yō LP Gina and I recorded with my teacher Tanaka
Yoshio in 1980. The album-back photo shown here has Rick andhis shakuhachi in the back row, second from left, and me in the
middle back. (David Crandall, long involved in Rick’s noh capers
around the world, is at the back left.)
But of course, Rick’s achievements in spreading the appreciationof noh globally have been most important. To focus on England:
In 1991 I found funding to bring Rick and his Kita-school teacher
Matsui Akira to my university, SOAS, University of London, for twomonths, to offer intensive noh lessons to about 30 Londoners. This
launched the SOAS Noh Group, now the University of London Noh
Society. He actually visited London several times in 1991, including
with a group performing Shakespeare’s Falstaff in kyogen style.
And we performed noh in Hyde Park in September (see photo)– how on earth did Rick and Akira get us to a level that justified
that?? (Well, it was a Japan Culture year, so a bit of amateurism
was OK.)In the past ten years, Rick has visited the UK many times (oftenwith Akira and sometimes his US students), for noh summer
schools, performances of new English-language noh (by Jannette
Cheong and Ashley Thorpe) for which he composed and led themusic, etc. We all look forward to his next visit!

63

BRIJ TANKHA
Emeritus
Professor ofJapanese History
at University ofDelhi. Currently,
Visiting Fellow
at the Institutd’étudesavancées
Nantes, France

I met Rick in the last century, in 1975. Its only as I write this that I
think that’s a long time; and we have remained friends. So that issomething to celebrate.
I don’t want to recount that history here but just to note that it wasserendipity at work. We have both lost touch with the Indian who
introduced us but we have continued to meet over the decadeswith sometimes long gaps in between. In those letter-writingdays losing touch with friends was easier, and I only went back toJapan in the 1984 but he still lived facing the same graveyard, andwe resumed our friendship. Through Rick I got to know Honcho
Nichome (Rick’s neighbourhood), and his favorite sushiya. I triedout his first computer (he had to write his dissertation and was indebt for a year). Computers were expensive, large, and the eventhicker manual in Japanese, that I had to use to try and figure out
how to save documents, was a nightmare. But it was because of
him I was there when the hi-tech wave started.
Over the years Rick’s friendship brought me in touch with a rangeof people, many from the world of noh that I would not have met
but for him: Maki, Matsui and Inoue to name a few. I stayed manytimes at his place especially in the 1990’s and saw the gestation of
Theatre Nohgaku and the great and consistent work he has put into make it what it is today.

64

I think Rick has many qualities, some we will discuss over sushi
and sake, but what is admirable about him is his openness to ideas
and people that allows him to be part of many circles, crossing
cultures and national boundaries, and work on really a global scale.
I am no expert but the few times I have seen him perform I was
always impressed by the the intensity of the performance, the fruitof long years of hard practice and commitment.
I usually stayed away from Western expatriates in Japan because
the conversations always revolved around set themes but in Ricks
company that was never the case and I think that is why we haveremained friends for so long; and I look forward to many more
years of friendship, and hopefully one day seeing one of the nohplays in English.

Emmert’s Tokyo
home with Brij
Tankha (left) andhis wife Kaminiand Musashino
University professor,
Nakamura Tsuyoshi.
April 2010.

JEFF
JANISHESKI
Chair/TheatreCal State LongBeach

70 years old? Impossible! Doing noh for that many decades has
obviously filled you with a grace and a lightness that few people
have at that age! You are such a talented teacher and a special
person. I cherish the many days I spent training with you: I learnedso much from your wisdom, your experience and the gentle way
you guided us.
Although, I don’t technically use noh anymore in my theater
teaching - so much of what you taught me has stayed with me tothis day, and I actively draw upon the lessons I learned from you:about containment of energy, the economy of gestures, and thepower of a single step.
Bringing you to NIDA in Sydney - exposing my students to mysensei - was a highight of my career. And seeing your piece at
UCLA recently reminded me of the importance of your project: I
hope to see more noh plays in English!
Thank you for being such an inspiring teacher - and such a
wonderful, compassionate, joyful soul!

ISAO KANOManaging Director
Mitsubishi
Corporation
International(Europe) Plc

Thank you very much for letting me know that Richard Emmert
will become 70 years old, with its original literal meaning of ‘rare inancient time’, namely Koki in Japanese (古希).
I would like to express my hearty congratulations on his becoming
70 and for this celebration of the marvellous milestones of his life having become ‘married to noh’.
I do remember speaking to Richard and I immediately felt that
this gentleman should be Japanese, namely Emaato Sensei, wholooked like just an ordinary Japanese Ojisan (with a smile). Even
if I shut my eyes he sounded like a native Japanese person who
spoke perfect English!

65

KIMIKOAOKIJournalist

JIN HI KIM

66

Composer/
Komungo player
Visiting AssistantProfessor, Music
Department
Wesleyan
University

I can’t think of Rick Emmert without thinking of Dragon Bond Rite
(DBR). In 1993 I went to Japan with my Asian Cultural Council
fellowship and Noh theater was one of my great fascinations atthat time. Rick was a key person in Tokyo as a notable Americannoh performer/scholar and I was fortunate to meet him. I had avision for a Pan Asian Mask Dance Drama blending Japanesenoh, Korean Talchum, Indian Kuddhyatam, and Indonesian Topeng
into a contemporary theater performance. Each drama traditionis based on singing, drumming and dancing. Rick already had
researched all these traditions in Asia and as soon as I talked tohim about my dream project, DBR, the sparks began to fly! We
then traveled and worked in five countries for DBR. With his
recommendation I was introduced to great Noh performers Akira
Matsui, Shonosuke Okura, and Sadamu Omura. In 1994 Rick,
Akira and I went to National Gugak Center in Seoul to meet Korean
performers and then in 1995 Rick and I met with Paula Laurence,
Executive Director at the Japan Society in New York.
In 1996 we traveled to India and Indonesia to research artists forthe production - Rick already had great connections in India andIndonesia. With his generous guidance it was easier to meet thebest Kudhyattam performers in Trivandrum. In 1996 Paula met
us in Bali where we spent a week working with local artists andin 1997 the DBR artist team met at the Rockefeller Foundation
Bellagio Center, Italy to workshop and create the piece. Rickwas directing choreography while I was directing music. At theWalker Art Center, MN, the 14 member DBR team prepared for thepremiere for the 90th Anniversary of the Japan Society. After a fullhouse at the World Premiere DBR subsequently was presented
by the Korea Society at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts,
Washington DC. In 1998 DBR was invited to the Festival of Asia
in Hong Kong. It would not have been possible to achieve thisincredibly successful project without Rich’s generosity, knowledge
and deep experiences of Asian theater traditions.

Left Photo: Rehearsal for Dragon Bond Rite at The Rockefeller Foundation
Bellagio Center in Italy. Akira Matsui (left), Emmert, Armand Schwerner(libretto), and Jin Hi Kim (composer). October 1996.
Right photo: Performers of Dragon Bond Rite at the Japan Society, New
York, June 1997. Emmert (front left), then Sadamu Omura. Akira Matsui (innoh mask and costume, kneeling second from right), Jin Hi Kim (back row,second from left), noh otsuzumi drummer Shonosuke Okura,(back row far right).

13

A Tribute to the Quiet Passion behind Pagoda
The first time I watched noh was when I was in high school.
We all had to go as a part of our classics class. I remember thelights dimming. The chants starting. Actors in bright costumes
appearing. Then no more. I fell asleep. I suspect this is a common
experience for many of my peers. 25 years later, I was in London,
working as a foreign news correspondent. I came across a press
release announcing a series of noh workshops in schools. I was
intrigued. Why would noh, difficult even for Japanese, be ofinterest to teachers and students in the UK? What would noh haveto offer them? And how could noh be performed in English?
A series of inquiries and interviews lead me to Pagoda. It was thefirst noh play that made sense to me. I was amazed that I wasable to understand the language and the story. The words were
poetic, but clear in their meanings. The spoken English made thestory immediate. The immortal tale of diaspora and migration felt
relevant to our time. The performance took us on a journey across
many boundaries.

67

Pagoda also made me also realize the art form allowed for the
distilling of a complicated narrative down to its essence. And how
practicing even the basic movements of noh could be a lesson in
self-control, concentration and mindfulness. Perhaps all performing
arts have these elements, but noh seemed to refine them into very
simple acts. Taken together, it became apparent that noh lessons
could go much further than studying a foreign culture.
In this way, Pagoda unlocked a heretofore closed door to me,
and perhaps for many others. When I learned that the writingof Pagoda and the staging of the work by an international
collaboration of artists would not have been possible without
Professor Emmert’s training and organization, I felt awe andgratitude for his years of dedication. In my mind, he is an unsung
hero of noh, clothed in the dark chanters’ wardrobe, an image ofquiet passion and energy.
I continue to feel a sense of wonder for the fact that this art form
has been kept alive for hundreds of years by actors, writers andteachers, to be passed on beyond our shores and brought homeagain, opening our eyes, bridging divides, and expanding the world
for many. I hope the new journey that started with Pagoda willcontinue, for its creators as well as its admirers.

