The most important theme of Kyogen, one of the oldest types of Japanese theater, is laughter. And true to its goal, laughter is what rang throughout the Mandel Center for the Humanities last Tuesday night, causing curious passersby to stop and learn about this beloved tradition. Katsumi Yanagimoto, a master of the art form, visited the University this week, thanks to the Waltham Group's Department of Hunger and Homelessness. The department sought a culturally educational way to fundraise for the people affected by the recent disasters in Japan. With the help of a translator, Yanagimoto taught a crowd of spectators about the history of Kyogen and some of its most popular moves.

The proceeds from the event will go to the American Red Cross, which will forward the money to help with relief in Japan. The event, overall, was an excellent way to share the Japanese culture and bring a happier reminder of the place that has been recently afflicted by great tragedy.

Yanagimoto explained that laughter is a universal response, and Kyogen explores several kinds of comedy in order to achieve this response. Within a Kyogen performance, there can be physical comedy, exaggeration, word play and satire of authority.

According to Yanagimoto, Kyogen is performed on a type of stage called a Noh stage, named after the Japanese musical theater called Noh, or Nogaku, which is very different from Kyogen. The Noh stage is unique because it has a roof on top of it, due to the fact that Noh and Kyogen theater were originally performed outdoors. However, today the Noh stage is always built within a larger auditorium.

Yanagimoto listed the differences between the two types of theater, which would traditionally be performed in alternation. Whereas Kyogen plays follow everyday characters without personal names, Noh theater tells sad stories about famous figures. There are instruments that accompany the Noh performance, and Yanagimoto explained that Noh is very much like Western musical theater. However, there are no instruments involved with Kyogen, a traditional type of theater that has no Western counterpart.

Because of the openness of the Noh stage, Kyogen does not utilize large props, and most times, a fan is used in place of other objects. Yanagimoto demonstrated how a fan can be used in a dance as a saw to cut trees. He said the key to this type of prop usage is to see things that are not there and to not see things that are there.

Because of the limited space and props, there is a special strategy for introducing and changing the setting. When they arrive onstage, characters introduce themselves and explain what they are going to do within the context of the performance. In order to go from place to place, they walk in a triangular shape and say, "I have arrived" at the end of their journey. Yanagimoto joked that this is very economical in terms of production.

The overall movement on the stage is slow and "downward." Yanagimoto contrasted this with ballet, in which movement tends to go "upward." Because laughter is a release of tension, this slow movement, which builds tension, is very important to the comedy of Kyogen.

After showing the audience a video of a famous Kyogen performance, Yanagimoto called Tanya Kostochka '11 up to perform a piece of Kyogen called "The Mountain Priest and the Persimmons." Yanagimoto played the mountain priest, a man hungry on his journey who seeks food from a local farmer's persimmon tree. Kostochka played the farmer, and it was her job to try to trick the priest into revealing his identity from up in the tree. Kostochka's Japanese was very impressive, and the performance elicited a lot of laughter from the group. This was thanks, in part, to the subtitles presented in slideshow format and also due to the sheer exaggeration of the actors' movements and expressions-a successful Kyogen.