Keeping an ancient ghostly theatre alive

Kamiyama (centre) playing the tormented ghost of a famously beautiful woman in ‘Tamakazura’ at Ushio Shrine on Sado Island, Japan. Noh, a form of drama once performed for medieval warriors, and one of the world’s oldest surviving types of theatre, is embraced and preserved by the remote islanders of Sado. — Ko Sasaki/The New York Times

SHINOBU Kamiyama is not a professional actress. The mother of two works as a caregiver in a day service for the elderly.

But she is one of many residents of Sado Island, in Japan’s northwest, who share an unusual passion for one of the world’s oldest – and most otherworldly – forms of theatre.