Originally, Noh’s concept came from China about 1300 years ago. Noh was called “Sangaku” at that time. And it affiliated with Japanese original culture. About 1000 years ago, Sangaku change its name as “Sarugaku”. It seems like Sarugaku was a short comedy story.

Then in the end of the 13th century (about six hundred years ago), appeared a group and added a proper story element. It is the real origin of Noh.
In the middle of the 14th century, appears two genius actors “Kanami” and “Zeami”.
The father Kanami add Rhythmical time (like rap music) to the original monotony and made a totally new style music “Kusemai”. And the son “Zeami” changed the performance such as songs and dance to more elegance instead of funny comedy.
The actual Noh was accomplished at that moment. After that Noh actors became employees of power holders and Noh became Samurai class’ general education.
In the end of the 19th century, Noh world confront a huge crisis. But with the effort of Noh masters and the Noh recover its position. In 2001 A.D., UNESCO declared “the masterpiece of intangible heritage of human kind” and registered with other 19 different art and cultures of the world.
The Noh actors was not able to be a women before the World War II, however their number are increasing. Recently, as the result of oversea performance, several foreigners are interested in and taking training.

One of the points to enjoy Noh is its beautiful mask and costume.
The Noh costumes became gorgeous as today was after Edo period. It form which is not expository, abstract Noh costume expand Noh’s expression. Noh’s costume considers and decides based on the mask first, and then the cloth depends on the music, color, patterns, and the aim.

■Cloth

The Noh cloth can be separate with “Kitsuke”, “Uwagi”, “Hakama”.
An actor put on underclothes them Kitsuke, Hakama and finally Uwagi.For the stage, Noh uses so many clothes and many variation of way to put on makes the difference of “Woman”, “She-devil”, “Old man”, “General Samurai”, etc.
For example, red uses for young woman character and without red uses for matured woman.

■Mask

The mask which condensed its essence of appeal has an original beauty.
Noh is a kind of masque but not every one is masked. The only main characters have their mask not the others.
It says as the other roles are the real human and the main characters are the inhuman existence.
Comparing with those inhuman existence masks, man and woman mask added later history.
Some story act without mask and the actor acts as he has a mask. It calls “Hitamen”. Of course, he makes up and it is prohibited to change his expression. Kyogen also uses mask sometimes, like “Aikyogen” which act normally between first and second half.
There are more than 200 variations of Noh masks. And it can be classified “old man”, “Samurai”, “woman”, “man”, “vengeful ghost”, and “god”.Introduce some of them.

Originally the Noh stage is really simplified as there is no separation between audience area and stage as it was prepared outside space. The actual stage is trying to keep the atmosphere of field with minimum equipment.
For example, planted three pine trees, this side to the other side its height is shrinking.
This is a preparation with laws of perspective. The light is also calculated not to be too bright.
And there is secret equipment which is not able to see. Under the stage, there is a device to be better echo and sound absorption at the same time. It says this device affects to the music and actors’ voice.