Kanze Noh Theatre

Sumida Gawa, Busshi, Shakkyo

July 14

Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center

Broadway at West 60th Street, 5th floor

Resplendent costumes and masks, hypnotic music and intricately stylized performance.”

New York Times on Kanze Noh

  • Noh: Sumida Gawa (Sumida River)
  • Kyogen: Busshi (The Fake Sculptor)
  • Half-Noh: Shakkyo (The Stone Bridge)

This summer, Kiyokazu Kanze—the 26th Grand Master of the Kanze School and a descendent of the founder of Noh—brings the profound lyricism and aesthetic elegance of this ancient dramatic art form to Lincoln Center. On an authentic Noh stage constructed especially for Lincoln Center Festival, Kanze Noh Theatre will present five different Noh dramas selected from the repertoire of approximately 240, as well as two Kyogen, the customary comic interlude in a Noh program.

This performance opens with Motomasa’s Sumida Gawa (Sumida River), which inspired Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River. The Grand Master portrays the mad woman who seeks her lost child. A conman tries to sell a sculpture to comic effect in the Kyogen, Busshi (The Fake Sculptor), and the program ends with the exquisite lion dance in Shakkyo (The Stone Bridge).

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Noh Sumida Gawa (Sumida River)

Lead part (Shite, the mother of Umewaka-maru) Kiyokazu Kanze

The companion of Shite (Ko-kata, the ghost of Umewaka-maru) Shigeteru Fujinami

Supporting part (Waki, a ferryman) Tsuneyoshi Mori

Supporting part (Waki-tsure, a traveler) Jotaro Mori

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Seiichi Iida

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Yoshinobu Kanze, Kimitake Ueda

Chorus (Jiutai) Hisahiro Oka, Motoharu Yoshii, Fumihisa Onishi, Masashi Nomura, Nobuyuki Kizuki, Toshiya Kaneko, Yoshimaru Sekine, Hironoshin Inoue

Running time: 70 minutes

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Kyogen Busshi (The Fake Sculptor)

Lead part (Shite, Sculptor of Buddhist images) Yasutaro Yamamoto

Supporting part (Ado, Country man) Noritaka Yamamoto

Running time: 20 minutes

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Half-Noh Shakkyo (The Stone Bridge)

O-Jishi (Kogaki: name of a special variant performance)

Lead part (Shite, White-Lion) Shigehiko Fujinami

The companion of Shite (Tsure, Red-Lion) Kojiro Sumi, Yoshinari Shimizu, Takanobu Sakaguchi

Supporting part (Waki, Priest) Jotaro Mori

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Yukihiko Yokoyama

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

Stick drum (Taiko) Motonori Kanze

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Takahiro Ueda, Masashi Nomura

Chorus (Jiutai) Yoshinobu Kanze, Kimitake Ueda, Motoharu Yoshii, Fumihisa Onishi, Nobuyuki Kizuki, Toshiya Kaneko, Yoshimaru Sekine, Hironoshin Inoue

Running time: 25 minutes

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Support provided by Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.), Inc., Sumitomo Corporation of Americas, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas), J.C.C. Fund of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of New York, and MUFG (Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group).

Kanze Noh Theatre’s participation in the Lincoln Center Festival is sponsored by the Arts Council Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture) and the Agency of Cultural Affairs (Government of Japan).

Also in This Series

Okina and Hagoromo

Hagoromo, Kaki Yamabushi, Sumida Gawa

Hagoromo, Busshi, Aoi no Ue

Okina and Aoi no Ue

Okina and Shakkyo

View Packages

Performed in Japanese with English supertitles

Venue Accessibility

  • Large-print programs
  • Captioning with English supertitles
  • Braille programs
  • Wheelchair-accessible seating
  • Assistive listening devices

For questions about accessibility or to request an accommodation, please contact access@lincolncenter.org or 212.875.5375.
For ticketing information and general questions, please call 212.721.6500.