Pagoda. Kinue
Oshima (shite),
Teruhisa Oshima(nochitsure),
Jubilith Moore(waki). National
Noh Theatre,
Tokyo June 2011

ALEX DEA
Scholar/performer
of Central
Javanesemusic

In 1977, on my way home to the USA after two years of
ethnomusicological field research in Indonesia, I was introduced to
Rick in Tokyo, at the home of noted Japanese ethnomusicologist
Fumiko Tamura. It was a dinner fete at her house when her father
kiddingly challenged Rick to show what he had learned of noh
drumming. Rick did very well. The food was swell too.
In 1992, I returned to Java to resume my research. One day
around 1997, at the Kusuma Sahid Prince Hotel where I practiced
gamelan, out appears Rick from nowhere. We got reacquainted.
In 1998, the riots in Indonesia happened while I was away in
Malaysia. I could not endure the trauma of such burning of mybeloved Land of Dreams where gamelan music lived. I ran to
Japan. Rick’s generosity in allowing me to stay with him wasboundless, and the bonus was I started to learn noh from him.
Soon after, Rick and I created Teater Cahaya inspired by the latedirector and set designer Manuel Lutgenhorst to produce Hesse’s
Siddhartha.

68

We gathered a group of superlative performers from Bali, Java,
Japan, Malaysia, and India. The method and process of rehearsals
was unique in having no single director. Each participant took turns
directing scenes.

DIDIK NINITHOWOKI met Richard Emmert Sensei through Alex Dea when I neededa recommendation letter for a fellowship with the Asian Cultural
Council.

Populartraditional
IndonesianComedian/
Performer

Although that fellowship did not come through, The JapanFoundation Jakarta did support me to study in Tokyo during
2000 for three months, where I studied nihon buyo with Gojo
Masanosuke sensei and noh with Richard Emmert Sensei.
Rick’s excellent training of noh compositions Yuya, Momijigari,and Hagoromo was a great enhancement to my cross-gender,
cross-border, and cross-cultural aspirations and career. This added
knowledge inspired me to combine noh Hagoromo with Javanesebedhaya classical dance in 2001. This Bedhaya Hagoromo,
mentored by Rick and with support from the Japan Foundation,
was successfully performed. Rick Sensei danced, drummed, andsang with the best Javanese performers.
Besides this, we participated in Siddhartha in Malaysia with closefriend Ramli Ibrahim and Sutra Foundation. Rick and I becamecloser friends then, and also when I enjoyed hospitality in his Tokyo
home and at the Hotel Cahaya in Bali.

Many happy and fortuitous accidents proved the efficacy andvalue of this rare cooperation. We built 10 scenes in less than 10days – an impressive feat. The result of these happy accidents
was electrifying, and in 2003, Siddhartha was presented in Kuala
Lumpur to great acclaim. Unfortunately, due to lack of funding
support, that was the last of Teater Cahaya. The vision to forge
ahead in experimental elemental essences of director-less theaterart was stopped.
However, now in 2019, with great happiness, I see the bravery
and courage of Rick evident in his marvelous work by creating thevisionary English noh company Theatre Nohgaku.
Left photo: Siddhartha rehearsal, from left: Emmert, Makiko Sakurai, Alex
Dea. Negara, Bali. Jan 2003.
Right photo:During Siddhartha rehearsal, from left, Didik Nini Thowok, Emmert, Alex
Dea. Akira Matsui (center back). December 2001.

Siddhartha rehearsal members: includes front row from left: Alex Dea, thenAkira Matsui. Second row from left: Emmert, Didik Nini Thowok, (center),
Tetsuro Koyano (2nd from right), Ramli Ibrahim (far right). Solo, Java. May
2002.

69

RENATA
WIMER
Directora
Artistica
Teatro Del
Mundo

MAKOTO NO HANAIn 2016 I was in L.A. searching for new dramatic literature. As atheatre maker I wanted to find something that could light up myinspiration as an artist. I went to many different bookshops andI felt quite discouraged because I couldn´t find what I was looking
for, but at the last minute my eyes noted a Japanese mask drawn
in a b/white book: Five modern noh plays by Yukio Mishima.
I started reading those stories and something awakened in me.
I guess it had to do with a hidden and old admiration of theJapanese universe.
When I came back to Mexico I showed the book to a friend ofmine. I told her I wanted to stage some of these stories and she
suggested going further to the original noh plays. We read Dojoji,
Hanjo, Kanawa and Ono No Komachi; we also read about
Zeami‘s life and his vision of the art of the noh actor. After that,
we realized we had to find a teacher. It was clear we couldn´t gofurther without a proper guide into the beautiful universe of noh.

70

Magically Florencia remembered that in the past she had founda noh teacher on the internet called Rick Emmert, so we wrote tohim again and to our surprise Rick´s response was positive. We
met him for the first time on Skype at the end of 2016. I remember
his warm human quality, enthusiasm, and his great openness tocollaborate with a pair of unknown Mexican theatre makers. His
willingness to share his knowledge gave us the complete trustthat he was the person we were looking for. The right humanconnection. An artist, a nice human being and a generous teacher.
In 2017 we organized a workshop for playwrights and a training
retreat for performing artists. The residency program has continued
since then every year opening the space for playwrights, actors,
dancers, musicians and people interested in this tradition throughmaster classes, conferences, presentations, and workshops.
We still have years left in order to continue our artistic journey
deep inside the universe of noh with our sensei, Rick Emmert.
We have in mind many beautiful projects to develop that include
the publishing of noh written by Mexican playwrights and the
production of Sumidagawa, which will be the first classical noh
play ever to be performed in Spanish.
The quality of Rick´s teachings is very special. Through him I havestarted, albeit very slowly, to understand beauty in a different way
while contemplating a simple slow walk on the stage of a noh actor
that shares a profound and mysterious sense of what beauty couldbe.
Noh has giving me a new perspective as a theatre performer. I
have understood the power of stillness and simplicity. I think there
are teachers that live their art deeply and thanks to that they areable to give the right transmission to their students. Rick has thatspecial quality of a true guide and artist, the quality of a genuine
flower... like Zeami used to say.

Curtain call of
Teatro del Mundo
performance with
Florencia Ruiz
Sandoval, Gitanjali
Jain, and Renata
Wimer. Teatro
Orientacion, Mexico
City, April 2019.

Left: Teatro delMundo productionof Hagoromo shimaiwith Jessica Gamez.
and Emmert. Teatro
Orientacion, Mexico
City, April 2019.
Teatro del Mundo
production of
Emmert performing
Rio Sumida shimai
in Spanish withwomen’s chorus,
Teatro Orientacion,
Mexico City, April
2019.
Teatro del Mundo
production curtain
call with performers
including second
from right, Renata
Wimer. Teatro
Orientacion, Mexico
City, April 2019.

MARK HILL
Butoh
Performer/
Teacher

CLIVE
BARDA
Photographer

72

It is with a great sense of happiness that I write to celebrate thisspecial birthday with you. I can't thank you enough for the graceof your spirit, energy, wisdom and experience, that you have so
generously and lovingly shared with me, and others, over theyears. Congratulations on the significant contribution you havemade to Arts and Education, especially to noh, across the world,in such an inspirational, memorable and humble way. I can't wait
to share many more experiences with you. Thank you for being aloving friend and mentor. Have a wonderful birthday!
When I first met Rick I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Noh
was an art form I had seen once in Japan but otherwise knew
virtually nothing about it. It was therefore a thrilling experience to
be closely involved with him conducting a noh workshop and, as
I watched and photographed him, I immediately began to realisethat I was in the presence of a unique individual in whom easternand Western culture had become completely combined.
I still find it hard to believe that Rick, an Anglophone American,
has been able to become so profoundly and totally immersed in
the ancient and mysterious traditions of noh and his enthusiasm
is irresistibly infectious. His company is always stimulating, bothphotographically and intellectually, and I much look forward toworking with him again very soon.
See pages pp. 6 (photos 2&4), 10, 11, 36 (photo 1), 72, 116, 118,
119 for other Clive Barda Photographs

PAUL LAIKINManaging
Director
Unanico Goup

JONATHAN
DOVE
ComposerORPHA
PHELAN
Opera Director

MARGARETCOLDIRON
Deputy Headof BA World
Performance
University ofEssex

I have worked with Rick since we co-produced, together with
Jannette Cheong, Noh Time Like The Present at LSO St Luke’s,
and now the European Tour of Takasago & Between the Stones.
From the very first time we met, I was impressed by Rick’s passion
for and commitment to noh – a product of his decades of devotion
to this fascinating art form. Rick combines a stern and serious
approach to his subject with great energy, patience, and kindness,often with a mischievous twinkle in the eye. Through his global
performance and academic activities, Rick truly brings people
together, helping to foster international cultural understanding
through his commitment to noh in Japan, the UK, Ireland, France
and elsewhere. It is an honour to collaborate with Rick, and thistribute is richly deserved.
It was a great privilege to meet you “on air” and I look forward to alonger conversation when we have the chance. It was enthrallingand enormously illuminating to hear you explain and demonstratesome aspects of the performance and composition of noh, fromyour unique position as a modern Western creator and interpreterof this venerable Eastern art-form. Thank you for your wonderfulgenerosity in sharing your knowledge and experience.
Thank you for all you have given me - a love of Noh, a relationshipwith Japan, not to mention some rare opportunities to perform.
I’ll always remember your gentleness as my eyes welled in terror
in Bloomsburg at the notion of performing in front of an audience.
Your sense of calm and kindness have stayed with me, and I hopethat I still manage to garner some of them when I deal with performers myself.
I can only say that Rick is a wonderful artist and teacher and I havebeen delighted to see and take part in some of the work he hasdone in London. I hold him in such great admiration for the work hehas done all over the world making noh more accessible to a wide
audience. He is a treasure!

