Oral Tradition, 18/1 (2003): 21-23 Japanese Noh and Heike katari

Although literature specialists tend to classify Noh and Heike katari differently (Noh with a representational dimension that renders it more a hybrid), a student of oral tradition will find in them many common elements. Central to both is narrative recitation and a commitment to the expressive potential of the voice. Both show oral traditional characteristics, but early on, both also assigned a central role to libretti that performers work from. The co-presence of chanting and instrumentation is another defining characteristic. Heike katari have been traditionally performed by blind minstrels, who accompany their own solo recitations on the biwa (lute). Noh actors have performed to an instrumental ensemble of drums and flute. Both of these arts, which continue to be practiced today (Noh more widespread than Heike katari), rely on audience foreknowledge of traditional materials, making them both potential resources for examining how performances may be “re-keyed ” over time to adjust to changing reception. In Japan, the field in which the most work has been done on Noh and on Heike katari respectively is known as kokubungaku, “national literature.” Kokubungaku specialists, whose philological contributions have been invaluable, have tended to concentrate on the transmission of texts as such, and on the accurate exegesis of those texts. Since such textual study has its own rigors, perhaps it is not surprising that few specialists have ventured into comparative work. The idea that the examination of Noh, Heike katari, or related narrative arts in terms of their media and processes of performance might inform our understanding of these arts has gained momentum only in the last decade. One reflection of this trend is that at least two major kokubungaku journals in the last four years have devoted entire issues to the significance of music and the human voice across a range of religious and entertainment-oriented arenas for performance in traditional Japan.1 1 Chûsei bungaku (Medieval Literature) published an issue titled “Oto to koe n