Paper short abstract:

Nō's influence upon contemporary theatre and performance deserves greater attention. In this paper, I propose a consultation of the concept of "slow dramaturgy" to consider how mugen nō prefigures the paradoxical emphasis upon virtuality featured in contemporary theatre practices.

Paper long abstract:

Nō has a well-historicized place within the history of modernist theatre and its departure from traditional Western aesthetics, but influence upon contemporary theatre and performance deserves greater attention. In this paper, I propose a consultation of the concept of "slow dramaturgy" developed by Peter Eckersall and Eddie Paterson to consider how mugen nō prefigures the paradoxical emphasis upon virtuality featured in contemporary theatre practices adopting slow dramaturgy in their pursuit of encounter with the real. In this paper, I suggest that practices reorienting nō since modernity - say, between Kanze Hideo and Okada Toshiki - enable us to understand dramaturgies engaged in the induction of phantoms featured in examples of the slow dramaturgical repertoire of works by the likes of Samuel Beckett, Dumb Type, and Kris Verdonck. Phantom vibration and projection - phenomenological qualities expanded upon by new media in the view of theorist Wendy Hui Kyong Chun - become new horizons for dramaturgical practices influenced by the nō.