Word: samisen
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...staggering ease, Baiko also dominates the second number on the program, Kagami-Jishi (The Mirror Lion Dance), in which he plays a shy flower-loving maiden who turns into the king of beasts. (All female roles are played by men in Kabuki theater.) The three-stringed twang of the samisen haunts the entire evening like a choral book of lamentations...
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (MGM). A 110-piece symphony orchestra, reinforced with 24 balalaika players and a section of Japanese instruments including a samisen, a koto and a 6-ft. gong (valued at $3,000), plus organ, novachord, electric sonovox, harpsichord, electric piano, tack piano and zither, plays Maurice Jarre's Oscar-winning score. The variety of instruments would be more interesting if the listener could pick them out, but they all seem to play at once. One haunting tune, Lara's Theme, emerges-but just barely...
...draftsman whose impeccable lines and fragrant colors could bubble with humor or sing with sadness. A drunkard tipsily shows off his strength by weight-lifting a barrel; two men get happily looped on a sake binge; a maiden frowns over a sour note she has struck while tuning her samisen; a ragged little urchin sits perched in a tree while majestic Mount Fuji soars incongruously in the distance. Under Hokusai's brush, Japan emerges as more than a floating land of stylized ritual: he had learned the secret he did not expect to know until he was no, when...
...three plays, much the richest and finest is the old No play, where distance in time mates well with that of place; where everything is the more ritualized for being more barbaric; where there is a splendid show of costume and music (the chief instrument is the banjo-like samisen), of processions and dancing. Here, too, the story is the universal one of the resourceful servant, who in this case plays a serious role: he gets his disguised young master past a hostile mountain barrier. Among many felicities, the acting and formal dancing of Shoroku II,* as the retainer, stand...
...years. Tipsy politicians and businessmen play such children's games as "scissors, paper, rock" or the passing of lighted tapers until they go out, to determine who must drink penalty cups of sake. When not being pinched or fondled by male guests, the modern geisha sings, plays the samisen or unexpectedly breaks into a rumba, spins a Hula Hoop or blows a saxophone...