Traditional Japanese Theatre: Gagaku, Noh and Kabuki

choi

Traditional Japanese theatre l Enduring Power; The thrill of an Ancient tradition. Economist, Mar 11, 2017.
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... raditional-japanese

Note:
(1) "JAPAN'S Westernisation is only skin-deep. For musical proof of this[:] * * * The most popular form of this is kabuki, which offers lashings of violence, gore and palpitating, cross-dressed sex (all the actors are male). But the Japanese also love the exquisite restraint of noh theatre, and the sacramental grace of gagaku music"
(a)
(i) lashings ("plural noun"): "British informal  a copious amount of something, especially food or drink  <chocolate cake with lashings of cream>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/lashings
(ii) The same online dictionary has another page for "lashing" (n)
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/lashing

, whose definition is what one will imagine. Furthermore, the www.merriam-webster.com (an American online dictionary) does not include the word "lashings," nor foes that word (with the British-English definition) appear in the page for "lashing," either.
(b) kabuki  歌舞伎
(i) section 1 語源: 歌舞伎という名称の由来は、「傾く」（かたむく）の古語にあたる「傾く」（かぶく）の連用形を名詞化した「かぶき」だといわれている。戦国時代の終わり頃から江戸時代の初頭にかけて京や江戸で流行した、派手な衣装や一風変わった異形を好んだり、常軌を逸脱した行動に走ることを指した語で、特にそうした者たちのことを「かぶき者」とも言った。"  ja.wikipedia.org

my translation: The name Kabuki came from the noun form of ancient verb kabuku 傾く, whose modern form is katamuku 傾く[same kanji but different pronunciation]. Popular between the end of [Japan's] Warring States and the beginning of Edo Period, it [noun] is a word that points to the enjoyment of flashy clothing and eccentric non-traditionality, as well as the rushing [走る in Japan means 'run,' not 'walk'] movements that deviated from the norm   
(ii) Japanese-English dictionary:
* katamuku 傾く 【かたむく】 (v): "to incline toward; to slant * * * to trend toward  <そのポールは左に傾いた。The pole inclined to the left?"

choi

(2) "Gagaku 雅楽, which literally means 'elegant music,' was originally banquet music imported from China during the Tang dynasty. Only later was it adopted in Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and the Japanese imperial court. Although the imperial household ensemble now only makes a handful of public forays each year, other ensembles are carrying this music far and wide."
(a) gagaku
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagaku
(was "performed at the Imperial Court in Kyoto * * * Gagaku, the oldest classical music in Japan, was introduced into Japan with Buddhism from China")

Quote: "artistically it [gagaku] differs from the music of the corresponding Chinese form yayue which is a term reserved for ceremonial music. * * * Even though the Japanese use the same term 雅楽 (yǎyuè in Mandarin Chinese, ngahngohk in Cantonese), the form of music imported from China was primarily banquet music engaku [燕楽/ 宴楽] rather than the ceremonial music of the Chinese yǎyuè. The importation of music peaked during the Tang Dynasty, and these pieces are called Tōgaku (Tang music [唐楽]). Gagaku pieces earlier than Tang Dynasty are called kogaku (ancient music [古楽]), while those from after the Tang Dynasty are called shingaku (new music [新楽]).

(b) 雅楽: "世界最古のオーケストラと言われる。 * * * 雅楽の原義は「雅正の楽舞」で、「俗楽」の対。 * * * 中国の雅楽は儀式に催される音楽であったが、日本の雅楽で中国から伝わったとされる唐楽の様式は、この雅楽とは無関係で、唐の宴会で演奏されていた燕楽という音楽がもとになっているとされる。"  ja.wikipedia.org

my translation: said to be the oldest orchestra. * * * The original meaning of gagalu was elegant music and dance, compared with popular music. * * * Yayue in China was ceremonial, thus different from the 唐楽 that was imported into Japan; that is, 燕楽 -- the music that was played in banquets in Tang dynasty

choi

(3) "Playing to a packed house in the National Theatre in Tokyo is one of those groups: the Reigakusha ensemble, led by Sukeyasu SHIBA 芝 祐靖 [1935- ; founded Reigakusha in 1985; a composer also], a sprightly octogenarian (pictured). Dressed in medieval silk robes, the musicians are ranged motionless across the stage like chessmen."
(a) National Theatre of Japan 国立劇場 (1966- ) "primarily stages performances of traditional Japanese performing arts."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Theatre_of_Japan
(photo)