Left photo by Clive Barda. Pagoda performance with Elizabeth Dowd (left, tsure), Jubilith
Moore (waki), Narumi Takizawa (far left, nohkan), and chorus members including front
row from left, Ryoji Terada, Matt Dubroff, David Surtasky, Tom O’Connor, and backrow from left, David Crandall, Emmert and John Oglevee. Southbank Centre, London,
December 2009.

73

Emmert performing nohkan (above) and taiko(below). Teatro del Mundo production, Teatro
Orientacion, Mexico City, April 2019.

Emmert performing Kurozuka
shimai with mask, Japan-Mexico
Center, Mexico City, April 2018.

RICHARDEMMERT
76

constant
visionMajor Performances of English Noh and Nohabroad78

2020 (January/February) Composer/Director/Jigashira of English
noh Between the Stones; a co-production with Unanico in
association with the Oshima Theatre and Theatre Nohgaku. To be
performed at Southbank Centre, Purcell Room, London; Kilkenny &Wexford in Ireland; and Musée Guimet, Paris, France.
2018 (October) Composer/Director/Jigashira of Theatre Nohgaku
tour of English noh Blue Moon Over Memphis, University ofMichigan, UCLA.
2018 (May) Composer/Hyoshi-ban (playing both tsuzumi drum
patterns) performer/Co-director with Ashley Thorpe of his English
noh play Emily with students of the Department of Theatre, Royal
Holloway, UK.
2017 (August) Waki in Theatre Nohgaku presentation of English
noh Gettysburg. Bloomsburg, PA.
2017 (March) Composer/Director of Theatre Nohgaku tour ofEnglish noh Blue Moon Over Memphis, Williams College andEarlham College, USA.
2016 (August) Director/Composer/Jigashira in Theatre Nohgaku
presentation of English noh Blue Moon Over Memphis, NACL
Theater, Highland Lake, NY.
2016 (March) Director/Shite in Theatre Nohgaku presentation ofEnglish noh Sumida River, Boston University, Massachusetts.
2015 (November) Director/Waki in Theatre Nohgaku tour of English
noh Sumida River, University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio,
Asia Society, Houston, Texas.
2015 (Sept-Oct) Director/Composer/Jigashira in performance ofEnglish noh Oppenheimer, University of Sydney, Australia.
2014 (August) Director/Waki classical noh Takasago andHagoromo performed in Bloomsburg, PA, Noh Training Project.
2014 (June) Director/main actor (shite) in Theatre Nohgaku
performance of English noh Sumida River, Zen Mountain
Monastery, NY.
2013 (October) Member of performance team/taiko, Kita tour,
Jakarta, Indonesia.
2013 (Feb-March) Member of performance team/nohkan/taiko/chorus/dance, Kita tour, Warsaw/Crakow, Poland.
2012 (August) Director, classical noh Atsumori performed inBloomsburg, PA, Noh Training Project.
2012 (March) Leader of Theatre Nohgaku performance teamresidency and performance, Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia.
2011 (June~July) Composer/Director/Jigashira in Theatre Nohgaku/
Oshima Noh Theatre’s collaborative Asian premiere tour of Jannette
Cheong’s English noh Pagoda in Tokyo, Kyoto, Beijing and Hong
Kong.
2009 (December) Composer/Director/Jigashira in Theatre Nohgaku/
Oshima Noh Theatre’s collaborative world premiere European
tour of Jannette Cheong’s English noh Pagoda in London, Dublin,
Oxford and Paris.
2009 (August) Director for classical noh Funabenkei performed
at Bloomsburg, Pa for the Noh Training Project’s 15th anniversarycelebration by Theatre Nohgaku.
2006 (September) Composer/Director/Main actor (shite) in Theatre
Nohgaku’s world premiere of Greg Giovanni’s English noh Pine
Barrens at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Duke University
and Hampden-Sydney College.
2006 (April-May) Composer/Co-director with Akira Matsui/Chorus

leader for Pangaea Arts production of the world premiere ofDaphne Marlatt’s English noh play The Gull in Vancouver, British
Columbia.
2005 (August-September) Composer/Musical Director/Nohkan
player/Chorus leader for Theatre of Yugen’s production of Erik
Ehn’s English noh Moon of the Scarlet Plums (aka Crazy Horse)at the Aichi Expo, Tokyo, San Francisco, Torrance, California.
2004 (August) Director/Chorus leader for classical noh Kurozuka
performed at Bloomsburg, Pa for the Noh Training Project’s 10th
anniversary celebration by Theatre Nohgaku.
2002 (September) Director/Composer/Performer for premiere
Theatre Nohgaku tour of seven US cities featuring the English Noh
At the Hawk’s Well.
2001 (September) Composer/Music Director/nohkan for Theatre of
Yugen’s production of Erik Ehn’s English noh Crazy Horse in San
Francisco.
1991 (November) nohkan with the Nomura Mansaku Kyogen
Troupe of the newly-created kyogen Horazamurai based on
Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor in performances in London
and Cardiff.
1990 (June-July) nohkan with noh-biwa ensemble in a fusion
arrangement of Dojoji in performances in Norway and Finland.
1989 (February) Toured with hayashi instrumental ensemble
Tsuxma playing nohkan in performances in the United States.
1987 (April-May) Chorus and Nohkan Facilitator/Workshop
Translator with six-person noh ensemble (Tsuxma) for
performances and demonstrations in the United States.
1986 (October-November) Nohkan (flute) and Taiko (stick drum)
Performer with Komparu School Tour of Hungary.
1986 (September) Director/composer/jigashira for the English Nohplay Drifting Fires, Zojoji Temple, Tokyo.1985 (August) Tsukuba
Science Exposition, Tsukuba.
1986 (May) Facilitator/Workshop Translator for Kita School Tour of
United States. (March) Flute Performer and Explanator with fiveperson noh ensemble for performances in New York City.
1985 (February/March) Facilitator for Kita School Tour of Holland
and Belgium.
1970 (April/June) Main actor (shite) in student performance ofEnglish noh play St. Francis by Arthur Little and Leonard Holvik at
Earlham College, Indiana.

79

Rick playing the wakirole in a rehearsalof David Crandall’s
The Linden Tree,
performed in Tokyoin 1986.

80

81
Theatre Nohgaku and its Work (written by Richard
Emmert in 2009)

DAVID
CRANDALL

After working on English noh in the 80s, it seemed clear that if
it was to become viable, it was necessary to have a group ofEnglish speakers trained in noh. In 1991, I started an ongoingsemi-intensive Noh Training Project in Tokyo, and then in
1995, a summer intensive Noh Training Project in Bloomsburg,
Pennsylvania. Both continue today.

Director, Rogue
River Noh Center
Grand Rapids,
Michigan.
Founding Member,
Theatre Nohgaku

Thus, after some years of planting the seeds, Theatre Nohgaku
was born. We had our first tour in the United States in 2002of Yeats’ Hawk’s Well . In 2003, we began an annual Writers’
Workshop geared to playwrights and poets interested in writingin the style of noh. In 2004, we collaborated with the Noh Training
Project for its 10th anniversary performance in Pennsylvania of
the classical noh Kurozuka in Japanese. In 2006, we toured
Theatre Nohgaku member Greg Giovanni’s Pine Barrens, a storyof the devil said to roam the pine barrens of New Jersey. In 2007,
we toured David Crandall’s Crazy Jane which he readapted
to be sung in noh style with a noh ensemble. In 2008 we again
collaborated with the Noh Training Project for its 15th anniversary
by performing the classical noh Funabenkei in Japanese.
The production of Pagoda in 2009 in collaboration with the
Oshima Noh Theatre was another step in our development as acompany. But perhaps more importantly, it was a step in making
noh an accessible art form for the English-speaking world.
Extract from the Pagoda Programme 2009David Crandall and
Emmert at Tokyo
University of Arts
foreign student party,
1980.

A Constant Vision
It’s hard to imagine what the world of English-language noh would
look like if Rick Emmert hadn’t been on the scene. He is neither the
first nor the only person who perceived the intrinsic value of noh
as a traditional art and its potential as a springboard for new work,
but he has followed his vision with more passion and persistence
than anyone else I know. Through his generosity as a teacher,
Rick has been instrumental in spreading the gospel of noh far andwide among people of diverse backgrounds and talents. His deep
grounding in the traditional form, his mastery of all performance
aspects, and his unwavering determination to bring noh to nonJapanese audiences have created a framework that many people,
including myself, have gratefully utilized. Rick is also a master of
personal connections that have sparked new experiments now
unfolding with ever more sophisticated and challenging artistic
results. This is an exciting time for those of us involved in thetiny universe of English-language noh, and it is due in large partto Rick’s constant vision of what can be. For that we can all be
grateful.

