What is "MA"??

For my project, I'm studying about "MA" which is space time in English.
Actually, this is really difficult to explain for people from other countries.

At first, "MA" came from Japanese Arts like "Noh" and "Kabuki".
When the performers act, they should feel "MA", and using it, they can get more attention from the audiences.
Somebody says that "MA is like breathing and also air".
In Japanese society, we can see "MA" everywhere like in arts, architecture, even in ordinary conversation. We try to have "MA" to have a great conversation without speaking, and "MA" is useful to insist what the most important thing is. "MA" is necessary, but if we use it too much it does not work well, and it seems that wasting time or wasting space.

This is one of "MA" in Japanese traditional house.
The space looks "nothing" even somebody thinks that it is wasting space, but it makes people feel relax because the room is　overwhelmed with lots of stuffs.
Might be this idea is kind of hard to understand people who do not know about Japanese culture; however, in our thinking "something works in somehow that is 'BEAUTY' ".

Basically, "MA" is Japanese unique way of thinking; however, the idea fits into western culture.
For example, in theatrical situation, "MA" is equal to dramatic pause.
Think about a dialogue from Shakespeare. One of famous quotation is "To be or not to be? That is the question".
In this case, if there is pause between "to be or not to be?" and "that is the question", the audiences might have more attention an actor's performance.

I am pretty sure that I could not explain perfectly about "MA" here, but I just want you to mention about this Japanese term.

Thank you.