Masks, Interface of Past and Future: Nomura Mannojo's Shingigaku

Kyōgen actor Nomura Mannojō developed Shingigaku ("true" gigaku), a performance that, through research in East and Central Asia, attempted to revitalize the mask performance genre of Japan's seventh to thirteenth centuries. Inspired by twentieth-century European work that resurrected commedia dell'arte, he studied the masks and researched performances of Chinese, Tibetan, Bhutanese, Uygur, and Korean culture to devise his 2001 performance. His search for the sources of Japanese theatre in pan-Asian models was cut short by his death in June 2004.