Make it Noh

Make it Noh:
The First Half of the 2013 Noh Costume Workshop – Kyoto, Japan

Contributed by Morit Gaifman
Photographs courtesy of Morit Gaifman

(Editor’s note: Morit was a participant in the TN Costume Workshop, Kyoto & Fukuyama Japan, June 12-18, 2013)

I am writing on the bullet train between Kyoto and Fukuyama. We have just completed three wonderful, intensive days of the workshop. This part of the workshop, taught by Monica Bethe, focused on the making of the costumes. Monica is an incredible font of knowledge of noh, noh costuming, and practical skills. She clearly loves all aspects of noh and noh costuming and is a wonderful teacher. She seamlessly wove historical information with technical knowledge, as well as stories of those currently dedicated to the revival and preservation of traditional methods of every aspect of noh dress creation, from silk worms to final stitch. She has managed to cram into three days what we would ideally have at least a couple of weeks to study carefully (not that this would be sufficient either – it is a lifetime project), and to do so with grace and joy. I would be remiss not to mention Michio Katsura, Monica’s assistant, who was a generous host and guide, as well.

Day 1 focused on weaving. We were introduced to a variety of weaving techniques: plain weave, crossed weave, twill, and adding floats and decorations woven into the fabric. We worked on our own basic looms so we could really grasp the mechanics.

Crossing the Warp Threads on My Mickey Mouse Loom for a Crossed Weave

Jubilith Creates Ribs with Alternating Thick and Thin Weft Threads

Don’t Worry: even if your weaving is not as good as Fritz’s you get cake.

Adding floats and gold thread decorations requires an extra system of heddles (the things that lift the warp threads in various patterns – chopstick on our little looms). Monica has built her own miniature loom that demonstrates how a traditional Japanese weaver would do this.

Monica Bethe Demonstrates Use of the Japanese Loom

Creating Decorative Patterns on A Plain Weave

Decorative Patterns on the Face of the Woven Fabric Can be Seen Underneath

After lunch we go to Sasaki Nō Isshō’s weaving workshop. This workshop works exclusively to create noh costumes, a very rare thing these days. At Sasaki’s we saw a variety of weaving techniques. All of the work is done by hand, from stringing the bobbins through the most complex weaving.

Plain Weaving with Gold Float Patterns. What is blue on the back (seen) is gold on the face of the fabric, kept upside-down to protect it.

Back in the Day, A Pattern Of Two Thin and One Thick Wooden Bars Indicated a Shop Dealing in Thread-Related Activity. Sasaki’s workshop is no exception.

Sasaki-san amidst a colorful variety of silk threads. Participant Megan Nicely is on the left, and to his right a woman who takes these larger spools and wraps the thread onto smaller bobbins for the weavers to work with.

Figure Setting Up the Warp Threads. This is no easy task. Thousands of threads must be tied at the same tension. Here the warp threads have been resist dyed to alternate between blue and white, further complicating the process.

Keeping the Silk Wet: Silk must be kept moist while being worked as not to become brittle and fray.

Punch Cards: To create floats a separate set of heddles is used to manipulate the warp threads. These used to be handled by a child sitting atop the loom. They were later replaced by a mechanized punch-card system, as still used at Sasaki’s. Most shops today use computers.

Footwork: the pedals that control the heddles.

Front to back: the weaver has completed one section of the garment and has started working on the next. Fabric for an entire garment is woven all at once and the patterns mirrored front to back to keep the alignment correct.

Patterns: a painted pattern and a sample of what it looks like woven to its left.

Example of the final product: a beautifully woven silk kimono.

After spending a lot of time among the looms, we were given a demonstration of surihaku, applying gold stenciled patterns to silk.

Removing the stencil after applying the paste.

Applying the gold. Two kinds of stenciling can be seen – a precut stencil pattern that can be repeated indefinitely (the arcs) and a blue stencil cut free-hand directly on the fabric (triangles).

Applying the gold. Two kinds of stenciling can be seen – a precut stencil pattern that can be repeated indefinitely (the arcs) and a blue stencil cut free-hand directly on the fabric (triangles).

The final product: example of a kimono that uses gold stencil (with embroidery over it).

Next, we went to see the fabric being sewn together into a kimono. What a day!
(Editor’s note: in a future post – embroidery, stenciling, and dyeing.)

Laying out the fabric.

A special kind of iron is used to mark the seams. The ruler on the fabric uses the shaku, an old Japanese measure.

Big Noh Pants: to have the typical shape, noh “pants” must be stiff in the back. The red ōkuchi have the stiffness woven into them in the form of ribs (like the ones Jubilith created in the workshop; see below). In order to allow for the decorative design, the white and gold hangiri are woven normally, with the wave pattern, and then a tatami matt is inserted in the back.

The ribbed texture of the ōkuchi.

Finally, we were treated to seeing a hat being sewn together. This happens once a year.