Experiencing the Japanese Nohgaku Theatre Students and faculty build a VR experience to bring Japanese theatre, and its rich history, closer to home BY NAOKO I. SKALA T o better imagine Japanese Nohgaku theatre, I recently introduced students from The College of Wooster in Ohio to the use of contemporary virtual reality (VR) tools as a way of experiencing a stage. I formulated a scaled floor plan from a journal article " Plan of Noh-Stages in Sado and Wakasa " by Hiroiku Uno and other authors in Journal of Architecture and Planning (Transactions of AIJ) in 2003. The research for this project focused on Sado and Wakasa because many rural Noh stages have existed in those areas. Most of those performances were for Shinto or Buddhist ceremonies, so the stages are found inside Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples. 20 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | WINTER 2022