About Noh Reimagined - Noh Reimagined

Noh Reimagined is an international platform for artistic creation, research, commissioning and cultural exchange, founded and directed by Akiko Yanagisawa (Mu:Arts).

Noh as a way of thinking about the human condition in a changing world.

For more than 650 years, Noh has carried an extraordinary body of artistic knowledge across generations. Its language of movement, music, poetry, silence and presence reaches beyond time and place, offering a distinctive way of seeing the human condition.

Noh Reimagined brings this living art into conversation with the present.

Through contemporary perspectives, storytelling, technology and collaboration across disciplines, we explore what Noh can reveal today—and what new artistic possibilities can emerge from it.

What survives in us when the world changes?

Noh’s worlds of memory, loss, desire and the unseen offer a powerful way of approaching this question. They invite us to experience time differently, to listen to silence, and to encounter the human and the more-than-human through another frame of perception.

We bring the mastery of Noh into creative encounters with artists from around the world. These encounters become catalysts for new forms of storytelling, new ways of experiencing performance, and new ways of thinking.

A living traditional arts in conversation with the world

Noh is one of the world’s oldest continuously performed theatre traditions. Its artistic knowledge is transmitted from master to disciple through rigorous training and lifelong practice.

Noh Reimagined works with distinguished professional Noh performers whose artistry embodies this lineage and expertise, including Kanze Yoshimasa, Shimizu Kanji, Mikata Shizuka, Narita Tatsushi and Isso Yukihiro.

Alongside them, we commission and collaborate with contemporary artists working across music, theatre, dance, visual art, literature, sound and digital media.

Classical Noh and new creation exist here in a dynamic relationship—each illuminating the other.

What we do

Present classical Noh masterpieces with artistic excellence and authenticity.
Commission new interdisciplinary works inspired by Noh.
Develop artistic research, experimentation and new approaches to performance.
Create international residencies, laboratories and workshops.
Connect artists, scholars and audiences across cultures and disciplines.
Build long-term relationships between Japanese and international arts communities.
Share knowledge through conversations, workshops and public programmes.

Artists and collaborations

Over the years, Noh Reimagined has brought Noh performers into creative dialogue with artists from a wide range of disciplines and cultural backgrounds.

Our collaborators have included Thick & Tight, Aidan O’Rourke, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Kathleen Jamie, Ben Nobuto, Hollie Harding, Daryl Jamieson, Cerith Wyn Evans, Clod Ensemble, Evan Parker, David Toop and many others.

International stages and partnerships

Noh Reimagined has presented and developed work with leading arts organisations and festivals including Kings Place, The Place, University of Leeds, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Aldeburgh Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Liceu Conservatory( Barcelona), and others.

Since its beginnings, the platform has worked with 32 Noh performers and more than 50 British and European contemporary artists, presented 18 world premieres, and reached audiences through performances, workshops, exhibitions and international collaborations.

By the Numbers

32 master Noh performers from Japan (2016–2025), collaborating with more than 50 artists from the UK and Europe.
18 world premieres commissioned across music, dance, visual arts, theatre, and neuroscience.
14,000+ audience members reached through performances in London, Tokyo, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, and at the internationally renowned Aldeburgh Festival.
1,000+ workshop participants, introducing artists, studDecade of Reimagining Noh