God Noh!

If anyone had told me a year ago that I'd be singing haikus in the "Noh" style, I would have cried "Get outta here!" and returned to my SMAP CDs.

Noh, for the uninitiated, is a highly stylised, ponderous Japanese dance theatre, about as thrilling as watching a buddhist monk meditate. I'm sure its very artistic and all, but as an uncouth barbarian who cannot watch an opera without falling asleep, I just didn't see the attraction (although, the masks are pretty damn cool.)

Today, I was treated to a Noh performance/seminar at my Junior High School by two Noh performers from the National Noh Theatre. The kids had written a haiku and a waka (the historical pre-cursor to the haiku) about the upcoming summer vacation, and the performers put it to "music" (read, monotonous chants).

Half the group were taught to sing the haiku, the other half how to whack the kotsuzumi drum. The result, after some rehearsing, was less than spectacular, but f!@$k I felt like a master Noh chanter reading the (very simple) hiragana and swinging it with the second graders.

These performers, in spite of being extremely charming (not at all boring as I expected) discovered that teaching a bunch of notoriously shy and reticent students was no easy task. Maybe its not just me who sometimes feels like beating their head against the nearest blackboard!