Compare  "New National Theatre, Tokyo (NNTT) 新国立劇場 is Japan's first and foremost national centre for the performing arts, including opera, ballet, contemporary dance and drama."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_National_Theatre_Tokyo
(1997- )
(b) 伶楽舎  Reigakusha Gagaku Ensemble
https://www.facebook.com/reigakusha/
(i) About Us.
reigakusha.com/home/about/
("「伶楽舎」の名前は、「伶倫楽遊舎」、則、古代中国の楽人の祖とされる「伶倫」に因んで、原稿の雅楽のみならず、廃絶曲や新作など、従来の枠にとらわれない自由な活動を目指してつけられた会名である")

My translation: Our name 伶楽舎 is shortened from 伶倫楽遊舎; namely [則], [it is] named after 伶倫, the first musician in China. Not just hand-me-down sheet music, but revival of extinct music and composition of new melody, the ensemble name aims at activity as it please you [自由], never confined to traditional framework [従来の枠]
(ii) 伶倫
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BC%B6%E5%80%AB
(c) Japanese-English dictionary:
* shiba 芝 【しば】 (n): "lawn; sod; turf"
(d) chessman (n): "any of the pieces used in chess"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chessman

choi

(4) The Economist still on gagaku: "A high wail on the flute is followed by a few notes ruminatively plucked on the koto [琴(P); 箏] zither; a slow skirl on the sho mouth-organ—17 bamboo pipes bound together vertically like a bunch of petrified icicles—is punctuated by three thunderous strokes on the big taiko 太鼓 drum. Ma 間 [noun] is the word for the Japanese concept of 'the space between [or 'gap']—in sound it is something Westerners dismiss as mere silence. In Reigakusha's sonic realm, that silence is made to speak volumes."

shō (instrument)  笙
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shō_(instrument)
(5) Mr Shiba is a "virtuoso on the ryuteki flute."
(a) ryūteki  竜笛
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryūteki
(b) The "teki" is Chinese pronunciation of kanji 笛 (whose Japanese pronunciation is "fu-e").

(6) "Meanwhile, on little wooden stages all over Japan, noh theatre is still being performed as it was 600 years ago on the penal island of Sado. At the National Noh Theatre 国立能楽堂 in Tokyo, a performance of a ghost drama takes the audience into a world even more rarefied than that of gagaku. The gorgeously costumed actors pose like statues—with climactic moments of ferocious activity—and their sepulchral voices, accompanied by flute and drum, create the momentum of a dream.  Admirers of this art form in the West have included WB Yeats, an Irish poet, and Peter Brook [1925- ; an Englishman], a theatre director. Among its Japanese devotees is Toshio HOSOKAWA 細川 俊夫, a composer who combines a successful avant-garde career in Europe with loyal adherence to his roots.:
(a) Sado, Niigata  新潟県佐渡市
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sado,_Niigata
(on Sado Island 佐渡島; "The Noh dramatist ZEAMI Motokiyo 世阿弥 元清 was exiled on unspecified charges in 1434. The last banishment in Sado took place in 1700, almost a millennium after the first")
(b) Sado Takigi Noh Theatre 佐渡薪能公演. Kodō Cultural Foundation 鼓童文化財団, undated.
http://www.kodo.or.jp/ec/en/event/pre/
("magistrate" 奉行 [title of the official, not a name])
(c) Japanese-English dictionary:
* taki 薪 (P); or takigi たき木/ 焚き木 (n): "firewood"
* takigi no 薪能 【たきぎのう】 (n): "noh theater performed at night by a fire"

Take notice that the English word "noh" means a long vowel for "o," where trasitional transliteration is either "nō" or "nou."  You see, the English words that adopted Japanese are sometimes unconventional, such as yen 円 should have been "en;" the deceased US senator Daniel Inouye (D, Hawaii) should have been "I-no-u-e;" (井上; "ue" is Japanese pronunciation for kanji 上]; and Iwo Jima 硫黄島 should have been "I-ō-jima."  
(d)
(i) 公益財団法人 鼓童文化財団 is based in Sado.
(ii) 鼓童 is a proper name, no meaning in Japanese.
(e) sepulchral (adj):
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sepulchral

The noun sepulchre is almost used exclusively in Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre

(7) "Does all this [noh] sound uncomfortably over-refined? Japanese audiences in the 17th century certainly thought so, with the result that noh was ousted as the main theatrical fare by the crazy flamboyance of kabuki, which was everything that noh is not. In place of the austere expressiveness of noh, kabuki made a brash appeal to the merchant class—and to the samurai, despite those warriors' being forbidden to attend its corrupting spectacle.  The 18th-century comedies and tragedies which audiences now flock to see at the Kabuki-za 歌舞伎座 theatre in Tokyo represent a brilliantly choreographed and intensely physical art, whose lurid tales of love and death resonate powerfully for a 21st-century audience."