Kabuki, traditional Japanese popular drama with singing and dancing performed in a highly stylized manner. A rich blend of music, dance, mime, and spectacular staging and costuming, it has been a major theatrical form in Japan for four centuries. Learn m
A History of Japanese Theatre ; Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost ; Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: html_title /html_title Reviewed by William D. Fl...
The ninja of movies and comic books—a stealthy assassin in black robes with magical abilities in the arts of concealment and murder—is very compelling, to be sure. But the historical reality of the ninja is somewhat different. In feudal Japan, ninjas were a lower class of warriors often r...
The largest yakuza syndicates operating today are the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi, which includes about half of all active yakuza in Japan; the Sumiyoshi-kai, which originated in Osaka and boasts about 20,000 members; and the Inagawa-kai, out of Tokyo and Yokohama, with 15,000 members. The g...
Interior of a Kabuki theater, colored woodcut triptych by Utagawa Toyokuni, c. 1800; in the British Museum. Kabuki performers at first used the Noh stage but soon began to modify it. Originally relegated to outdoor performances on temporary stages, Kabuki troupes were in 1724 permitted by the...
Even though theatre as we know it today is relatively new in the Middle East, especially compared to the pyramids, the region has a rich history of story-telling and theatrical practices. Let's take a look at the history of theatre in the Middle Eastern world and what kinds of contemporary...
Tradition holds that Japanese kabuki theater was invented at the beginning of the 17th century by Izumo no Okuni, a shrine maiden. It was performed exclusively by women for over a quarter of a century, until women were banned from performing (ostensibly due to concerns about excessive eroticism...
In the cities, bourgeois culture flourished: kabuki drama, bunraku puppet theater, sumō wrestling, ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and geisha entertainers Irrigated fields in front of a housing development near Kyōto. Only about 15 percent of Japan is level enough for agriculture. were all creations...
strict form that has been passed to each new generation in a rigid training, which starts in an actor's childhood kyogen comic interlude bunraku is a form of japanese theatre which uses intricately hinged wooden puppets kabuki employs singing, dancing, and acting, just as its name would imply...
Misconceptions about geisha that stem from highly sensationalized stories from Western perspectives flatten the complex cultural artistry of the profession.