Born over a thousand years ago, today the play form of No in Japan is divided into five different branches; however, Kurokawa No is not included among any of these, and is unique in this and many other respects. Because of its relative isolation after being transmitted to the Shonai region Kurokawa No was able to remain unaffected by the various changes which No in Kyoto and Edo passed through. Although the speech style used in No is hard to understand even for native Japanese speakers (especially when this is superimposed on Shonai dialect), with a little reading-up beforehand on the storyline of the play you should be able to understand quite a bit of what's taking place.
If you have the chance to see Kurokawa No during the Ogi-Sai (Ogi Festival), you'll probably be surprised to see that there are children, some as young as three or four, appearing in the play. When you see a three-year-old recite (almost without any help) for 10 minutes a difficult-to-remember No chant, you can understand the effort that the elder performers of No put into teaching young children the traditions of their ancestors.
The performers of Kurokawa No, while obviously busy with farming and other jobs during the growing season, have been invited to Tokyo and even to as far away as Colorado in the United States. Since the No they perform is always given as an offering to the god Ogi, the members always take along their deity on trips.