Kanze Zeami (1364-1444), also called Zeami Motokiyo, was a Japanese actor, playwright, and critic. His theoretical works on the art of the No are as justly celebrated as his dramas. It was the great esthete, statesman, and patron of the fine arts, the...

As a youth Zeami, the son of a lowly performer, was given access to the highest social and literary circles of fourteenth-century Japan. Taking advantage of the education and tastes he acquired from these patrons, Zeami transformed the popular theater...

This article examines the history of the reception and popularization of the achievements of no's founder, Zeami Motokiyo, as represented by three important actors of the Kanze school: Kanze Motoakira (d. 1774), Kanze Sakon (d. 1939), and Kanze Hisao (d. 1978). Eric Rath...

DEVELOPING ZEAMI: The Noh Actor's Attunement in Practice. By Shelley Fenno Quinn. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2005. xi, 479 pp. (B & W photos.) US$22.00, paper. ISBN 0-8248-2968-9. In this engagingly written work, Shelley Fenno Quinn explores the treatises of the...

In the following excerpt, Smethurst chronicles the extensive literary and stylistic similarities between Zeami's play Sanemori and Aeschylus's Persians.

In the essay below, Nagatomo uncovers the concept of freedom implicit in Zeami's theories of disciplined dramatic training, which results in a “controlled spontaneity” of mind and action. In this reprinting, ideographic characters have been silently deleted.

In the essay below, Tatsuro explores Zeami's insistence that performances of Nō must consider such factors as the time, the location, and the audience in order to be successful. According to Zeami, the critic observes, a "good performer … is not only sustained by his inborn talent and incessant training but also is the one whose instinctive judgement and creativity harmonize with the mood and atmosphere at the very moment of each performance. "