Illustrated Japanese Culture
歌舞伎（かぶき）
Kabuki is Japanese theatre combining acted drama, dance, live music, costume and stage machinery. It is a performance genre with many plays and acting traditions, developed from the early seventeenth century onward.
01
Historical plays, or jidaimono, draw on warrior and aristocratic stories and legends; sewamono concerns townspeople’s lives. Shosagoto centres on dance. Kanadehon Chūshingura, for instance, relocates the eighteenth-century Akō revenge into an older historical setting.
Origin provides another classification. Gidayū kyōgen, also called maruhonmono, adapts puppet-theatre works; junkabuki was written for kabuki itself. Kanjinchō, first performed in 1840, draws on the Noh play Ataka: Yoshitsune and Benkei disguise themselves and try to pass a checkpoint. It is a matsubamemono.
A programme may select scenes from a long play rather than present it whole. Titles may also be shortened: Kyōganoko Musume Dōjōji is often Musume Dōjōji. In this dance work, Hanako arrives at a bell dedication and dances a succession of female moods and characters. Jo-ha-kyū describes an introduction, development and conclusion, also operating within dance pieces. Works can subdivide and vary these phases; a modern programme of excerpts need not reproduce a whole long play’s structure.
Mie: a held pose
Kurogo: stage assistanceAn onnagata is a male specialist in female roles. A mie is a held pose at an emotional high point, often accented by tsuke: wooden blocks struck against a board. Black-clad kurogo assist with props and costume; the theatrical convention treats them as outside the action.
Aragoto exaggerates movement, speech and costume, and is associated with the Ichikawa Danjūrō tradition in Edo. Wagoto favours softer, often romantic male characters and the Sakata Tōjūrō tradition of Kyoto and Osaka. These are acting styles, rather than the three kinds of play.
Costumes range from relatively everyday dress in domestic plays to enlarged forms in aragoto. Some roles use kumadori makeup: coloured lines whose pattern depends on the character. Red can suggest strength or justice, while indigo may mark a villain. Many other roles use different makeup.
Assistants help remove an outer costumeTachimawari is choreographed combat; roppō exaggerates walking or running through the limbs. Benkei’s flying-roppō exit is a feature of Kanjinchō. In Musume Dōjōji, a hikinuki change uses layered costumes: an assistant removes fastening threads, then pulls away the outer layer in time with the actor.
Shamisen, drums, flutes and narration accompany performances. Musicians may be visible or play from a screened room at the side of the stage, called the kuromisu. Arrangements vary by production.
Nagauta combines singing and shamisen and developed as dance accompaniment. Takemoto, or Gidayū narration, describes scenes alongside the actors’ dialogue. Tokiwazu and Kiyomoto also accompany dance. Music and percussion from the kuromisu can establish weather, season or setting.
Tsuke: blocks strike a board
Ki: clappers strike each otherTsuke, struck on a board at the stage edge, accents movement, mie and sounds such as an object falling. Ki uses two hyōshigi blocks struck together out of sight to give cues, including the opening and closing of the curtain.
The hanamichi is a raised passage through the audience for entrances, exits and acting. A revolving stage changes scenes; seri lifts raise or lower actors and scenery.
From the audience, right is kamite and left is shimote; the hanamichi usually runs on the left. Its small suppon lift brings on supernatural characters. The striped jōshikimaku, commonly black, green and persimmon brown, is drawn horizontally in time with the performance.
02
Inherited stage names, or myōseki, can pass through biological or adopted children and disciples. Shūmei marks taking a name. A yagō is a house name: Naritaya, for example, is associated with Ichikawa Danjūrō. Experienced spectators may call a house name to encourage an actor at a well-timed moment.
Family and teacher-to-pupil transmission preserve speech, movement and approaches to particular roles. Public training also gives newcomers outside theatrical families a route in. Actors work alongside musicians, stage assistants and machinery crews, each with skills to learn.
03
Kabuki is commonly linked to kabuku, to tilt or depart from convention. Early kabuki dances borrowed the striking dress and behaviour of kabukimono, conspicuously unconventional people of the period.
The performer Izumo no Okuni (出雲阿国), active in the early seventeenth century, presented kabuki dances in Kyoto in 1603. Other troupes followed.
Bans on women performers in 1629 and youth troupes in 1652 helped establish adult-male troupes in licensed commercial theatres. Specialized female-role performance developed within this system.
