A Research on the Origins of Ritual Theatre in Eastern Asia: The Associative Development of Chinese Nuo Theatre and Japanese Noh Theatre

Abstract

As a region with a significant agricultural industry, the ritual theatre of East Asia played an important role in the early drama of its origins. In addition, the trajectory of the early agricultural and religious cultural interactions in East Asian countries was decisive in shaping their national cultural roots, so exploring the different developments of ritual theatre among different countries on the basis of the history of early cultural interactions can help to provide a more explicit understanding of the cultural development of ritual theatre in East Asia. This research explores the trajectories of Nuo theatre in China and Noh theatre in Japan, broadly in terms of both agriculture and religion, summarises the similarities and differences between the developmental routes of Nuo and Noh theatre, and analyses the causes of the contemporary phenomenon of Nuo and Noh theatre moving along different developmental routes.