For information on recent productions such as The Cycle Plays (2007) check out our body of work .

Upcoming Programming & Events

NOHspace Presents

paige starling sorvillo/blindsight productions

September 8th & 9th, 2008
Monday & Tuesday at 8pm tickets $15/$10 Students/Seniors
reservations (415) 621-7978

Short Works by one of the Bay Area's most intriguing choreographer.

Empire of Night explores both our romance with solitude and our fear of isolation within a context of surveillance and violence.

imprint no. 2 for blind is an ensemble work on the visceral/vicious sense of family/intimacy and the evolution of a disconnected social identity. Inspired by Jose Saramago's Blindness, the story of Kasper Hauser as interpreted by Matthias Bossi of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and Richard Dawkin's The Ancestors Tale.

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What is NOHspace Presents?

Theatre of Yugen's INK:query series

Llanto
Adapted from Garcia Lorca's poem by Lluis Valls with Jubilith Moore and David McLean.

September 25th, 26th & 27th, 2008
Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8pm

tickets $15/$10 Students/Seniors
reservations (415) 621-7978

Theatre of Yugen revisits Federico Garcia Lorca's famous ode to a dying bullfighter. Combining the contemplative restrained power of Noh drama and movement with the fiery passion of Flamenco guitar, Llanto delves deep into the mystery of memory, life and death. How we live our lives is how we live on.

Saturday Sept. 27th, Llanto is accompained by Shuron (A Religious Dispute), the latest addition to our Kyogen repertoire.

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Completed Programming for 2007-2008 Season

Theatre of Yugen performs at
The Illuminated Corridor

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
Rogers Street (at 8th & Folsom Streets)
FREETheatre of Yugen will perform an altered jo-no-mai along The Illuminated Corridor. The jo-no-mai is a dance utilized in a number of traditional Japanese Noh plays. Theatre of Yugen will use the dance as a springboard with semi-traditional costumes to create a walking meditation. The Illuminated Corridor seeks to illuminate the Prelinger Library, a private research library open to the public with collections encompassing some 50,000 books, periodical volumes and printed ephemera. The Library is linked to the Prelinger Archive, a collection of ephemeral films that are a key creative resource to artists of the Illuminated Corridor, and serve as a touchstone for the broader community of film, sound and bricolage artists. The Corridor will take place during the Library's traditional Wednesday Open House evening hours, where you are invited to lose yourself in the stacks of an extraordinary library turned inside out for an evening.

The Illuminated Corridor is a next step in outdoor cinema: a nomadic public art installation that creates site-specific illumination of public space, drawing on local traditions of film and live music. Launched in the Summer of 2005 by a collaboration of over 75 Bay Area filmmakers, media artists, sound artists and musicians, the Illuminated Corridor catalyzes new work, showcases diverse collaborations between performative projectionists and performing artists, and covers a vast territory of film and music genres.

Part of Theatre Bay Area's

Theatre of Yugen presents Trevor Allen's

A Chain Reaction
a fugue of voices with movement

October 18th, 19th and 20th, 2007
Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm

Four souls orbit around a seminal event in modern history, the dropping of the atomic Bomb in Japan. A fugue of voices reveals the interconnections in the pivotal events of four lives, though separated in time and space. Einstein and Szilard wrestle with bringing atomic science into the hands of a nation at war. A World War II bombardier looks back on his most important mission, while a young girl bears witness to the power of man. Theatre of Yugen brings its signature style of physical theater to a workshop exploration of this drama, written by Trevor Allen and directed by Lluis Valls. Original compositions by Marielle Jakobsons. Performed by: Sheila Berotti, Julie Brown, Morit Gaifman and Libby Zilber. Lighting by Stephen Seigel. Music composed and performed by Marielle Jakobsons. A Chain Reaction will be preceded by a musical exploration of the fugue with a different guest musician each night.
Liz Albee - Thursday Oct 18
Matt Davignon - Friday Oct 19
Gregg Kowalsky - Saturday Oct 20Neighborhood Eats & Drinks?

Theatre of Yugen at
The Commonwealth Club of California
in association with the Asian Society Monday, November 5th, 2007
at 6pm (reception at 5:30pm)

As part of their Asian Pacific Affairs program, Theatre of Yugen has been invited to share their history and art in a member led forum. Coordinated by Carol High.

