Techno-Tradition: A Foray into Technology-Integrated Traditional Japanese Theatre

Abstract

Traditional Japanese theatre is a broad category that usually refers to noh, kyōgen, kabuki and bunraku. These genres formed from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries, and are still regularly performed. Despite the many significant roles of technologies in these genres today, their increasing presence in the genres and myriad manifestations are seldom discussed. This article is an initial examination of the presence and significance of new technologies and new media in the traditional Japanese theatre ecology, focusing on developments in the past two decades including the staging of a ‘fusion noh’ with holograms as performers, to the later kabuki and bunraku plays performed with vocaloid, as well as Virtual Reality noh. By examining select case studies and focusing on the technological aspects of traditional theatre, we hope to bring focus to a critical development in traditional Japanese theatre and open further discussions about this phenomenon. We also wish to widen discussions regarding the parameters delineating what constitutes ‘traditional’ when speaking of Japanese theatre genres.