Kabuki

Kabuki is one of Japan's traditional theatre arts. Created around the year 1600, it is still alive and flourishing today. Kabuki was created by a shrine maiden from the Izumo Shrine named Okuni. She began performing in the dry river beds of the ancient capital of Kyoto and these performances quickly gained in popularity. As a consequence, other people began to develop their own performances, and a series of Kabuki companies developed. Most of these companies of performers were comprised of women, many of whom acted as prostitutes when not performing, and this led to the government banning women from performance.

Since Kabuki as an art form was already flourishing, men took over and continued performing. The repertoire includes many different plays, approximately three hundred. Kabuki theatre, with colorful aesthetics and formalized acting, is full of spectacle and grandeur. The sets, make-up and costumes are extravagant and renowned for their beauty. As the curtain opens on a performance, music is heard first. The musicians are hidden from the stage, in most cases, except for in the case of a dance-drama, in which the music assumes a more dominant part in the play. Among the other types of Kabuki plays that exist are the historical dramas, which are heavy tragedies depicting the lives of warriors or nobles and the domestic dramas, which depict the lives of regular people.

Kabuki, while it does not depict present day life in Japan, is still widely popular. The Kabuki theatre performances continue to be enacted by an all-male cast and performances can be found in Tokyo at the Kabuki Theatre, which seats nearly 1,600 people, and the National Theatre. While many Kabuki theatres in Japan today have come under the influence of Western theatrical traditions, the actual elements of the performance have remained true to an historical tradition that began over four hundred years ago.

To learn more about Japanese theatre, check out the Resources section.