ELIZABETH
DOWD
Bloomsburg
TheatreEnsemble,
Ensemble
MemberTheatreNohgaku,Founding
Member
Coalition forSocial Equity,
Steering
Committee

82

In 1992 a six-month Creative Artist Fellowship from the Japan-U.S.
Friendship Commission took me to Japan to study traditional performing arts. As I contacted people asking where and with whom
I might best spend this precious time, in the area of noh, all roads
led to Richard Emmert. I became a student of his Tokyo based Noh
Training Project and soon enough, Mr. Emmert became my friend,
Rick. As the end of the fellowship period approached, I asked him
to consider offering NTP/US at my home base, the Bloomsburg
Theatre Ensemble, a professional non-profit theatre located in rural
Pennsylvania. Rick was intrigued. A non-urban setting for threeweeks of intensive daily noh training, free from the distractions andexpenses of city life. This could put noh training within financial
reach of professional artists. How could he say no? And so in
1995, Rick became Director of NTP/US. Under Rick's twenty -year
leadership, NTP offered the most intensive training in noh available
outside of Japan. Students came from across the U.S., Canada,
Germany, Chile, Nepal, the Netherlands, the U.K, and even Japanto a small Pennsylvania town to train in the performance of noh.
Amazing.

‘The meaningof life is to findyour gift. The
purpose of life is
to give it away.’

Elizabeth Dowd and Emmert before
performance of Funabenkei with
Elizabeth as maeshite, Noh Training
Project-Bloomsburg, August 2009.

Pablo Picasso

Through those years of collaboration on NTP/US Rick became
my mentor and among my most cherished friends. Looking backI see ever more clearly how generous he has been with his time,
resources (both financial and personal), patience and faith in us.
Rather than dictate what we should do with what we were learning,
he created opportunities that required our growth. He demandedmuch of us while accepting our limitations. I often felt myself inartistic positions I hadn’t earned, but Rick helped (forced?) me toview putting myself beyond my depth not as failure, but as a fastlane to understanding where I was lacking - where my attention
needed to be directed. It is no exaggeration to say that the studyof noh changed my life. I have Rick to thank for that. And I do, witha profoundly grateful heart.

KEVIN
SALFEN
Associate
Professor ofMusic,
University of the
Incarnate Word
Member of
Theatre Nohgaku

Flute Blooms
A great teacher has great stories, and one of Rick’s classic tales
has to do with losing a beloved nohkan on a trip to India, a sagathat Rick concludes by expressing the hope that his nohkan founda good home, perhaps sparking a local practice of nohkan playing
in some secluded reach of the Indian subcontinent.
I was thirty-two when I discovered Rick and Elizabeth Dowd’s Noh
Training Project in Bloomsburg, that Pennsylvania town to which all
noh roads in the U.S. led for some twenty years. This was my firstopportunity to play the nohkan – an invigorating plastic student
model – and after three weeks of playing it, I loved it so much that
I bought it from Rick. The following summer I had my first chance
to play in a full noh – a takigi performance of Funa Benkei on thebanks of the Susquehanna, a consort of insects vying with me as
I volleyed my hishigi out into the summer dark. And then it was
Atsumori. And then Rick’s English-language performing version of
Sumidagawa.
And it occurred to me at some point that Rick Emmert doesn’t lose
flutes. He plants them. He plants them, and they grow. They growin rural Pennsylvania and urban Texas. They grow in Tokyo andLondon. They grow in Mexico City and wherever he happens to go.
How many teachers, having traveled all over the world and having
taught untold numbers of students, could say the same? Thankyou, Rick, for teaching that blooms.

Elizabeth Dowd
applauds Emmert after
Noh Training Project
Bloomsburg recital,
August 2014.

JOHN
OGLEVEE
Founding
Memberof Theatre
Nohgaku84

As a product of Rick’s “noh proselytizing” I must say that Rick
Emmert’s importance as a rung in noh’s continuing ladder towards
global recognition cannot be overemphasized. Nohgaku has been
evolving since its emergence in the 14th century.
To remain relevant amongst a sea of “entertainments,” nohadopted strict rules and guidelines to help foster its growth.
Remaining largely unknown to those outside of Japan, it was atrue wonder that translations of its poetry made such an impact
to those unfamiliar with its praxis. Thanks in large part to thoseworking in the emerging fields of cultural anthropology andperformance studies post-WWII, scholarship on noh began toflourish, but understanding did not.
Between noh’s first translated literary releases in the early 20th
century and up until a cadre of foreign students, Rick Emmert
being among them, emerged in the 1960’s and 70’s to study
noh’s performance elements, noh remained somewhat enigmaticand shrouded in mystery. His faithfulness to noh’s performance
structure in his exploration of non-Japanese noh is a testament to
his years of committed study and his love of the form. His passion
for noh is contagious and he continues to be the catalyst in myown obsession with noh and its possibilities. He continues topractice noh in Japanese while simultaneously championing the
exploration of noh in other languages. The path traditional noh
takes in the coming years is still developing, but the number ofpeople across the globe who have been introduced not only toviewing noh, but also to committing to its practice, can in no shortmeasure be attributed to Richard Emmert. Thank you Rick.

John Oglevee performs Young Man in David Crandall’s Crazy Jane, withHitoshi Sakurai (taiko), Mitsuo Kama (okawa), Narumi Takizawa (nohkan).
University of Puget Sound, March 2007.

JUBILITH
MOORE
Founding
Memberof Theatre
Nohgaku

As you know, I've been blessed with many fine teachers - it has
been my privilege to follow several rivers upstream. Everyone who
has studied with you Rick knows you to be a very fine teacher.
You are incredibly kind, gentle, generous, know well what you
are teaching and on and on. As one of your slowest “middle-old”
students, (I am now the age you were when we first met) I finallyrealize what I most appreciate about my studies with you, and why
I hold you in such high regard. You may be teaching me noh, butwhat I’m learning is compassion and the importance of patiently
listening rather than the actual sequence of kata. It's as if noh isthat thing that happens off to the side while you actually cultivate
the stickiness of belonging.
For years now, following many a noh related activity, we’d sitaround a table - with lots of little dishes – eating, drinking andlistening as you regale us (while laughing like an Ohio schoolboy
hearing kakegoe for the first time) with stories of your various noh
missteps! As if to say, you are a student of noh, just like the restof us. You’re not of course. You’re Richard Emmert!!! (sung in
dynamic style to the reverberate hills!)
Happy Birthday Rick and many healthy returns of the day!
It’s been my honor to walk these last few decades with you,experiencing the happiness of the pursuit.

Jubilith Moore and Emmert confer. August 2006
during the rehearsals for Pine Barrens

85

GARY
MATHEWS
Professorof ClassicalLanguages andComparative
Literature, North
Carolina State
University.
Founding
Memberof Theatre
Nohgaku

MATTHEW
86 R. DUBROFF
Chair,
Department ofFine Arts
Associate
Professor of
TheatreHampdenSydney College.
Founding
Memberof Theatre
Nohgaku

LLUIS VALLSFounding
Memberof Theatre
Nohgaku.
Member of
Theater of
Yugen

DAVID
SURTASKY
Memberof Theatre
Nohgaku

Of all the ways Richard Emmert has contributed to the world—
as scholar and educator, as ambassador of noh both in Japanand around the world, as performer, composer/choreographer
and all-around impresario of noh, and for all the related skills at
which he has excelled, it is as a teacher that I most admire andcelebrate him. Over the twenty some years since I started training
under Rick, I have been privileged to observe at great length histeaching not just of me but of countless other students. And what
I have found most impressive, besides of course his love of noh
and passion for sharing it, are the limitless ways he finds to tailor
his instruction so as to meet the need of the moment for eachindividual student. There is a word for this: care. Not just that,“he cares,” but that, “he takes care,” takes indeed every care toperceive what will be most helpful to the student before him at thatexact time. And although many of his other contributions may have
had broader impact, none has, I truly believe, given more value topeople than this one. For this, Rick, my deepest gratitude.
Over the past 30 years or so I have gotten to know Rick pretty well.
I started out studying with Rick in his small apartment singing Yuyaback and forth from one tatami to another. With his first group of
NTP Tokyo students, Rick lead us on noh and culinary expeditionsin and around Tokyo. Later I lived in Rick’s house as he traveled
and returned from around the world. Many a night concluded
with us watching videos at home and Rick would realize halfway
through that he had seen parts of the film on an airplane goingsomewhere. Over the past couple of decades my time with Rickhas been centered around Theatre Nohgaku activities and we have
had globe-trotting thrills performing (and eating some more). The
overriding experience throughout is that Rick lives life to the fullest.
It is always an adventure with him, from food to singing Yuya for
the umpteenth time. Rick inevitably brings joy and love for all that
he is doing and love to the people who have the great fortune to bewith him.
Rick, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your love of noh.
Not just the form: the kata, the melodies, the complex rhythms
the strange growling chant of gogin, but the beauty that lies
underneath it and envelops it. You are a wonderful teacher, patientand kind, and appropriately demanding, encouraging, and evenpushing us to do pieces we may not feel ready for, showing yourconfidence in our group’s ability. Your generosity is boundless,
exemplified by the many students and others who have crashed
Chez Rick in Tokyo over the years. I am so grateful to have been
one of them and look forward to many more opportunities to workand spend time together.
I’ve known Rick Emmert for many years as teacher, mentor, andfriend. There are not adequate words to express my thanks forwhat he has taught me, and further the opportunities that his
teaching has provided to me in my life. (DS Director of Production,
Indiana University of Pennsylvania)

COLLEEN
LANKI
Artistic Director,
Tomoe Arts,
Founding
memberof Theatre
NohgakuRick Emmert is someone who opens doors to amazing newworlds. I will never forget the moment I first met Rick in the lobbyof the National Noh Theatre and asked if it were remotely possible
for an errant Canadian actor to study noh, and he replied, “Weeelll,
I happen to teach….” His answer was the beginning of so many
adventures: my first noh practice at a private noh stage buried in a
Tokyo neighbourhood, a voyage to the snowy village of Kurokawa
for all-night noh performances, an amazing trip to Bali for his 50thbirthday with a group from all over the world, and the founding ofTheatre Nohgaku. Rick also introduced me to people who havechanged my life, including my nihon buyoh teacher, Fujima Yūko.
Rick’s house in Nakano-sakaue has been the Tokyo mecca
for many. I have met so many creative people from all over theworld at “Chez Rick.” It has been both a home-away-from-homewhere one could bake a Christmas turkey, and an international
networking centre. I wonder how many books, performances andartistic projects have had their beginning at Chez Rick…
Rick - you have been the catalyst for so much. Thank you!

