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In ATJ 15/1, Gerald Groemer's article "No at the Crossroads "presented a pathbreaking look at the widespread activity of no and kyogen among commoners during the Edo period-when, according to most accounts, these forms were reserved almost exclusively for the samurai class. In the present essay Groemer continues on the same theme, focusing on two specific types of peformances witnessed by commoners, kanjin no and machri no.
Gerald Groemer holds the DMA in piano performance from Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music. He is associate professor of ethnomusicology at Yamanashi University, Kofu, Japan. Dr. Groemer has published in both Japanese and English and is presently preparing a book-length study in Japanese of the koshibai or "small theatres" that produced kabuki and bunraku in Edo.
During the Edo period (1603-1868), no and kyogen thrived largely thanks to the patronage of the samurai class. In 1618 the Tokugawa government (bakufu) had made support of no official by granting actors and musicians of the Kanze, Hosho, Kongo, Konparu, and Kita troupes rice stipends, funded by the daimyo, each of whom contributed approximately 0.1 percent of his income (Morisue 1981, 233). In addition, daimyo and other samurai households subsidized no more directly by building stages in their residences and by hiring no masters and musicians to perform and teach.
Although commoners could not compete with this type of luxurious sponsorship, they were not disinterested in no. Townspeople and the upper stratum of the peasantry most commonly acquired knowledge of no plots by learning no chant (utai) or reading published scripts.1 In some areas of the land, such as Kurokawa in Akita prefecture, residents kept alive unique ancient traditions of no that had not survived in Edo or Kyoto.2 Distinctive folk variants of no such as nomai in northern Japan attest to the fact that unusual forms of no were promoted even in the most remote rural areas.3 But it was in the urban centers, in particular the city of Edo, that commoners could most easily behold what the samurai saw: performances of no and kyogen staged by professionals employed by bakufu-sanctioned troupes. The most important large-scale public performances were known as machri no (no on...