Perhaps nowhere else in the world has the mask been so thoroughly integrated into theatrical practice as in East Asia. Building upon a wide-spread and deeply embedded tradition of ecstatic shamanic performance, these theatrical traditions evolved out of an active interchange between court and village, blending secular and sacred concerns; forays across the permeable boundaries between folk, festival and ritual performances on the one hand, and court sponsored theatrical entertainments on the other, are central to the history of masking in East Asia.

Neolithic shell masks have been found in Korea and in Japan and rock art suggestive of masks or painted makeup in Northern China. Bronze masks with bulging eyes and elongated ears from about 1000 BC have been found in Kwanghan, Szechuan, and statues interred with these masks seem to link them to shamanic practice. Masks were worn into battle in China to depict warrior ancestors and confound the enemy. From the 7th to 10th Centuries AD, the T'ang Dynasty Court of China became a venue for performers arriving over the silk routes from Tibet, Manchuria India, Indochina, Indonesia, Iran and the Mediterranean provinces of the fallen Roman Empire. One result of this theatrical eclecticism was a highly syncretic form of masked dance drama that spread to Korea and to Japan, where it took the form of Gigaku. Characters included Brahmin and Buddhist priests, drunken revelers from Central Asia and Iran, a beautiful woman and comic old men, a Garuda, and perhaps most significantly the mythical Shishi-a leonine beast that has since assumed many variants throughout Eastern Asia, both in the theatre and in Buddhist festivals of exorcism and renewal, symbolically chasing away malingering forces clinging to the old year.

Though supplanted by elaborate makeup in Beijing Opera, masks are still used in China in the local ritual/theatre (nuoxi) of Guizhou and Kweichow. Most impressive among these variants is the "Earth Opera" of Anshun, using hundreds of masks in elaborate processions to reenact episodes in a folk history of China, from about 1000 BC to the-mid 15th Century. While the narratives of theses folk "operas" center around highly romantic tales of martial deeds, the performances are staged to coincide with the rice crop's flowering; the agricultural context, along with specific rituals attending these outdoor performances, serve to imbue the opening of the box of masks with an aura of sacred significance. After the four directions are honored, masked actors representing famous warriors of the past are joined by a diverse cast of hermits, barbarian soldiers, old ladies, clowns, earth gods, and various animals.

The connections between exorcism, agricultural cycles, and theatrical play are also significant in Korean T'al Chum, or masked dance/drama. T'al means "disease" as well as "mask" and the shamanic links to Korean village theatre are strong, often blending with elements derived from Chinese influenced traditions of the Korean Courts. Tales of war are less common here, and the central themes more frequently involve abuses of power by the aristocracy and clergy, familial tensions, and the lot of the poor. The Hahae Pyolsin-kut, dating back to the 11th-12th Century, combines satiric entertainment with exorcistic elements and invocations for fertility. The nine extraordinary wooden masks extant from this still living tradition-several of them fashioned with detached jaws that can be set a different angles to change expression-reshape individuals as comic types, while maintaining a deep sense of humanity. More abstract masks from Yangju, Songp'a, and Pongsan are used in regional variations of satiric folk plays enacted by farmers and inspired by touring Sandae-dogam players of the 17th century after they were turned away from the Court. The style of these masked dance dramas is broadly comic, the masks highly caricatured, and the depiction of the human hypocrisy, pretentiousness, venality and greed pointedly satiric. Variants of the familiar mythical lion also frequently appear, chastising apostate monks. The gourd and papier-mache masks were often ceremoniously burned after traditional performances linked to the agricultural cycle.

The Masks of the more refined and stately Bugaku that supplanted the Gigaku in Japan during the 8^th to 12^th centuries range from the beautiful, to the humorous, to the demonic. Danced in foursomes reminiscent of the Chinese custom of honoring the cardinal directions in performance, some of the later Bugaku masks have detached or hinged jaws in the manner of the Ha-Hae masks of Korea. At the same time that Bugaku was becoming more and more refined in the imperial court, rural forms were also incorporating masks. Kagura, a Shinto form of ritual entertainments focused on the power exercised by the dead in the world of the living, Sarugaku, an acrobatic form of comic theatre based on Chinese and Korean models, and Dengaku, a tradition of "field play" blending aspects found in rural dramas of Korea and China, all provided elements that were drawn together in the late 14th century by the master performer and playwright Kan'ami and his son Zeami, under the active patronage of the Shogun Yoshimitsu. Now known as Noh drama, the tradition these men created brought masked portrayal to a new level of subtlety and artistic accomplishment. Zeami, especially, is credited with adding a focused concern with Zen Buddhist philosophy and a stately decorum and creating a delicate balance between mimetic portrayal of character (monomane) and a quality of transcendent grace and beauty (yugen).

Stories in the Noh repertory often involve an encounter that reveals an unresolved issue in the past. Masks are worn only by the principle actor, or shite, who unfolds the tale, frequently wearing two masks in sequence-the second of which reveals the crux of the matter. This narrative structure mirrors the pattern of Kagura, in which conjuration leads to a visit by a being or beings from another temporal dimension, and thence to entertaining the both the visitor and the assembled community. Originally, there would be five Noh plays given in a performance: a god play, a warrior play, a "wig" play centering around a beautiful woman, a "miscellaneous" play based on contemporary events or incidents of madness, and a play about demons and supernatural beings. These plays about lingering ghosts and past events would be alternated with comic kyogen plays depicting actions in the contemporary world and sometimes using whimsical masks for gods, demons and clowns, offering a humanistic counter-ideology to the harsh honor-bound codes of pre-modern Japan. The entire evening and the units within it proceed by a "jo-ha-kyu" structure: opening, intensifying, and releasing. Some of the old Noh masks are among the more beautifully finished and subtly expressive masks ever made.