Richard Emmert

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Richard Emmert plays the nohkan (Mt. Tremper, New York, 2014)

Richard Emmert (b. 1949) is Professor Emeritus of Asian Theatre and Music at Musashino University, where from 1986 to 2020 he taught in the Department of Japanese Literature and was a researcher in the University’s Noh Research Archives. In 1991 he founded the Tokyo-based Noh Training Project, he co-founded and was director of the US-based Noh Training Project from 1995 to 2014, and is currently the director of the UK-based Noh Training Project. In 2000 he founded the international performance ensemble Theatre Nohgaku and was its artistic director until 2017. He continues to play a leadership role in that company.

Emmert is a certified instructor in the Kita school of noh, and he was awarded the 2019 Fumio Koizumi Prize in recognition of his achievement as one of the English-speaking world’s foremost scholar-practitioners of noh. Emmert is also a composer, and his English noh have been performed throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Career

Richard John Emmert was born in Bluffton, Ohio, the youngest of five siblings. He attended Bluffton High School, and then Earlham College, where he majored in Japanese history and language, graduating in 1972. He was introduced to noh by Earlham theater professor Arthur Little and music professor Leonard Holvik. He subsequently participated in a study-abroad program at Waseda University (1970–71), where he studied with ethnomusicologist Koizumi Fumio (1927–83).

Emmert returned to Japan in 1973 and has lived in Tokyo ever since. Since 1973 he has trained extensively in various aspects of noh, including utai (singing) and shimai (dance) with Matsui Akira (Kita school), nohkan with Isso Yukimasa (Isso school), kotsuzumi with Sumikoma Akihiro (Ko school), otsuzumi with Kakihara Takashi (Takayasu school), and taiko with Mishima Gentaro (Komparu school). He received a Monbusho Scholarship to study at Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai) where he received an M.A. in Musicology in 1979 and completed coursework for a Ph.D. there, studying with Koizumi Fumio and noh scholar Yokomichi Mario (1916–2012).

Since the 1980s Emmert has created English-language performing versions of noh from the classic repertory (Sumida River, Matsukaze) and has composed scores for new English noh, which employ traditional principles of noh music. In 2000 Emmert founded the performance ensemble Theatre Nohgaku, which has subsequently completed tours of Asia, Europe, and the U.S. Emmert has also directed or co-directed noh training projects in Tokyo, Pennsylvania, and the U.K., and in 2020 he participated in the launch of a virtual Noh Training Project in a collaboration between Theatre Nohgaku and members of the Oshima family of the Kita school of noh.

Emmert has been involved in multicultural collaborations, notably Dragon Bond Rite with Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Indian, and Tuvan performers; Bedhaya Hagoromo with Japanese and Indonesian performers; and Siddhartha with Japanese, Indonesian, and Malaysian performers.

Emmert has also led training projects at universities that culminated in student noh performances, often in collaboration with Kita school noh actor Matsui Akira. These include the University of Sydney (1984, 1989, 1990), National School of Drama, New Delhi (1988), Earlham College (1989), School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1991), University of Hong Kong (1992), UC Berkeley (1997), Emory University (1999), University of Hawaii (2008-9), National Institute of Dramatic Art, Sydney (2015), and Royal Holloway, University of London (2018). He has also led workshops in Mexico City with Teatro del Mundo (2017–19) in preparation for a Spanish-language version of "Sumidagawa."

Publications

• Noh Performance Guides Nos. 1–7. With Monica Bethe. Tokyo: National Noh Theatre, 1992–97.
• The Guide to Noh of the National Noh Theatre (NNT), Books 1–6. Tokyo: National Noh Theatre, 2012–17.

Compositions

• At the Hawk’s Well (text by W.B. Yeats) (1981)
• Drifting Fires (libretto by Janine Beichman) (1985)
• Saint Francis (libretto by Arthur Little; original music by Leonard Holvik) (1987)
• Eliza (libretto by Allan Marett) (1989)
• Crazy Horse (libretto by Erik Ehn) (2001)
• Pine Barrens (libretto by Greg Giovanni) (2006)
• The Gull (libretto by Daphne Marlatt) (2006)
• Sumida River (English-language performing version of classic noh Sumidagawa) (2008)
• Pagoda (libretto by Jannette Cheong) (2009)
• Blue Moon over Memphis (libretto by Deborah Brevoort) (2013)
• Oppenheimer (libretto by Allan Marett) (2015)
• Opposites-InVerse (libretto by Jannette Cheong) (2017)
• Emily (libretto by Ashley Thorpe) (2018)
• Between the Stones (libretto by Jannette Cheong) (2020)

Collaborations

• Dragon Bond Rite (artistic director with composer Jin Hi Kim, 1997)
• Bedhaya Hagoromo (directed by Didik Nini Thowok, 2001)
• Siddhartha (artistic director and dialogue, music by Alex Dea, 2003)

Sources

• Beichman, Janine (1986). "Drifting Fires: An American Nô". Asian Theatre Journal. 3/2: 233–260. doi:10.2307/1124402. ISSN 0742-5457. JSTOR 1124402.
• Brandon, James R., ed. (1997). Nô and Kyôgen in the Contemporary World. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 0824818105. Search this book on
• Cheong, Jeannette, ed. (2020). Getting to Noh: A Tribute to Richard Emmert, a Man with a Constant Vision (PDF). London Digital Print. Search this book on
• Ehrlich, Linda C. (2016). "Where Rivers Meet". Asian Theatre Journal. 33/2 (2): 491–498. doi:10.1353/atj.2016.0044. ISSN 0742-5457. JSTOR 24737196.
• Eppstein, Ury (1993). "The Stage Observed: Western Attitudes toward Japanese Theatre". Monumenta Nipponica. 48/2 (2): 147–66. doi:10.2307/2385526. ISSN 0027-0741. JSTOR 2385526.
• Gendrich, Cynthia; Hood, Woodrow (2008). "Another Terrain: Theatre Nohgaku's "Pine Barrens"". Theatre Topics. 18/1: 27–40. doi:10.1353/tt.0.0006. ISSN 1086-3346.
• "Koizumi Prize". www.geidai.ac.jp/labs/koizumi/english/index.html.
• Preston, Carrie J. (2016). Learning to Kneel: Noh, Modernism, and Journeys in Teaching. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231166508. Search this book on
• Quinn, Shelley Fenno (2018). "Blue Moon over Memphis". Asian Theatre Journal. 35/1: 204–210. doi:10.1353/atj.2018.0022. ISSN 1527-2109.
• "Richard Emmert: Making a Foreign Art His Own". www.the-noh.com/index.html.
• Schaefer, Kerrie (1991). "Reality and Fantasy: The Performing Body in an Australian Noh Play". TDR. 35/4 (4): 92–106. doi:10.2307/1146166. ISSN 1054-2043. JSTOR 1146166.
• Sheppard, W. Anthony (2019). Extreme Exoticism: Japan in the Musical Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190072704. Search this book on
• "Theatre Nohgaku: Our Company Members". theatrenohgaku.org.
• Thompson, Robin (1992). "Review: "Noh in English"". Yearbook for Traditional Music. 24: 186–187. doi:10.2307/768506. ISSN 0740-1558. JSTOR 768506.
• Van Spanckeren, Kathryn (1999). "Review: Armand Schwerner: Writing "Dragon Bond Rite"". PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. 21/3: 56–63. ISSN 1520-281X. JSTOR 3245966.

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