MATSUKAZE
Noh Stage at Awaji-shima, Japan

Designed by: Keita Enomoto, Minoru Kuchihara, Ayako Matsumiya, Haruko Ogita, Tor Olav Austigard, Heike Rahmann and Audun Hellemo

Published: Byggekunst (Norwegian Review of Architecture) No 02/05
NTNU Faculty of Architecture and Fine Arts Year Book 2003-2005 (N)
VA - Visual Architecture (JP) No 308, 2004
Confort (JP) No 10/04

The stage is designed for the dance sequens of the Matsukaze play, a story about a priest who meets the ghosts of two fishergirls, both loved by the poet Yukihira long time ago. The two girls are confronted with the past and moan their lost lover with a dance. Noh, as a highly stylized form of theatre, we were early confronted with the dance and what it represented. Did the movements have any particular meaning? If so, could we use architecture as a tool to explain this meaning to a modern audience? We analyzed the movements and traced those movements representing emotional climaxes, using the design of the stage to enhance these climaxes. The stage is composed of two different worlds - a three dimensional world on left and right side that meets the audience with a chaos of gates, a modern interpretation of the japanese torii. Between the gates is a two dimensional world where the main actor enters the 'mad world' - using light, screens and shadows to provoke the audience's imagination of Matsukaze's inner world og emotional chaos, disturbance and rage. Only when the most important movements - the circular and vertical - are evident the actor is visible for the audience with its costume, its mask, its gentle, subtile movements.

Teacher's comment:
Naito: "Very interesting concept"