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Performing
Arts in Japan
Classical
Theater - Noh drama was perfected in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
by Kan'ami and his son Zeami who refined the rustic mimetic art known as sarugaki.
Noh is a highly stylized form of dance drama in which the main actor, who is
usually masked, dances to the accompaniment of chanting and instrumental
music.
Kyogen, short, comedic plays developed at about the same
time as noh and generally performed in conjunction with it, are characterized by
realism and down-to-earth humor, in sharp contrast to the lofty and minimalist
tone of noh.
Kabuki
dates back to the early seventeenth century when Okuni, a maiden consecrated to
Izumo Shine in Shimane Prefecture, created and performed original dances and led
a troupe of her own.
The government banned women and then young boys from
performing kabuki, so it developed as a theatrical art performed by adult males
only. This gave rise to the institution of oyama or
onnagata - male actors who specialize in female roles.
Bunraku
is a highly sophisticated form of puppet theater that features large puppets
(each manipulated by three men), narrators, and samisen musicians. Bunraku
developed at the same time as kabuki and deals with the same themes. In
fact, many of the most famous kabuki plays were originally written for the puppet
theater.
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Modern
Drama - Shinpa (new school) drama developed in the Meiji period as an
attempt to depict the manners and customs of contemporary Japan, in contrast to
kabuki, which continued to present plays in an earlier period. Shinpa
is characterized by a more naturalistic style than kabuki and the coexistence of
oyama and actresses.
Musical
revues date back to the 1920s when all-female troupes were organized after the
manner of the French revues. During their heyday, the revues produced many
starts and attracted great numbers of fans. Also popular in Japan are
Japanese versions of musicals that have been hits on Broadway or elsewhere.
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Dance
- The ritual music and dance of the imperial court known as gagaku, have
been preserved to this day with little change since ancient times. The
type of dance known generically as Nihon buyo (Japanese dance) developed
along with traditional folk dance, noh, kabuki and other performing arts that
incorporate dance.
A more intimate form of Japanese dance, designed for
performance in a relatively small space and to be seen at close range, was
developed from the mid-eighteenth century onward by professional female
entertainers known as geisha and may be seen today in such forms as kyomai.
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Rakugo
and Manzai - Japan has a special category of vaudeville-type
entertainment called yose. It began in the seventeenth century as a
form of entertainment for townspeople held in the precincts of temples and
shrines; proper yose theaters appeared in the late eighteenth
century.
Rakugo is one of the most popular types of yose and
is a comic monologue that begins with a prologue know as the makura and
ends with a punch line called the ochi. The storyteller, dressed in
a kimono, sits upright on a square cushion and, using only a fan and hand towel
asprops, delights the audience with clever narration and humorous facial
expressions and body movements.
This form of entertainment was developed
by Buddhist preachers who delivered sermons with eloquence and proverbial punch
lines in the seventeenth century.
Another
popular type of yose entertainment is manzai, a comic dialogue
that originally was a form of New Year's entertainment in villages. It is
a form of entertainment in which two people lightheartedly trade jokes and
entertain with the audience with singing, instrument playing, and other witty
acts.
It took to the stage and was refined in the late nineteenth
century. In the 1930s a new form of manzai caught on after a
duo in Osaka started making audiences roll in the aisles with their witty
repartees about scenes from everyday life.
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Other
Related Sites...
Information provided by the
Japanese Embassy
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