Noh Reimagined 2022: Spirits of Flowers Festival

Noh Reimagined at Kings Place in 2018 (Photo mu:arts)

Noh Reimagined is a biennial festival at Kings Place that brings together Japanese Noh theatre with contemporary arts to create something intriguingly new. Hilary covered the 2018 festival for us [see Hilary's article] but the 2020 festival was cancelled. Now, Noh Reimagined is back with Noh Reimagined 2022: Spirits of Flowers Festival at Kings Place on 24 and 25 June 2022.

This year's festival explores how the natural world is celebrated and interpreted in one of Japan’s oldest theatrical traditions, alongside what it means to our lives today. Top-class Noh performers including celebrated Noh shite (the masked protagonist in a Noh) actor Sano Noboru and wildly inventive nohkan (lit. noh-pipe) flautist Isso Yukihiro will be performing, and there will be premieres of new Noh-inspired work by some of the UK’s top creative artists, including the remarkable contemporary artist Cerith Wyn Evans, acclaimed contemporary dance duo Thick & Tight, and a new interpretation of the Noh Sumida River combining music and gesture with sign language.

There are two days of performances and workshops, culminating in the final event when the Noh performers will come together with Thick & Tight and recorder player Piers Adams to perform Hengenka (meaning transformations), an exquisite Noh music drama, written by nohkan flautist Isso Yukihiro, which combines elements of traditional Noh repertories, baroque music and ancient divine dancing to create a dreamy music drama perfect for a high summer evening.

Full details from the Kings Place website.