NOH lecture-performance in Cebu

You have until 10 this morning to catch the NOH lecture-performance at the Conference Hall of the University of the Philippines Cebu College. The NOH lecture-performance in Cebu was made possible through the kind effort of the Japan Foundation Manila Office (JFMO) in cooperation with the University of the Philippines Center for International Studies and the Shizuoka University of Art and Culture. Their Cebuano partners included Philajames-Cebu, the University of San Carlos, and the Arts and Culture Committee, the Social Sciences Division, the Natural Sciences and Mathematics Division as well as the Committee on Institutional Linkages of the University of the Philippines, Cebu College.

Not only will the audience be introduced to Noh, a classical Japanese performance form which combines elements of dance, drama, music and poetry into one highly aesthetic stage art. The audience will also have the rare chance of meeting up close and personal, Dr. Naohiko Umewaka, a Noh master (nohgakushi) for Shite (leading actor) of one of Japan's most notable Noh family with a lineage that goes back 600 years and Dr. Amparo Adelina C. Umali III, a Japanese Theatre specialist now teaching at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. Umewaka-sensei is currently an Associate Professor at Shizuoka University of Art and Culture. Active in overseas performance and teaching, he is, concurrently, a Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway of University of London where he received a Doctorate in Drama in 1995.

In 2005, at the invitation of the University of the Philippines Diliman's Center for International Studies and the support of the Japan Foundation, Umewaka-sensei conducted an intensive five-week daily training rehearsal using the principles of Noh for Filipino students and performing artists to prepare them for a joint performance of a full-length Noh play with Noh masters on July 23rd 2006, Philippines-Japan Friendship Day and for an all-Filipino performance of Okina/Ang Paglalakbay ni Sisa Isang Noh sa Laguna. He also directed them in his modern play, The Coffee Shop Within the Play which was invited to be performed again as an official entry to the 31st UNESCO International Theatre Institute's Theatre Olympics of the Nations and as an official entry to the Cultural Center of the Philippine's International Theatre Festival.

In July, five Noh masters: Kosuke Terasawa (Shite), Yuichi Inoue (Kyogen), Jiro Fujita (Fue) Shunichiro Hisada (Kotsuzumi) and Mr. Shigeji Omura (Otsuzumi) joined Umewaka when he returned to UP for the 5th time for a joint Japanese-Filipino Noh performance of Okina/Dance of Sisa to commemorate Philippines-Japan Friendship Day. He returned to UP Diliman for the 6th time as director of the all-Filipino performance of Okina/Ang Paglalakbay ni Sisa Isang Noh sa Laguna last August 11, 12 and 13 at the University Theatre. At present, Umewaka is Japan Foundation's Visiting Professor for Japan Studies of the UPCIS.

Umewaka-sensei will be joined by Dr. Amparo Adelina C. Umali III, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the East and Asian Studies of the UP Center for International Studies. Dr. Umali is a Japanese Theatre specialist who completed her M.A. and Ph.D. in Japanese Literature (Comparative Theatre) at Doshisha University in Kyoto City, Japan. After completing her degree in March 2001, she was invited to join the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts as Associate Professor and the UP Center for International Studies as Faculty Affiliate. She served as the Managing Director of Dulaang UP, the production arm of the department, until May 2002.

Her study on Dulaang UP, in 2001, which revealed that in its 26-year history, it had produced only one Asian play and had not produced an original Japanese play, paved the way for the first production of Japanese theatre by Filipinos, the first all-Filipino Kabuki replication of Kanjincho, which she co-directed with Tony Mabesa in collaboration with two Kabuki masters, Mochizuki Takinojo, (Nagauta Music) and Matsumoto Minoru (Costumes and properties) and one Nihonbuyo master, Fujima Toyohiro (Acting). It was a landmark Asian theatre production in the history of Philippine Theatre.

Dr. Umali conceptualized the Noh project, which evolved into a production that counts so many historical firsts in the country's theatre history. She also organized the Hudhud and Noh: A Dialogue of Cultures (Colloquia and Performances) to celebrate UNESCO's recognition of Filipino culture at par and as noble as the Japanese culture by proclaiming the living traditions of the Hudhud, a Filipino form and the Noh, a Japanese form, 2001 UNESCO Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Our heartfelt thanks to Director Ben Suzuki and Ms. Cecile Aquino of JFMO for always remembering to bring their cultural shows to Cebu!