87

Colleen Lanki rehearsing hakama noh performance of Tomoe, National Noh Theatre Small Hall.
Sadamu Omura (instructor, left), Colleen, Mitsuo Kama (okawa), Kokichi Umeno (kotsuzumi) and
Emmert (nohkan). March 2001.

LAURASAMPSON
Memberof Theatre
Nohgaku.
Storyteller/Arts
Promoter

So very many people’s lives have been enriched by Rick’s tirelessefforts to spread the art of noh outside (and within) its homeland
Japan: I’m proud to be one of them. Like so many, my firstexperience of utai was Rick’s unmistakable voice; of hayashi - thevoice of his nohkan. There’s an army of us: once-upon-a-time newarrivals in Tokyo who, clutching a comp ticket (a gift from Rick),first sat in a noh theatre surrounded by snoozing grannies, watched
an excruciatingly slow-moving performance … and left afterwards,
inexplicably smitten. One of many who, because of Rick, went toJapan for one thing, and came back with noh.

MIKA
OSKARSONKINDSTRAND
Member of
Theatre Nohgaku

That Rick so regularly inspires ‘foreigners’ to practise Japanese
noh seriously – or at all - is miraculous. For anyone living outside
Japan, it’s near-impossible to become proficient, let alone evermaster or fully understand the form: a frustrating prospect for
perfectionists like me. But, under Rick’s tuition [rigorous, informal,
inclusive], practising this time-consuming, medieval, ‘no-shortcuts’
form, painfully aware of your limitations, somehow remains anadventure. Somehow, wordlessly, Rick manages to remind you it’sworth it anyway.

88

Since we first met in 2011, Rick’s energy, hospitality, andgenerosity have inspired me on. Because of him, noh has infused
my creative life in more ways than I could have imagined. Today,
as utai singer, nohkan player, shimai dancer, facilitator (with Theatre
Nohgaku and Noh Training Project UK) I still strive for one of Rick’s
rare compliments. Once in a blue moon – in the USA, UK, Japan,
Singapore, or another of many places where noh has led me - I get
one. Now, with a hard-won ‘beginners’ mind’, cultivated by Rick,I can live with that.

MARIKO
ANNO
Memberof Theatre
Nohgaku
Associate
Pofessorof TokyoInstitute ofTechnology

What a joyous day! Thank you for meeting with me in December
2004, when I visited Tokyo for my dissertation fieldwork — when
this noh journey began! I wouldn’t have made it this far without
your help and guidance. You’ve paved the way for many of us, andwe are grateful for your hard work and dedication! Also, thank you
for your generosity and willingness to share your knowledge andexpertise in noh! May you continue to create fabulous work, andI look forward to performing your works!

Three years ago, I met a man called Richard Emmert, when I
attended the workshop Noh Training Project in Tokyo. I knew very
little about noh at the time and even less about our teachers. But
this man would become one of the most important people for me
as I started to explore the path of noh.
Since that first meeting with Rick, he and noh has come toinfluence me greatly in my work and life. I don’t know if it ispossible to convey in words the sense of gratitude I feel. Not only
did he open the doors to noh, but through that he also showed mea glimpse of what theatre was, is and can be. And I believe that asa theatre artist there is nothing more important than getting yourpreconceptions about art turned upside down once in a while.
Today I know more about what an important role Rick has playedin bringing noh to the rest of the world. It amazes me that wherever
I go in the world (Toga, San Francisco, Kerala, Singapore and evenin a small country like Sweden) theatre artists and researchers
know who Rick is, often in person, and everyone share the same
deep respect for him and his deeds within noh and its music. It’s
hard for me to grasp how many international projects Rick has
been and is a part of - and how the theatre around the globe canbe so intertwined.
Thank you, Rick for your dedication, generosity and for spreading
your knowledge about noh and the world of theatre. I look forward
to continue to explore this art and to be inspired and learn fromyou for many, many years to come.

NAOKO
MAESHIBA
Somatic
Practitioner/
Performing
Artist. Affiliate
Memberof Theatre
NohgakuThank you so much for having me as your student in nohgaku forthe past 20 years. Through your masterful teaching, I was able togrow and achieve something I never thought was possible. I cannever forget the experience of playing nochi-jite in Atsumori in2012. Intensive immersed training in Tokyo, being on the actual
noh stage, more training at NTP, and finally putting on the heavy
costume and a mask to perform – the whole experience was sorich. The more I studied this art form, the more mesmerized I
became with its depth. The more I practiced, the more challenges I
faced. Throughout this process, you guided me and taught me withpatience and generosity. It was truly inspiring and encouraging
to be able to study with someone who has dedicated his life
with such passion to the practice of nohgaku. The principles ofnohgaku are not just ideas in my head but are deeply ingrained
into my body, mind and spirit. It is not only alive in my performancelife but also makes my everyday life much more potent. I feel sohonored and fortunate to have been able to learn from you.

89

Noh Compositions:90

2020 Music for the original noh play Between the Stones (libretto
by Jannette Cheong) co-produced with Unanico in association with
Theatre Nohgaku and Oshima Noh Theatre.
2018 Music arrangement for the classical noh play Sumidagawa
into a Spanish version called Rió Sumida.
2018 Music for the original English noh play Emily (libretto byAshley Thorpe).
2017 Music for the original collaborative noh/opera/ballet
performance of Opposites-InVerse (libretto by Jannette Cheong).
2015 Music for the original English noh play Oppenheimer (libretto
by Allan Marett).
2013 Music for the original English noh play Blue Moon Over
Memphis (libretto by Deborah Brevoort.
2009 Music for the original English noh play Pagoda (libretto by
Jannette Cheong). Performances in December 2009 and JuneJuly 2011 in the first Theatre Nohgaku and Oshima Noh Theatre
co-productio
2008 Music and Performance arrangement/translation of classicalnoh play Sumidagawa into English version called Sumida River.
2006 Music for the original English noh play The Gull (libretto byDaphne Marlatt). Performances in May 2006 in Richmond, B.C. by
Pangaea Arts.
2006: Music for the original English noh play Pine Barrens (libretto
by Greg Giovanni). Performances in September 2006 by Theatre
Nohgaku.
2001 Music for the original English noh play Crazy Horse (libretto
by Erik Ehn). Performances by Theatre of Yugen, San Francisco
in September 2001. Remounted as Moon of the Scarlet Plums in
September 2005 in Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles.
1989 Music for the original English noh play Eliza (libretto by Allan
Marett). Performances first given by students of the University ofSydney in September 1989. Remounted in Japan in May 1990 .
1987 Rearrangement and recomposition of music for the English
noh Saint Francis (libretto by Arthur Little, original music by
Leonard Holvik). Performances in February-March 1988 at Earlham
College, Richmond, Indiana.
1985 Music for the English noh Drifting Fires (libretto by Janine
Beichman). Performances in August 1985 at the International
Science Exposition in Tsukuba, and in September 1986 in Tokyo.
1981 Music for the English play At the Hawk’s Well (text by
William Butler Yeats). Performances by the NOHO Theatre Group(Dec 1981 Kyoto and Osaka, May 1982 Tokyo, August 1985 Kyoto
and Osaka, July 1990 Kyoto. Also remounted August, 1984 Sydney
by students of the University of Sydney. Featured play in thefirst seven-city US tour by Theatre Nohgaku/Theatre of Yugen in
September 2002.)

RICHARDEMMERT
Englishnoh92

Extract from the programme for Pagoda
performed at Southbank Centre, London (2009)
written by Richard Emmert

Later when I went to Japan, I met a young noh actor — Akira
Matsui and began to take lessons with him in traditional noh chantand dance. Then, I studied the four instruments as well and began
to develop an understanding of the music of noh, in particular the
relationship between the drums and the text and how text andrhythm are so important in creating the style of noh.

Noh plays are not the same as Shakespeare plays which canbe performed in a variety of ways and still be considered
Shakespeare. Noh instead is like opera. Taking the text of a Verdi
or Mozart or Britten opera, discarding the music and performing it
in a style other than opera, would create a performance based on
opera lyrics.
But is it still a Verdi opera when the lyrics are just spoken? Is it stilla Mozart opera if the text is done in Beijing opera style without
Mozart’s music? Is it still an opera if it is done in the style of noh?

While studying noh in Japan, I was told by several people that themusic of noh developed from the Japanese language and could
not be done in other languages. Despite this, as I began to feel therhythms of noh in my body, it seemed natural for this native English
speaker to begin to think of English text and how it could fit withthese rhythms. When Jonah Salz, a young American director
based in Kyoto, asked me to write music for a production of At
the Hawk’s Well, it was easy to throw caution to the wind and todive in and write music for the Yeats text in traditional noh style.
Performances followed in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo.

