Noh Climax

Internationally renowned visual artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto continues his exploration of Japan’s major artistic traditions with a return to Noh theater. Focused on the climactic moments of six works from the repertoire, Noh Climax promises to unsettle our sense of time and space.  

For the past 25 years, Hiroshi Sugimoto has revisited some of Japan’s defining theatrical traditions. After presenting Sugimoto Bunraku in 2013 and Sambasō, danse divine in 2018, he now turns again to Noh. Since the 2000s, he has taken a particular interest in this 650-year-old masked theater, sometimes described as a “theater of ghosts” and central to Japanese culture. With Noh Climax, rather than staging a single work in full, Sugimoto brings together the most charged passages—the climaxes—from six plays in the classical repertoire, following his series of seven short films of the same name. Often danced and accompanied by song, these scenes are connected by hayashi music and performed by five actors, including Atsuo Kanze, a descendant of Zeami, one of the founding figures of Noh. Sugimoto has also selected masks from his own collection, each of exceptional historical value. In his words, Noh Climax offers “an experience that transcends time and space."