Kevin Benning

Melizma Leach

NOHspace Presents

Motherlode Stage Company

November 19th & 20th, 2007
Monday & Tuesday at 8PM

Led by former Theatre of Yugen member Stuart E. W. Smith, Motherlode Stage Company trains its actors and apprentices in The Quiet Way. Stemming from the physical theatre of Shogo Ohta, the choreographic experimentation of Merce Cunningham and the aesthetic intersection between painting and theatre. For two nights Motherlode brings to the Bay Area a “concert” in The Quiet Way, featuring text-sparse, improvisatory solos, duets, and small ensemble works, as well as a featured choreographed piece, “Train Station, 1906”. Motherlode Stage Company formed in 1994 to “Tell the California Story through theatre.” Responsible for more original theatre work than any other group in the Gold Country, Motherlode continues today in small, touring shows with artists of all ages and Apprentice work by and of teen artists. Appearances across the country include the San Francisco Fringe Festival, the Gold Country Literary Festival, Dahlonega Literary Festival (GA), and numerous special events, such as the Family Celebration inside the Sixteen to One Mine, a mile under the earth.Stuart E. W. Smith, Artistic Director, Motherlode Stage Company. Educator, theatre consultant, performer, public speaker, and writer. With professional training from both traditional Western and Eastern theatre artists, Smith's work includes dozens of original pieces and interpretations of classic work. S.E. W. Smith meets with individuals and groups interested in developing community theatres. He directs Motherlode, a theatre group he founded in Placer County in 1994. Outside of Motherlode, Smith directs the drama and vocal music programs for Roseville High School and teaches as a professional elocutionist for corporate clients.What is NOHspace Presents?

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Theatre of Yugen at
First Tuesdays Temescal PresentsTuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 8pm
$6-10 sliding scaleTemescal Arts Center
511 48th Street @ Telegraph
Oakland - map

A series combining musicians and movement hosted by Liz Albee and Philip Greenlief. Theatre of Yugen members Libby Zilber and Lluis Valls will dance with the trio of Suki O'Kane, Jonathan Segel and Edward Schocker in "this world of dew".

Traditional Kumade

Photo from previous Festival. Click for full size.

Lucky Rake Festival

December 9th, 2007

NOHspace
2:00-5:00pm
$5 admission (with complimentary drink) Come to our holiday gathering - the Lucky Rake Festival, or Tori no Ichi - with food, drink, performance and a chance to see, buy and make your own artisan-decorated bamboo rakes inspired by Japanese kumade, rakes decorated with symbols of prosperity for the new year ahead.

Featuring these and other wonderful artists:

Violeta Luna, credit: Zach Gross

NOHspace Presents

Alien Body
Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Sara Shelton Mann, Violeta Luna and Allison Wyper

January 19th & 20th, 2008
Saturday & Sunday at 8pm

Curated and featuring performance interventions by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Alien Body is built around three new short works by San Francisco-based performing artists, including Violeta Luna, Allison Wyper, and Sara Shelton Mann (whose piece, in collaboration with David Szlasa, is the developmental work for her full length premiere with ODC in April). Representing three different generations, ethno-cultural backgrounds, and/or artistic disciplines, Alien Body looks at the body as territory in a foreign setting, a vulnerable entity in a hostile, unpredictable or inhospitable space: the aging body in a youth-centered space, the body as victim of a toxic environment, and the “ethnic body”. What is NOHspace Presents?

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Theatre of Yugen's
WorklightsSundays throughout 2008
3 - 5pm - FREE (No-host bar)

A casual monthly series for exploration of work-in-progress, play readings, and offerings by members of the Yugen Orchestra. We bring the beear and popcorn. You provide impressions and reflections. No one turned away for lack of an opinion. Past fieldwork has included:

Theatre of Yugen's 6th Annual

Winter Training Session
with Joint Artistic Director Jubilith Moore

Theatre of Yugen's Winter Training Session is a six week semi-intensive, performance-based training in the dance (komai/shimai) and chant (kouta/utai) of the classical Japanese forms of Kyogen comedy and Noh drama. Students have learned a number of short dances and songs from Kyogen and Noh plays and have focused on one piece for the final recital. In addition to student performances, members from Theatre of Yugen will also be performing. A pot-luck picnic will follow the performance. Please come join us!

Click Here for Press Photos

Theatre of Yugen presents

SORYA! A Candid Dispute

FIVE NIGHTS ONLY!
March 12th, (Wed) at 8:00 pm (pay-what-you-can)
March 13th, (Thur) at 8:00 pm
March 14th, (Fri) at 8:00 pm
March 15th, (Sat) at 8:00 pm
March 16th, (Sun) at 3:00 pm

What do you get when you mix 12th century Japanese comedy and 18th century French satire?

Answer: SORYA!
Though separated by miles of land and ocean, not to mention a couple hundred years of “civilization”, both Kyogen and Voltaire poke fun at society, puncture the pompous, and shed light on the downtrodden. Kyogen developed as a satirical pressure valve in a rigid class society, filled with witty, rascally servants, ego-centric priests and simple stories worthy of the globe-trotting, death-defying characters searching for sense and meaning in the senselessly mean Europe that Voltaire was born into. How we treat the people who we deem different pervades both pieces as Theatre of Yugen delves deep into two biting satires from different continents and different centuries that share a common humanity.

