Promotional Information

A study of the importance of nomai dance drama to its current practitioners within the historical context of its medieval origins.

Table of Contents

Preface Introduction Historical Background Artistic Growth Fueled by the Emerging Warrior Culture and Popular Buddhism: Cultural Antecedents Shamanic Beginnings: Dramatic Antecedents Shugend=o Religion and Folk Dance Drama: Religious Antecedents N=omai Theater Keepers of a Tradition: Performers and Cultural Setting A View from Within: Performance Practices Sacred Chronicles, Tales of Valor, and Humorous Yarns: Repertoire N=omai Music Drums, Cymbals, and Flute Poetry and Narrative in Song Epilogue: Musical N=omai in the 20th Century--Balancing Tradition and Change Appendix: Transcriptions Glossary of Japanese Terms Bibliography Index

About the Author

SUSAN M. ASAI is a music professor at Northeastern University in Boston. She received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Reviews

.,."an important contribution to scholarship....bound to engage the curiosity of any student of Asian performance, folk traditions, or performance studies."-Theatre Journal

?...an important contribution to scholarship....bound to engage the curiosity of any student of Asian performance, folk traditions, or performance studies.?-Theatre Journal

?This book covers new ground in its approach and focus, and is accesing blend of a diverse number of performing traditions from both the court and lower classes of medieval Japan and the way it draws on religious practices including Buddhist chant and folk Shinto music...both the general and specialist reader may gain from the extensive experience of this author ensuring that we may have insights into these traditions that are inherited across so many centuries of Japanese history.?-Ethnomusicology

..."an important contribution to scholarship....bound to engage the curiosity of any student of Asian performance, folk traditions, or performance studies."-Theatre Journal

"This book covers new ground in its approach and focus, and is accesing blend of a diverse number of performing traditions from both the court and lower classes of medieval Japan and the way it draws on religious practices including Buddhist chant and folk Shinto music...both the general and specialist reader may gain from the extensive experience of this author ensuring that we may have insights into these traditions that are inherited across so many centuries of Japanese history."-Ethnomusicology