04
Specialized roles, actor lineages and playwrights attached to troupes developed alongside more complex plays. Exchanges with puppet theatre expanded the repertoire.
A theatre visit could last all day, with plays, dance and time to socialize. Food could be delivered to a seat, or spectators could take a break at a nearby tea house.
Troupe playwrights often collaborated around actors’ strengths. A familiar story framework, the sekai, received new twists, or shukō. Chikamatsu’s puppet plays entered the repertoire; in the nineteenth century, Tsuruya Nanboku developed ghost stories such as Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan, while Kawatake Mokuami wrote domestic plays centred on thieves and other townspeople.
The Tenpō reforms restricted entertainment and luxury. Edo’s major licensed commercial theatres were forced into Saruwaka-chō in Asakusa, then on the outskirts. Ichikawa Danjūrō VII, then using the name Ebizō V, was expelled from Edo. Audiences later returned to the new theatre district as restrictions eased.
05
The Meiji period brought changes to theatre seating and lighting. Tokyo’s Kabukiza opened in 1889, and the theatre company Shochiku took full management in 1914. A Soviet tour followed in 1928.
From late Meiji to early Shōwa, writers outside the theatre supplied plays known as shinkabuki, including Okamoto Kidō’s Shuzenji Monogatari. These coexisted with classical repertoire. The historical term is generally distinguished from shinsaku kabuki, newly written postwar works.
Tokyo’s Kabukiza suffered a fire in 1921; the 1923 earthquake disrupted rebuilding. It reopened in 1925, was heavily damaged by bombing in 1945 and reopened again in January 1951.
After the war, Occupation authorities reviewed kabuki plays. Shochiku’s library describes a 1945 script of Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami bearing censorship stamps. Research shows that performance permissions varied by play and place.
06
In Japan, kabuki became an Important Intangible Cultural Property in 1965, with preservation-association members collectively recognized as holders; musical practitioners were later included. The National Theatre opened in 1966 and began public actor training in 1970, alongside established family transmission.
Super Kabuki began with Yamato Takeru in 1986, combining contemporary speech with inherited stage spectacle. Later productions adapted manga such as One Piece. Kabukiza opened its present building in 2013.
UNESCO proclaimed kabuki a Masterpiece in 2005 and inscribed it on the Representative List in 2008. Local residents also preserve their own forms: Ōshika Kabuki in Nagano has a performance record from 1767, shrine stages, and distinctive repertoire and staging.
07
Tokyo’s Kabukiza and Kyoto’s Minamiza are representative professional venues; productions also travel and use other theatres. Major professional kabuki is predominantly male. Its wider history also includes onnashibai: women who had performed in elite residences began public kabuki performances in the Meiji era.
Actor prints circulated performers, roles and climactic scenes beyond the theatre, serving as souvenirs and promotion. Other prints show theatre buildings and audiences. Some picture imagined combinations of actors, so a print need not document an actual cast or performance.
Jidaimono, sewamono and shosagoto distinguish historical subject matter, townspeople’s stories and dance. Other labels identify origins, such as puppet-theatre adaptations or Noh-derived plays. A work can fit both systems.
Aragoto uses forceful speech, movement and enlarged costume for powerful characters. Wagoto favours gentler, often romantic roles. Kumadori is a makeup technique used for particular character types; many roles do not use it.
Tsuke strikes wooden blocks against a board to accent actions and held poses. Ki cues strike two hyōshigi blocks together, out of sight, to signal events such as the curtain opening or closing.
Nagauta combines song and shamisen with dance. Takemoto narration supplies scenes and context alongside dialogue. Screened kuromisu music can suggest weather, season and location.
The hanamichi brings acting into the audience area. A turntable changes scenes, while lifts move performers and scenery vertically. The passage normally lies to the audience’s left.
A myōseki is an inherited stage name; shūmei marks taking it. A yagō names an actor’s house. Family and teacher-to-pupil transmission coexist with public training for newcomers outside theatrical families.
The seventeenth-century bans reshaped licensed troupes around adult male performers. The 1842 move concentrated Edo theatres in Saruwaka-chō. Modern theatres changed seating and lighting; postwar rebuilding, preservation, training and new plays renewed the practice.
Object and historical images are identified beside the image and sourced below.