This presentation uses a philosophical perspective to examine the experience of will in the practice called Kata in Noh. The word “Kata” here is used in the sense of a learning process of bodily techniques.

In phenomenology, Legrand and Ravn (2009) have demonstrated that dancers have two subjective experiences ‒ seeing and sensing ‒ during a dance (Ravn 2017). However, Noh players appear to be paying less attention to what they are seeing during a dance, instead concentrating on what they are sensing inside their body (Umewaka 2003). What is going on here in the subjective bodily sensation of the player?

I will examine this question by considering “Kata.” As a learning process, Kata has been examined in the philosophical context in terms of habit, because a habit is an accumulation of movement in the body, which spontaneously generates a new movement (Ravaisson 1838, Ikuta 1987, Morita 2013). Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the inevitable importance of the quality of movement in a dance. The movement is spontaneous, not automatic. So how does the will work?

In this presentation, I will try to clarify what we can see in the experience of will in the dance of Noh, how it is formed, the extent to which it can differ from the will considered in Western philosophy, and what it can possibly bring there.