Konparu Zenchiku Explained

was a skilled[1] Japanese Noh actor, troupe leader, and playwright. His plays are particularly characterized by an intricate, allusive, and subtle style inherited from Zeami Motokiyo[2] which convolved yūgen with influences from Zen Buddhism (his Zen master was Ikkyū[3]) and Kegon. Actors should strive for unconscious performance, in which they enters the "circle of emptiness"; such a state of being is the highest level of artistic or religious achievement.

He lived, worked, and died in the Nara area of Japan. He was trained by Zeami and his son, Motomasa (died 1432), eventually marrying a daughter of Zeami. At some point he took the artistic name Komparu Ujinobu and then finally Konparu Zenchiku. In 1443, he became the leader of the Kanze acting troupe and thus the second successor to Zeami Motokiyo. Zeami passed on his secret teachings to Zenchiku, apparently prompting Zeami's exiling; this refusal to transmit to his blood descendants also prompted a split between the Komparu school and the Kanze. Zenchiku's grandson was Konparu Zenpō, and his descendants would continue to head the Komparu school of Noh.

Works

Attributed writings

Noh plays

See also: List of Noh plays: A-M and List of Noh plays: N-Z.

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. "...His [Zeami] only important successor as a playwright of yūgen was Konparu Zenchiku, the author of such plays as Ugetsu, Yōhiki, and Bashō, all of the third [yugen] category, as well as treatises on the art of Nō that rank in a class with Zeami's." pg 1026, Seeds in the Heart, Donald Keene.
  2. "Passages in the texts are sometimes so complex as to defy parsing ... the obscurity arises in part because of the many varieties of word-play used to impart depth and richness to the text ... The notes to a well-annotated edition of the play are likely to cause the reader to wonder how spectators, especially those at first performances, could have caught all the allusions ... It has been argued that Zeami's plays are not in the mainstream of Nō composition. The only Nō dramatist who followed his style was his son-in-law Komparu Zenchiku (1405–1468?); ..." pg 1016, Seeds in the Heart.
  3. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2384261 "Mandalas of the Heart. Two Prose Works by Ikkyu Sojun"
  4. The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature by Earl Miner; Hiroko Odagiri; Robert E. Morrell; review author: Edwin A. Cranston. Reviewed in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 53, No. 1. (Jun., 1993), pp. 188-231.https://www.jstor.org/stable/2719474
  5. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2384011 "Kakyo: Zeami's Fundamental Principles of Acting. Part Three"
  6. pg 1048, note 62, of Seeds in the Heart

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