Dr. Naohiko Umewaka

Naohiko Umewaka is a pioneering Noh master, playwright, theatre director, and PhD scholar from a 600-year lineage in classical Japanese performance, including a great-grandfather who helped preserve Noh during the Meiji Restoration.
His work spans original Noh creations, contemporary and multimedia theatre, including Shakespearean reinterpretations, collaborations with Panasonic, and a historic presentation at the Vatican before Pope John Paul II.
Across six decades of practice, he treats tradition not as heritage to preserve, but as a living system for innovation, resonating with global conversations on longevity, trust, and cultural evolution.