The Kabuki actors<\/a> specializing in women roles are called \u201connagata,\u201d while others like Kikugoro play both men and women.<\/p>\nWhat often strikes Westerners about Kabuki is the utter abandonment of any attempt to portray reality, as things might appear on the surface, or how people might behave naturally. The actors strike dramatic poses called \u201cmie\u201d in the middle of their lines to drive home the idea of courage or flight from pursuit. Experts refer that moment to conveying a picture, a moment often accentuated by the rhythmical clatter of two pieces of wood, which are like claves. <\/p>\n
The actors\u2019 lines are often delivered in singsong poetry. The live music is an integral part of the play in setting the scene, with thunderous giant drums evoking thunder or, when played more softly, gently falling snow. Tinkling bells might portray floating butterflies.<\/p>\n
The backdrop is a revolving spectacular set, such as cherry trees showering pink paper petals. Pieces may have elements of acrobatics, such as an actor playing a fox, dancing with joy, suspended by wires from the ceiling. <\/p>\n
One of the fun aspects of Kabuki is the costume and character changes that happen right on stage before the audience, transforming a human character into a demon, for instance, sometimes with the help of stagehands cloaked in anonymous black costuming called \u201ckurogo.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kabuki echoes Shakespearean theater with universal themes<\/p>\n
Yet the parallels with Shakespearean theater are stark. One popular play, \u201cThe Love Suicides at Sonezaki,\u201d is about young lovers who choose to die together, a Romeo and Juliet of Kabuki.<\/p>\n
The parallels are coincidental. Chikamatsu Monzaemon, who wrote the piece for Japan\u2019s Bunraku puppet theater, lived during Japan\u2019s 18th century isolationist Tokugawa period and is believed to have never read Shakespeare, who had penned the similar love story decades before Chikamatsu.<\/p>\n
For the new Kikugoro, the 48-year-old Terajima, it\u2019s a role he was born into like his predecessors. He has trained from childhood, but stressed he has no qualms or hesitation about having been destined from birth to be Kikugoro.<\/p>\n
\u201cI totally adored and admired my predecessors,\u201d he said at the Foreign Correspondents\u2019 Club in Tokyo last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, I am filled with gratitude to our predecessors who created great works that continue to be loved by generations that came after. So I am grateful to be born into the family of such ancestors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kabuki training starts in childhood <\/p>\n
Terajima was sitting next to his 12-year-old son Kazufumi, who in turn will take on the name he had before, Kikunosuke. It\u2019s the name for the younger actor in that family, handed down over generations like the Kikugoro name. <\/p>\n
Kikunosuke said he loves being a Kabuki actor, although like a normal kid, he also likes video games and the Japanese rock band Mrs. Green Apple. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard work, he said, which involves running every morning, watching his diet and going to bed early. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not only hard physically. It\u2019s also pretty hard mentally, and I sometime took it out on my parents,\u201d he said with a smile, carrying himself with a controlled professional pose way beyond his age.<\/p>\n
The name-succession ritual, called \u201cshumei,\u201d which began for the father and son last year in various performances throughout Japan, continues through this year. <\/p>\n
James R. Brandon, an American who devoted his scholarship to Kabuki, describes it as centered on a type of code, \u201ca theater in which the art of acting is central, and in which playwright and actor cooperate to achieve the unique style of performance found only in Kabuki.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Japanese tradition, there is always the right way to do something, known as \u201ckata,\u201d which turns into the model for the future generation who choose to pursue the art, according to Brandon.<\/p>\n
Although some worry about the survival of Kabuki, the new Kikugoro said he believed in Kabuki\u2019s \u201ckata,\u201d and that nothing needed to change, as the core spirit of the art form remains as relevant as ever. <\/p>\n
\u201cBy using kata, what we want to truly communicate the most in the tradition of Kabuki is human compassion, that spirit of caring for others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https:\/\/www.threads.com\/@yurikageyama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Handing down a name over generations is a central part of the Japanese traditional theater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[373,3001,935,1186,2601,8,3000,2999,213,1249],"class_list":["post-2856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-asia-pacific","tag-dance","tag-entertainment","tag-general-news","tag-james-r-brandon","tag-japan","tag-movies","tag-theater","tag-world-news","tag-yuri-kageyama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}