I don’t think so. An opera is done in a style that we recognize
as opera. Likewise, a noh play (and ‘play’ is a misnomer — it ismore a musical or dance-drama) is done in a style that can berecognized as noh. A Mozart opera performed without Mozart’s
music in the style of noh, is noh. A performance using the librettoof the classical noh Kiyotsune sung in opera style is not noh, but
is opera.

Yokomichi Mario, the director of the earlier Hawk’s Well versions inJapanese and my professor of noh studies at Tokyo University ofFine Arts, told me at the Tokyo performances, that my version was‘too noh-like’. On reflection, his criticism suggested that I could
have explored the noh style in a way which departed more fromtypical noh, but it clearly recognized, if there was still any doubt,that yes, noh can be performed in English.

Though Yeats called his play a ‘noh’ play, it was, in my opinion,a Western musical performance whose text was influenced bynoh. But it was not noh. That had to wait until the Japanese nohscholar, Yokomichi Mario, made an arrangement for Hawk’s Well
in Japanese in 1949 which had a production by noh professionals,
and then yet another version and production of it in 1965.

Over the next years, I composed music for and directed andperformed in several English noh.

Both of these have been often performed since. In the noh world,
these are considered noh, but a version using the original musicby Edmond Dulac is not. The version I composed in 1981 followed
both the Yeats English and the musical style of noh. It was, to myknowledge, the first time that anyone had written strict noh music
to go with the original English of Yeats’ play. It was an English noh.
Other English NohAfter Yeats, there no doubt have been others who have written
texts influenced by noh, and likely even called them ‘noh plays’. Of
course, in my view, they are not noh until they are performed at thevery least in the musical style of noh.
One that came very close to being noh was the play St. Francis,
written by Arthur Little with music by Leonard Holvik. This was
performed in 1970 at my alma mater, Earlham College in Indiana.
It was my second year, and these two professors conducted a nohseminar which I took. The seminar featured readings of noh texts
in translation, listening to recordings of noh music and seeing theone available film about noh. We then began to rehearse the work
which the two professors had created. The structure followed
closely some of the typical structures of classical noh. The musicsuggested noh, but was written so American students not trainedin noh techniques could still perform it. I was chosen to be themain actor for the production, hardly imagining that this would be afirst step in what would become a lifetime relationship with noh.

During the 1980s, there were two others in Japan who madeproductions which can be considered English noh, or at least
noh-influenced English plays. First, Kuniyoshi Munakata Ueda,
a Shakespeare specialist at Nihon University, began using nohwith Shakespeare, notably Hamlet and Othello. Although theplays sometimes lacked a clear sense of the relationship between
poetic text and drum rhythms that give noh its vitality and intensity,
they did include chant and movement in noh style and used noh
musicians. Second, my good friend and now fellow member ofTheatre Nohgaku, David Crandall, wrote and directed two plays,
Crazy Jane and Linden Tree, both which had a strong noh
structural feel in terms of text and movement but employed his
own musical composition for a Western instrumental ensemble.

93St. Francis. Earlham College, Indiana. April 1970.
Richard Emmert (Shite). Waki and seated chorus
members at right.

At the Hawk’s Well. Noho Production,Umewaka Noh
Theatre, Tokyo. Mayl 1982. Gentaro Mishima (taiko),
Richard Emmert (nohkan)

At the Hawk’s Well. Theatre Nohgaku Production.
Hampden Sydney College, September 2002. Akira
Matsui (Shite), Mitsuo Kama (Kotsuzumi)

Drifting Fires. Tsukuba EXPO, August 1985. Umewaka
Naohiko (Shite)

Drifting Fires. Tsukuba EXPO, August 1985. Chorus(centre: Akira Matsui, Richard Emmert)

At the Hawk’s Well. Noho Production,Umewaka Noh
Theatre, Tokyo. Mayl 1982. Gentaro Mishima (taiko),
Richard Emmert (nohkan)

Sumida River. Kinue Oshima (shite) and Emmert (waki). Theatre
Nohgaku production. University of the Incarnate World, San
Antonio, Texas. November 2015

ALLANMARETT
Emeritus
Professor,
University
of Sydney.
Collaborated
on two nohplays with Rick
Emmert:Eliza (1989
Australia,
1990 Japan),
Oppenheimer(2015 Australia)

10
98

Rick Emmert and I have known each other for more than half ofour respective 70 years (I also turned 70 this year), as collaboratorsin the creation and performance of two noh plays, Eliza (1989)
and Oppenheimer (2015) and as, most importantly, as friends: in2009 we walked the Shikoku Henrō pilgrimage together, in 2016
visited Kōya-san together to mark the end of my second cycle ofthe Henrō and, in 2018, at the ceremony marking my transmission(inka) as a Zen teacher in the Diamond Sangha tradition, I was
honoured to have Rick perform part of Eliza. Each of these has
been a moment of profound connection that rest upon decades offriendship and collaboration.
Rick and I dimly remember meeting for the first time at the annual
meeting of the Tōyō Ongaku Gakkai at Tōkyō Geijutsu Daigaku in
November 1976,where he was a graduate student. If our memory
is correct, we have known each other for 43 years, which isnearer to two-thirds of our respective 70 years. But a much moresignificant encounter occurred when I attended the Nōhō Theatre’s
production of Yeats’s At the Hawk’s Well in Tokyo in 1982. I was
deeply touched and as a result invited Rick, together with noh
master Akira Matsui, to the University of Sydney to direct a projectthat would culminate in a student production of At the Hawk’s
Well along with a performance, in Japanese, of the traditional noh,Kiyotsune.
Working with Rick on a project is, as many other authors could
now attest, to experience his generosity, his deep knowledge ofthe noh tradition, and his probing questions about matters of formand content. Oppenheimer is an exploration of karma that rests
upon a parallel drawn between an old Zen koan (Mumonkan Case
2, Hyakujo’s Fox) and Robert Oppenheimer’s development of theatomic bomb. It is complex—some would say too complex to be a‘proper’ noh play–but Rick never doubted me. Over the years of its
development he relentlessly probed me until he was satisfied that
he understood the play. This showed great patience, great faithand amazing generosity.
Whenever I go to Tokyo I nearly always stay with Rick, whether wehave a project on or not. In the midst of his busy university life andhis many projects, Rick always has time to talk—over the kitchen
table, over a beer in a bar in the evening or on the road—about
our lives, our families, our vocations, our joys and our sorrows. It’s
been a remarkable journey and a remarkable friendship that we’veshared.

Allan Marett & Rickon a pilgrimage in
Shikoku.

Right: Eliza. Richard
Emmert (Maeshite).
Akira Matsui (Koken)
Umewaka Noh
Theater, Tokyo.
May 1990.

Oppenheimer. John Oglevee (nochishite),
Akira Matsui (tsure). University of Sydney
Conservatory Stage, October 2015.

Oppenheimer backstage. Chim Kham Yoke(masked ai role), Emmert, Akira Matsui, Hideta
Kitazawa (maskmaker).

Eliza. Richard Emmert (Nochishite).
Umewaka Noh Theatre. May 1990

ERIK EHN
Poet and author of
Crazy Horse/Moonof the Scarlet
Plums, 2001, 2005

102

whistle, drum
hospitable embrace, shoulder of the sun(emmert, welcomer)
hum and volute,
wind wounded flute suture,
the hospitality of waiting, patience: a house;
what was (the dead, the ghost), patient for the present to turn,the seed pressed to learn:
forgiveness is time letting go of the present so that there may be the not-thing bliss.
host holds open ma’s coat;shite the emblem or switch, triggers give-away –the vacuum at the end of the play, all done
suriashi slide, spiral from somber,count back from tenshin to pun (one or two)…
buckeye shimaibrushes the strokes of jo-ha-kyu
across the floor,
pivot and: nana-ju
is this the feel of seventy? show a few.
this age fits inside the light entire
as word in word does in joke: precise.
say once, mean twice;calembour –laugh ignition,
full-groaned.
score
ranges across the unlikely, threads nuance,
there is no balance without the diverse
and there you are so alivein the comity, complex.
heat the inside,share us tea,tuning our sensibilities tokitchen-table hayashi.
we’ve slept on every floor of yours,
poured life given to giving, playing, singing
a yeats ladder to wizened reason,
zeami out the other side of death andst. francis overtime.
trust skill
trust seatrust such a teacher
nohgaku.
syllable, seed, sign, story,
energy’s journey:
where-as-who.
love what you
don’t know.
don’t know where you are but be certain you are there.
mentor, brother, father, family-full,trans-pacific push, pull…
love – is the yes of noh

Moon of the Scarlet Plums, Eitaro Okura (okawa), Emmert (nohkan), Masashi Nomura (nochishite). Theatre of Yugen production,
University of San Francisco, September 2005.

Left and right: Pine Barrens. Richard Emmert (Maeshite,
Nochishite). North Carolina School of the Arts. September 2006.

GREG
GIOVANNI
Author of the
English noh Pine
Barrens

Go into Kinokuniya Book Store, find a book in English on nohgaku,
turn to the index; you will find Emmert, Richard—in every bookprinted after a certain date. You can discover the same myriadof citations in the noh books printed in Japanese, just one shelfover. This massive constellation of reference points illuminates
his enormity of knowledge, but not Richard’s dazzling wealth ofkindness, humor, and generosity.

