Kabuki

• Japanese: 歌舞伎 (kabuki)

Kabuki is, along with Noh and ningyô jôruri (aka bunraku), one of the three most prominent forms of traditional Japanese theater. Emerging around 1603 and developing into something very closely resembling its current form by 1800, kabuki remains strong today.

Unlike the Noh theatre, which grew out of ritual dances, and which is more symbolic, poetic, spiritual, and more serious in tone, focusing strongly on the strict performance of set forms (kata), kabuki is a more purely narrative form, focusing on telling an understandable story and providing the audience with an entertaining spectacle. While the Noh features a more reserved, minimalist aesthetic, and while the puppet theatre is by its very nature necessarily somewhat small-scale, kabuki makes use of a fuller arrangement of elaborate stage sets and multiple set changes; large casts; bold costumes and, sometimes, multiple costume changes; and an extensive orchestra (known as a hayashi) accompanied by an array of devices for various sound effects.

A colorful and bombastic style of theatre, kabuki makes extensive use of bold face makeup patterns called kumadori; special effects including trap doors and wirework, known as [[keren]; dramatic poses called mie; a distinctive form of chanting; and bold, sometimes rather over-the-top costumes.

Kabuki was a core element of Edo period urban popular culture, intimately intertwined with ukiyo-e woodblock prints and popular publishing, and the culture of pleasure districts such as the Yoshiwara. Though some plays are set in the historical past, nearly all adapt the historical narrative to a contemporary Edo period setting, making kabuki an excellent source for experiencing and understanding Edo period material culture, albeit a trumped-up, over-the-top stage version of it.

Performance Style

Stage layout (hanamichi; origins of the distinctive style of curtain), Costumes, makeup, dance, mie, special effects

Music

The music in kabuki is performed live, by shamisen players and an ensemble known as the hayashi. In matsubamemono (plays adapted from Noh and kyôgen), the musicians are often positioned in clear view, seated on an upstage platform that extends across the stage. Normally, however, the shamisen players, along with some drummers and other musicians are located in a compartment to one side of the stage, behind a screen, called a misu, while the remainder of the hayashi, including those performing sound effects such as bird and insect sounds, perform off-stage.

Though not strictly musical instruments, a pair of clappers, called ki (木, lit. "wood"), located to the right of the stage, play an important role in emphasizing dramatic poses (mie), sword strikes, and other moments, as well as marking the beginning and ending of acts, beating out a dramatic rhythm as the curtain opens or closes.

Kabuki uses a combination of numerous styles of shamisen music, including styles from dance traditions, the bunraku puppet theater, and other storytelling traditions. Nagauta is perhaps the most common and dominant style, though the tokiwazu-bushi, kiyomoto-bushi, and gidayû-bushi styles or genres are also used extensively. Multiple styles are often used within a single play, which may combine dances, narrative sections, sections based on the puppet theater, etc. in a single scene or act.

Plays

Jidaimono, sewamono. Juhachiban.

History

The origins of kabuki are typically attributed to a woman known as Izumo no Okuni, whose troupe's performances, on temporary stages set up in the Kawaramachi dry riverbed of the Kamo River in Kyoto, beginning in 1603, are said to have been the very first "kabuki" performances. However, some scholars point out that these performances, often referred to today as "Okuni kabuki," were likely not radically different from those performed by other women's groups at the time, and drew heavily upon recent performance trends of the Azuchi-Momoyama period. These earliest "kabuki" performances consisted chiefly of showy dances, with a minimum of plot or characterization, and were much more similar to today's taishû engeki than the more fully staged and heavily narrative form that kabuki has since evolved into.

The word "kabuki" (歌舞伎) is today written with three characters meaning song (歌), dance (舞), and technique or skill (伎). However, the name of the art form is said to derive from, or be related to, the term kabukimono (傾奇者), which referred to eccentric types seen on the streets of Kyoto and Edo around that time, who dressed and behaved unusually, and in general were described as leaning (傾) towards the bizarre and unconventional (奇). Okuni herself is said to have been a kabukimono, along with Nagoya Sansaburô, a figure often said to have been Okuni's onstage partner and off-stage lover, and worthy of credit as co-founder of kabuki theater, but who might in reality have never met Okuni, or might not even have existed at all.

The so-called onna kabuki ("women kabuki") performances also served as advertising for the women themselves, as prostitutes. As a result, in 1629, the Tokugawa shogunate banned women from appearing onstage. Professional kabuki remains today a male-only theater form.

Onna kabuki was thus replaced by so-called wakashû kabuki ("young men kabuki"), in which beautiful young men played all the roles. This marked the beginnings of the tradition of the onnagata. However, these young men performed as prostitutes as well, and before long wakashû kabuki came to an end as well, due to the same shogunate concerns about public propriety and morality.

Wakashû kabuki was followed by yarô kabuki, as only older men, for a time, were permitted onstage, eliminating the element of prostitution from kabuki, and marking the beginning of its shift towards a more purely theatrical form. Younger actors would eventually be permitted back onto the stage, though professional kabuki remains a male-only form today.

Licensed theatre system, censorship

Jishibai

Meiji, post-war, today, rebuilding of Kabuki-za

References

• McQueen Tokita, Alison. "Music in kabuki: more than meets the eye." The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. pp229-260.