Performed by: Sheila Berotti, Stephen Siegel, Jubilith Moore, Lluis Valls and Libby Zilber.

A Religious Dispute (Shuron)
Directed by Yuriko Doi, New translation by Yuriko Doi and the company.
A classic Kyogen where two traveling priests agree to travel together as they return home from religious retreats. Flush with pride for their sect’s teaching, each attempts to show the enlightened path to the other. When a religious debate turns into a duel to convert one another to their sect, the prayers fly fast and furious, but who will be saved?

Candide (from Voltaire) Workshop Presentation of Act 1
Directed by Jubilith Moore, Adapted by Jubilith Moore and the company.
In this funny and cruel adaptation we follow Candide after he is driven from his home for the love of a girl beyond his class. He makes his way through an increasingly hostile world with only the optimism imparted by his beloved teacher, Dr. Pangloss to guide him. Following his banishment he finds himself at war, flogged, starving, nearly drowned and flogged again for good measure. Can his optimism survive intact? As Candide scampers dizzyingly around the perimeter of the civilized world we are forced to consider: what constitutes a reasonable life?

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Elke Luyten (R) & Kira Alker(L)
credit: Scott Groller

Press Photos and Press Release

NOHspace Presents

A Little of More
by Elke Luyten & Kira Alker

April 21st and 22nd, 2008
Monday and Tuesday at 8pm

tickets $15 general/$10 students & seniors
reservations (415) 621-7978 or Online Now!

Elke Luyten (Belgium), co-creator, choreographer and performer
Kira Alker (USA), co-creator and director
Shamini Dias (Malaysia), dramaturg
Young Tseng Wong (Singapore), performer
Jocelyn Matsuo (USA), performer
Benjamin Acland (USA), performer

Built on a strong foundation of codified movement, the performers interweave original Shaker writings and songs to create a richly detailed work of individual struggle and metaphysical transcendence. A Little of More was created in the traditions of Etienne Decroux, a theatre revolutionary of the 20th century who devised a system of movement allowing the actor to embody thought. By using this language of abstract movement and daily physical actions, the performers present a work that is spare, elemental and universal.

Workshop in Corporeal Mime
led by Elke Luyten & Kira Alker

April 19th and 20th, 2008
Saturday and Sunday from 1pm - 5pm

$85 total for two day workshop
reservations/info (415) 621-0507 or Online Now!
Workshop information for participants

Etienne Decroux (1898 – 1991) developed Corporeal Mime in France during the early twentieth century. Reacting strongly against realism and the dominance of words on stage, Decroux created a theatre form to empower the actor by giving him a specific technique to place drama within the body. Today, Corporeal Mime is one of the only codified theatre forms that exists in the western world. With a specific and unique vocabulary for the articulation of the body, the Corporeal Mime actor strives to embody thought. Singing the movements of the soul with the muscles of the body, the actor reveals a profound and universal inner conflict. Nonetheless, the drama expressed in Corporeal Mime is decidedly non-situational and nonlinear: there is no plot and no characters portrayed. Thoroughly modern, reactionary and revolutionary, the actor succeeds the playwright in this new form of theatre.

What is NOHspace Presents?

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NOHspace Presents

a screening of the documentary film

Shugen
The Autumn Peak of Haguro Shugendo

in Japanese with English subtitles
followed by Q & A with film director Kitamura Minao

Wednesday April 23rd, 2008
7:00 - 9:30pm

tickets $10
reservations/info (415) 621-0507

The only film of its kind that shows the ascetic training of Shugenja practitioners in Japan in a recording of the annual Mountain Haguro Shugendo Akinomine ritual in its entirety. Sacred mountains have been revered in Japan from ancient times as the source of the water that sustains all life and as places where the spirits of the dead go to dwell. Over the centuries practices and ideas related to mountains took specific shape, under the influence of Buddhism, Taoism, and other religious forms, until they emerged recognizably in the middle period as Shugendo. Shugendo was long characterized by its acceptance of both the native deities called kami and the various Buddhist divinities as objects of devotion and practice.

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Randall Wong and NOHspace CoPresents

Waiting for Godzilla
May 2nd - 11th, 2008
Thursday - Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 3pm

Buy Tickets Online Now!

A miniature opera in three parts, incorporating live singers/puppeteers and instrumentalists. The work explores the cultural mythos of a modern icon, but reduced to a toybox scale.

The effect of watching a fantasy opera through the wrong end of a telescope.

Developed at Z Space.

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Hosho Nohgakudo in Tokyo
May 10th, 2008

Theatre of Yugen ensemble members are honored to perform traditional Noh dances (shimai) as part of the 30th memorial anniversary Hosho Noh recital representing the Miyabikai group led by Namiyoshi Masayuki-sensei of the Hosho school of Noh.

