Word: kabuki
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...with any other highly developed art form nourished by centuries of performance tradition, nuance is everything in Kabuki. The simplest dramatic idea may be drawn out to great length to express an emotion or state of mind. Take the openemotion or state of mind. Take the opening of the touching Sumidagawa. Hanjo (Utaemon), a mother searching for her kidnaped child, appears first at the back of the hanamichi, the runway used for important entrances and exits that extends from the stage well out into the audience. Her torturous progress in slow, halting steps shows her distraught emotional state and firmly...
Utaemon, of course, is a man, as are all the members of the troupe. Kabuki originated at the beginning of the 17th century, when a legendary shrine maiden named Okuni took her temple dances on the road for profit. When prostitutes began imitating Okuni, using their dancing to entice customers, a shogunate concerned about public morality banned women from the stage...
...evolved, with men known as onna-gata performing the female roles, Kabuki became more explicitly theatrical, drawing on the earlier dramatic conventions of serious Noh theater, comic Kyogen plays, and stories from the Bunraku puppet theater. Parts were passed down the generations as leading theatrical families established themselves. Today, when a Kabuki actor reaches a sufficient level of artistry, he is rewarded with the name of a distinguished ancestor. Leading Kabuki artists like Tamasaburo, 32, a brilliant onnagata, may achieve the popularity of rock stars. One of the most effective works in the tour repertory is Narukami (The Thunder...
Enjoyable as Kabuki is, it has elements that Westerners may find difficult. The musical accompaniment-voices, flutes, drums and three-stringed plucked instruments called shamisens- is of real but recondite beauty. Performances are long, running close to four hours. And there is the language barrier as well...
...such problems are small considering the art form's exquisite grace, its awesome dramatic power and delicate beauty. In Kabuki, there is a world of meaning in the sweep of a fan, the cast of an eye or the crook of a finger. What is outlandish about a song-dance-skill like that? -By Michael Walsh