DAPHNE
MARLATT
Poet and Authorof the English noh
The Gull

I was lucky enough to enjoy this wealth firsthand when Richard
scored and directed my noh Pine Barrens. Kindness he displayed
to a writer who produces in fits and starts (more ‘fits’ thananything). Rick’s generosity of time and talent were evident during
the year or so of feedback, rewrites, and workshops. I believe wemade the best fifth-category English-language noh possible.

106

Humor is what the researchers will overlook, but, to my mind, Ricksensei cannot be separated from his infectious pun making, andhis willingness to deliver and receive a jest. I consider this to be anoble quality in a greatly accomplished man. Richard Emmert iscertainly accomplished, erudite and noble.

Richard Emmert as the Jersey Devil from Greg Giovanni’s Pine Barrens(this page and two previous pages), a story of the devil said to roam thepine barrens of New Jersey. Photography courtesy of Theatre Nohgaku

11Working with Rick on The Gull was one of the most expansive anddeepening experiences of my writing life: his intensive knowledgeof the structures and musical patterns of traditional noh, his
openness in teaching, his generosity in Tokyo when I visited him
there, his enthusiasm for bridging two cultures. He took me down
to Wakayama to meet the remarkable noh master Akira Matsui who
would later perform the shite role in The Gull and it was a treat towatch them talking and laughing together.
Rick combines openness and meticulousness in a very engaging
way. I remember a certain moment, a high light for me, when wewere in a compositional retreat for the production. We were sitting
outside in a sunny garden on one of our Canadian West Coastislands going over my rough draft of Act I and his music, checking
to see how my written lines would work with the chant patterns ofutai. This was when I learned the difference between poetry to beread and poetry to be sung. And then there was also the constraintof syllabic count. We were fiddling with a particularly difficult
passage when he said, look, you can’t fit the stress patterns ofEnglish exactly into the syllabic patterns of noh so don’t worry
about an extra syllable here or there – it’s more about how the lines
will speak to an audience. A very freeing moment. This was when
I knew Rick was the perfect musician-teacher to introduce writers
in the West to the rhythmic musical/poetic depths of noh.

The Gull: Vancouver. May 2006. Hayashi from left: Hitoshi Sakurai, Mitsuo
Kama, Naoko Takahashi, Narumi Takizawa.

107The Gull. Pangaea Arts Production, Vancouver.
May 2006. Akira Matsui (maeshite left, andnochishite, right)

Photography by Michael Ford

It was wonderful how Blue Moon Over Memphis displayed afreedom as English-language noh while still respecting the formalityof traditional noh, which could be seen in how the English chantfit extremely well with the noh rhythms, and then the music of thedance suddenly transformed into the melody of Blue Moon.
But actually I was most moved by how the performers had
genuinely learned noh conventions, from playing the hayashi
instruments to putting on costumes. They demonstrated a respect
for orthodox noh, even when they gave free rein to their expression,
so there was not at all a sense of being “a bad imitation of noh,”but rather it seemed to truly represent “a new style of noh.”— Yamanaka Reiko Professor/Director, Nogami Memorial Noh
Theatre Research Institute Hosei University, Tokyo

DEBORAH
BREVOORT
Playwright/
Author of English
noh Blue Moon
Over Memphis

One of my fondest memories was working with you on Blue Moon
Over Memphis over Skype, you in Tokyo, me in New York. We
were usually in our pyjamas, one of us getting ready to go to bed,
the other getting up. You would chant your compositions to me as
I worked on the script.
One time, the sound of your chanting carried out of my office
and into our living room. Chuck, not knowing what I was doing,
charged into my office thinking something was wrong with me.
When he saw that I was fine, and sitting at the computer, he said
“what the hell is going on in here?” Not wanting to interrupt yourchanting, I whispered “noh drama” to which he said “ohh!”—
understanding that these strange-to-western-ears sounds did notmean that I was in some kind of physical distress.
Rick, I appreciate how you have supported me, and the Elvis
project, from the very beginning—commissioning the Japanesetranslation, publishing it in the Noh Research Archives, and thenworking with me to take my Americanized noh and translate it
back into its original Japanese form. And then, after developing
the script in many Skype sessions, and on those few stolen daysin July when you were in the US, you dedicated the resources ofTheatre Nohgaku to developing the production and building thosebeautiful costumes and masks.
It’s been rewarding and fun. And it’s been a joy. Thank you from thebottom of my heart. Happiest of Birthdays, dear friend. May you
have many more!

The Gull

Left: Blue Moon Over Memphis. Earlham College. March 2017. John
Oglevee (nochishite (Elvis)

111

Blue Moon Over Memphis. Earlham College. March 2017. John Oglevee(maeshite (Elvis). Richard Emmert tying the mask for John Oglevee (shite)ASHLEY
THORPE
Author of Emily,
2018

I first met Rick at the Japanese Embassy in London in 2009. He
was touring Pagoda and I was eager to meet him after a nohstage had just been donated to the University of Reading. My main
recollection of our first encounter was his enthusiasm for noh, his
openness, and his willingness to laugh at my bad jokes.
Since that time, I am grateful to be able to say that Rick has
become my teacher, my colleague, and my friend.
Rick is an international ambassador for noh in the fullest andtruest sense. He has dedicated his life to understanding the form
in all its aspects: music, movement, literature, and the waysof contemporary professional practice. Yet, this passion for
noh is matched only by his love for sharing his knowledge, andencouraging others to come to discover what noh has to offer. The
Kita school is the youngest of the five schools of principal actors,
and has the smallest number of professional actors. Yet, throughRick’s endeavours, there are probably more students of the Kita
school living internationally than any other!
Since 2011, I have had the honour and pleasure of hosting Rickin the UK for the Noh Training Project UK, first at the University ofReading, and now at Royal Holloway. His enthusiasm is infectious,and I have watched time and again how participants struggling
with the complexity of encountering noh for the first time havebeen pulled through by Rick’s supportive approach. Indeed, it isdown to his encouragement that I wrote my own noh in English,
Emily, which was composed by Rick, and performed in London in2018 and 2019. The text was largely written in his house in Tōkyō
during a generous three-month stay, and I have fond memories of
sliding my laptop across his kitchen table for supportive thoughts
on how the text was developing, and chatting about noh musicalstructure over coffee shop lattes and pastries. He even managed
to continue smiling at my bad jokes at the end of my threemonth stay. For this, there must surely be some kind of Special
Endurance Award.

114

Rick’s influence is far-reaching, brought about by his deep
knowledge of noh (he is genuinely a “noh-all”), and his passion forteaching. Rick is a teacher, a composer, a dancer, a scholar, anda global ambassador for noh. Most important of all, however, he isthat rare and special thing: an enabler.

Ashley Thorpe
performs a shimai on
the Kita Noh Stage,
Noh Training Project
Tokyo, July 2017.

Right: Emily. Ashley
Thorpe (nochishite),
Emmert (hyoshiban
playing both okawa
and kotsuzumi parts),
Handa Noh Stage,
Royal Holloway
University of London,
May 2018.

Pagoda. Kinue
Oshima (nochishite).
Southbank Centre,
London, December
2009.

“Pagoda is a triumph. To have created a new noh play but retained
total authenticity is nothing short of brilliant. It is something that
devotees of noh will savour.”
The Stage: 3 Dec 2009
“It is no mean feat to develop noh and to write for such an ancient
form in another language, but it is incredibly effective. All in all, avery special evening which may have won over a new audienceand was certain to delight the converted.
Ballet.co.uk 3 Dec 2009
“We have seen noh earnestly and brilliantly cross over national
borders”
NISHINO Haruo, TOKYO SHIMBUN, 3 July 2011

JANNETTE
CHEONG
Poet/Authorof Pagoda,
OppositesInVerse, andBetween the
StonesI first thought of creating a tribute for Rick in 2011, just after the
Pagoda Asia Tour. At this point in my noh journey, after nine
performances in Europe and five performances in Asia I had fallen
for noh ‘lock, stock and barrel’. In my enthusiasm I suggested
there should be a festival of English noh but soon realised that
there would be insufficient performers to perform a number ofEnglish noh during the same period! This tribute book is the best
I could do for someone who had opened up a whole new world
not only for myself, but for so many others around the world forthe past 40 years or so. Rick is like a contemporary Zeami forEnglish noh. No one has composed for noh as often as Rick.
No one has brought together people from around the world toperform, produce, write and train for noh as much as Rick, andno one has made so many friends who regard his skills andtalents as extraordinary and his humility, humanity and humour as
unparalleled in the international world of noh. And, of course, very
few will leave a legacy like RickWhen you create something together with another person you
learn about each other’s strengths and weaknesses. The qualityof your relationship is tested by the challenges you can bring andthe learning you can take with you - thanks to the mutual trust andrespect shared. I could not have wished for a better noh partner.
Thank you, Rick, for helping me write my noh trilogy - for believing
in my stories and for helping me tell them in a performing art form
that is such a joy to create.

Kinue Oshima as the nochishite (Meilin) from Jannette Cheong’s Pagoda(this page and the next two pages). Photography courtesy of Clive Barda

117

Pagoda (tsure) Elizabeth Dowd

Pagoda (waki), Jubilith Moore

Pagoda (chorus) from left, Ryoji Terada, Matt Dubroff, David Surtasky, Tom
O’Connor, and back row, David Crandall, Emmert and John Oglevee.