San Franciso State University Theatre Arts Department and Theatre of Yugen
Nohgaku Kai: Classical Japanese Theatre
Directed by Jubilith Moore, guest artist

May 15 – 18, 2008

Thursday 15th & Friday 16th at 8pm
Saturday 17th at 2pm
Studio Theatre, Creative Arts Building, SFSU Campus
www.theatre.sfsu.edu for information / Box Office: 415/338-2467
$5

Sunday May 18th at 2pm
NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa St., San Francisco, CA 94110
Box Office: 415/621-7978
$5

Often described as the art of performance, nohgaku refers to both Japanese traditional theatre forms of noh (drama) and kyogen (comedy), and kai means a gathering. Participants of this semi-intensive, performance-based training in the dance (komai/shimai) and chant (kouta/utai) of nohgaku have learned songs and dances of the nohgaku repertoire. We invite you to gather with us as they culminate their studies by performing for you.

Participants include: Kanako Abe, Adela Ballester, Thomas Chinn, Megan Finley, Rachael Garcia, Will Hand, Nick Ishimaru, Chan Ith, Ryan Marchand, Tiger Lane Poon, David Roberts, Catlin Seavey, Miho Tanaka, Thu Tran and featuring Theatre of Yugen (and SFSU alumni) Joint Artistic Director Lluis Valls.

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Dogsbody : an Iliad

Rehearsals Retreat June 6-11, 2008

Dogsbody is generously funded in part by Multi-Arts Production Fund (a program of Creative Capital, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation), Association of Performing Arts Presenters Ensemble Theatre Collaborations Grant Program (a component of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Theatre Initiative), National Endowment for the Arts, Flintridge Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund/Grants for the Arts.

Theatre of Yugen cooks slow with

Innumerable Prepared Vegetables
Dinner & Fun-raiser

Saturday, June 14th at 6 pm
a.Muse art gallery at 614 Alabama St. and 18th
in the Mission (down the street from NOHspace)

$60 per plate
very limited seating!
By reservation only

Order Online Now! or through edward@theatreofyugen.org
(415) 621-0507

“Dining off the grid - a movement of movable feasts, secret supper clubs and artistic speakeasies...”

This June 14 Theatre of Yugen will host one of these latest slow food movement “secret suppers” as a company fundraiser. You can contribute to the bread and butter that is Theatre of Yugen’s basic sustenance by enjoying a sumptuous vegetarian meal prepared by local phenomenon Chef Leif Hedendal. (http://themonthly.com/feature-03-08-1.html). We’ll sharpen your senses with fresh-picked music by Yugen Orchestra, a souped-up noh dance and a salivating performance of our latest Kyogen comedy Religious Dispute.

Menu
first… baby lettuces, knoll arugala, blossom bluff plums, sungold tomato, pinkerton avocado, toasted almond, meiwa kumquat vinagrette

second… miso soup with matsutake, maitake, sea palm, favas, ramps,  and hand-cut matcha udon

third… yuba purse with artichoke, spring onion, green garlic, hijiki, and english peas | braising greens with wild rice | ume plum-chiogga beet puree

fourth… tepary beans, rancho gordo hominy, and crookneck squash with piment d'espelette and andante creamery aged goat cheese

fifth… berries and stonefruits with chocolate and shiso

Bring loved ones and join us for an unforgettable Summer harvest feast, a five course vegetarian tasting menu featuring the finest local heirloom varietals.

City of Santa Cruz's 22nd Annual
Japanese Cultural Fair

Saturday, June 21st, 2008
11am - 6pm - Free Admission
Shimzu scheduled at 2:50pm

Theatre of Yugen has been invited again to perform a Kyogen Comedy. This year we bring the rascally Taro-kaja tale of Shimzu (or Spring Water).

The purpose of the Japanese Cultural Fair is to provide an opportunity for the community to increase it's awareness and understanding of the Japanese community in Santa Cruz County as well as Japanese culture, both traditional and contemporary. We believe that through the arts, craft, and culture of Japan, we can improve mutual understanding among neighbors on the Pacific Rim as well as enrich our community life here in Santa Cruz.

For directions, and more info: www.jcfsc.org

Photo: Robert Issacs

Support Theatre of Yugen

Come see our shows, purchase one of our books, cds or t-shirts, make a donation, use the link below to purchase something on Amazon.com (Yugen gets 5%), volunteer to usher or just come by for a cup of tea.

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Theatre of Yugen's 29th Season is generously funded in part by our supportive individual donors, The Flintridge Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Rockefeller MAP, and the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund/Grants for the Arts.

Theatre of Yugen is a member of Theatre Bay Area, Project Artaud, Theatre Communications Group and the Network of Ensemble Theaters.