How to Catch the Spirit of Nô Plays

Nataša Berce

Asian theatre is characterised by a shift from our – logos, mythos and epos based – philosophy of the world to a principle of the spirit, or rather, the heart. In this way the divergences between the East and the West are consequences of different functions and attitudes toward the sign system. Japan radicalises the organisation of signs even more: the signifier melts with the signified, the tension between them dissipates. Nô plays are a complex form, static and without the complications of classic drama, tied to a hundred-year tradition and the environment from which it originates. The paper attempts to open up the possibilities of Western interpretations of Nô plays and using Jernej Lorenci’s staging of Wind in the Pines as an example, defines its interpretive entrance into the theatrical totality of these plays.

Nataša Berce first worked as a ballerina. Until she retired from dancing in 2008, she was a member of the SNG Opera and Ballet in Ljubljana. In this time she also participated in a number of theatre and contemporary dance performances outside her home institution. At the end of her dance career, she enrolled in the study of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television, University of Ljubljana and finished her bachelor’s in 2013. In 2015, she completed her master’s in the Art of Movement. She works as a freelancer, both as a teacher of ballet and as a writer of published articles in theatre programmes and reviews of performances. She also occasionally works as a dramaturgical consultant.