Pagoda (ai), Lluis Valls

Pagoda (nochitsure).,Teruhisa Oshima

Pagoda. Entire cast and crew, Maison de la Culture, Paris, December 2009.

Pagoda. Kinue Oshima (maeshite). Southbank Centre, London,
December 2009.

Tradition and change in noh
Written by Richard Emmert for the Noh time like thepresent programme... A Tribute to Akira Matsui,
performed at LSO St Lukes, London (2017)
Many people seem to believe that noh is a monolithic tradition thathasn’t changed in its 650-year history. Noh, indeed, has a long
history and its strict traditions have been passed down largely
through families, from father to son, generation after generation.
Many noh families can still trace their ancestors back to the 14thand 15th centuries and further.

120

However, researchers have evidence that many aspects of noh
have undergone transformations since its development largely into
its present structure during the 14th and 15th centuries. These
include the length/time of performances (performances of 600
years ago are thought to have been about two-thirds the time theytake today), the shape of the stage, the development in qualityof the costumes, the change in the structure of the noh flute, andthe development of the dynamic singing style (all probably from450-500 years ago), the use of a theatre building to house thestage (140 years ago), and the appearance of professional female
performers (the last 100 years or so) to name several prominenttransformations.
Smaller changes also constantly take place. No two performers arealike even from the same family. Noh has considerable freedomof expression while performing within implied parameters. That
freedom of interpretation clearly results, not in a static tradition, but
in a living and breathing one.
In terms of plays, the present classical repertory numbers around250. Yet over the last 650 years there have been over 3000
noh plays written and one presumes many of these have been
performed. That said, the number of new (shinsaku) plays dropped
considerably during the Meiji period (1868-1912) and through tothe 1980s. With only a few exceptions, new plays, if created at all,tended to be made by only the most prominent noh performers.
Similarly, there were revivals (fukkyoku) of earlier plays made during
this time, but very few.

Western and Asian theatre, dance and music practitioners, bothclassical and modern. It seems that for the most part, thesecollaborations take place with the noh practitioners maintaining
a strict adherence to noh traditional techniques while performingwith non-noh performers. Other prominent performers from the nohworld who have participated in such collaborations from the 1950s
include brothers Hisao and Hideo Kanze, several generations of
the Shigeyama kyogen group, and Mansaku Nomura, and his
son Mansai Nomura from the 1990s, then Reijiro Tsumura fromthe 2000s, and musicians Shonosuke Okura from the1980s andYukihiro Isso from the 1990s. There certainly are others.
While it is difficult to refer to such collaborations as noh, clearly
performers are using their noh skills in new and profound ways.
Mr. Matsui has said that what he does in such collaborations isnoh, although his non-noh collaborators are doing somethingelse. However one might refer to these collaborations, theimportant point is that the noh performers in these collaborations
are not attempting to be ballet dancers or Western actors or jazzmusicians. Instead, they are using their traditional training in new
performative circumstances.

121

There has been interest internationally in noh performance asince1916 and various attempts to use noh or noh-like elements in
English and other non- Japanese plays. There is also interest in
this development within Japan as can be seen in the entry entitled“English Noh” in the third edition of the Japanese-language
Noh-Kyogen Encylopedia (Noh-Kyogen Jiten), as well as several
paragraphs within the even more recent Nohgaku Encyclopedia(Nohgaku Daijiten).
Opposites/InVerse is in that vein of English noh. Jannette Cheongas author, and myself as composer, are collaborating for a second
time after working on the strictly English noh Pagoda. This time,
considering the ballet dancer and the opera singers, Opposites/
InVerse would be more properly labeled a noh-influenced dancedrama rather than a strict noh. It was Jannette’s wish to use opera
singers and a contemporary dancer with the idea of creating atrue collaboration between Western and noh elements. Of course,
it could easily be a more strictly English noh in a future iteration.
Hopefully its beauty will be apparent in either.

A catalyst for change in this regard was the opening of the National
Noh Theatre (NNT) in 1983. Several years later, the NNT began
creating revivals by small teams of scholars and actors. Oftenthese pieces had merely a text or even just parts of texts fromhundreds of years ago, so any revival required developing ideas formusic, costume and staging—in essence they required the skills tocreate anew rather than the skills needed to maintain tradition.
In this way, more performers began to understand the importanceof creation while maintaining tradition. Particularly, in the 1990s,
many noh performers began creating and performing new pieces,and those numbers have continued to grow over the last two
decades. That said, performance of traditional pieces still makeup probably 99 percent of performances that take place in the nohworld during the course of a year.
In addition, a few actors—Akira Matsui being one who stands
out prominently—have collaborated with non-noh performers.
Akira. Matsui, for example, has collaborated with a variety of

Opposites/InVerse(Part 2).
Peter Leung (ballet)
and Akira Matsui (noh).
LSO St. Luke’s,
London. February
2017.

ARTISTS WHO WORKED WITH RICK & AKIRA ON ‘NOH TIME LIKE THE PRESENT...’HUGH
QUARSHIE
Actor

Richard Emmert is a curious man, both in the sense that heis interested in the world around him and that he is in himself
interesting.

His curiosity about Japanese culture led him beyond the cultural
tourism of Samurai movies, Manga anime and sushi that had
satisfied mine and took him to noh. It has been a lifelong journey;
and watching him rehearse and perform with Akira Matsui, I
sensed that the journey had not ended. He observed and listenedwith the diligence and deference of a student. He has immersed
himself in noh, the better to understand it. The fact that he hasdone so without foregoing his Western identity, his ‘Americaness’,what
him so andinteresting.
Photos from Noh time likehis
the‘Rickness’
present...,istop
left,makes
Akira Matsui
Hugh And it is what
encourages
othersme to lookat nohmore than a culturally
Quarshie in Beckett’s Rockaby.
Top right,
Lucialike
Capellaro(cello)and asAkira
peculiar
art
form
and
searchforitsessence.
Noh will not come to
Matsui (utai) in Noh Meets Bach. Bottom left, Eitaro Okura (okawa), Kayu Omura
the passivewith idleright,
curiosity:
we want to understand(kotsuzumi) and Emmert (nohkan)
in Nohspectator
Hayashi. Bottom
AkiraifMatsui
we haveto makethe effort to go to it. And Rick Emmert, playing(noh) and Peter it,
Leung(ballet)in Opposites/InVerse.
his noh flute, will be our eager guide.
Photos from Opposites/InVerse. Peter Leung (ballet) and Akira Matsui (noh).

LUCIA
CAPELLARO
CellistPETER LEUNG
Choreographer andStage Director

PIRAN LEGG
Baritone opera
singerRick is one of those rare people whose enthusiasm for his craft
is infectious. He is endlessly positive, talented, and kind; it was apleasure to get to know him. He is a real inspiration.
Working with Rick is pretty much the same as being friends with
Rick, he’s enthusiastic and super eager to share his knowledge
and wisdom. I am so grateful that we worked together in 2017
in London and later to meet him in Tokyo where I had the best
evening with him. What a wonderful human being!
I learnt so much from working with Rick. The fact that he wasbrave enough to experiment with an ancient art form that heknows so well and work in tandem with an opera singer suchas myself made for a wonderful experience on our project. His
humanity and kindness also combine to make him a truly
great artist.

123

Rick’s Journey without end...
Casting noh nets far away
my path has widened
Casting noh nets far away
my path has widened
Time will tell my journey’s taleLong after I’m gone
You see before you a traveller who did not know the path of life
would bring me to this island far from my home. 50 years havepassed and still I am here - still I am learning. Still I am exploring
through my body and mind - getting to noh - my path no longer
confused.
Visitors still come and go
I still come and go
From Ohio where once I laughed
When I listened to
The sound of drummers calls
To Tokyo City
Now my home of many years
Now I call the drums
Lead the jiutai in new chants
Direct, perform, compose noh
Somehow this path has chosen me
And I chose the path
It is only 50 years, but now I have arrived. At a place Zeami said
would allow me to still nurture the flower in these old bones as I
continue to nurture the flower in others. And from hrere on - who
knows what the mist will reveal?

Emmert photo by
Magda Rittenhouse.

Jannette Cheong,
December 2019125

Designed and edited by Jannette Cheong
Editorial suggestions and proofing byPaul Laikin, proof correction by Laura Sampson
Costumed classical noh photos of Richard Emmert byAbiko.
Other photos by:
Clive Barda pp. 6 (photos 2&4), 10, 11, 36 (photo 1), 72,
116, 118, 119
Jannette Cheong pp.121, 122, 123
Emilio Espinosa, pp. 71 (all), 74, 75 (both)
Kazuhiro Inoue pp. 24, 34, 42 (bottom), 53, 54, 55, 58(centre & lower left), 59 (centre), 64, 66 (all), 68 (left)
Sohta Kitazawa, pp. 40-41 (all masks), 67
David Surtasky pp. 6-7 (left, centre, right), 8, 12-13 (all),59 (top & bottom), 83 (both), 85, 96, 97, 104, 105, 106,
110, 112, 113.

PRINT

DiGITALLONDON

Others too numerous to mention.

Printed by London Digital Print. Idprint.co.uk(Top) Emmert lecture-demonstrations London Schools Project, September 2009 photograph by
Clive Barda. (Front Cover) Emmert performing the main role (shite) in Kiyotsune, December 2002
photograph by Abiko. Kita Noh Theatre, Tokyo. (Back cover) La Universidad de los Andes, Bogota,
March 2011. Photograph thanks to Mauricio Martinez.