Kanze Kojiro Nobumitsu 観世小次郎信光 1435 or 1450 – July 7, 1516 was a Japanese

noh is a major form of classical Japanese dance-drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Developed by Kan'ami and his son Zeami, it is the oldest major theatre art that is still regularly performed today. Although the terms Noh and ' ...

playwright and secondary actor during the

Muromachi Era The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

, from the house of Kanze. He was the great nephew of Noh playwright Zeami Motokiyo and is considered one of the last important playwrights of the golden age of Noh. He was the author of around 30 plays. Among his most famous plays is the play ''

Rashōmon is a 1950 Jidaigeki psychological thriller/crime film directed and written by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura as va ...

'', which spelled the title of the

Rajōmon , also called , was the gate built at the southern end of the monumental Suzaku Avenue in the ancient Japanese cities of Heijō-kyō (Nara) and Heian-kyō (Kyoto), in accordance with the Chinese grid-patterned city layout. At the other far north ...

gate by using the kanji shō for "life" (羅生門) rather than the original jō for "castle." This reading has been corrected back in modern Japanese but left its trace in the title of later stories named Rashōmon and the film of Akira Kurosawa.Akira Kurosawa '' Something Like an Autobiography'' - - 1983 Page 180 " "Rashomon" actually refers to the Rajomon gate; the name was changed in a Noh play written by Kanze Nobumitsu. "Rajo" indicates the outer precincts of the castle, so "Rajomon" means the main gate to the castle's outer grounds. The gate "

Selected plays

* ''

Ataka Ataka may refer to: * Attack (political party), Bulgarian nationalist political party *Ataka (play), a Japanese play used as a source for the film ''The Men Who Tread On the Tiger's Tail'' *9M120 Ataka, a Russian-made anti-tank guided missile * Japa ...

'' * '' Momijigari'' * '' Dōjōji'' (uncertain attribution) * '' Funa benkei'' * ''

'' * '' Chōryō'' * '' Yugyō yanagi'' * '' Ryōko'' * '' Kōtei'' * '' Orochi'' * '' Tama-no-i'' * '' Kochō''

References

Noh playwrights 1516 deaths Year of birth unknown 15th-century Japanese dramatists and playwrights 15th-century Japanese male actors 16th-century Japanese dramatists and playwrights {{Japan-writer-stub