Kabuki

• The Kabuki form dates from the early 17th century.
• a female dancer named Okuni (who had been an attendant at the Grand Shrine of Izumo)
• Achieved popularity with parodies of Buddhist prayers
• She assembled around her a troupe of wandering female performers who danced and acted.
• Kabuki originated in song and dance, and finds rich expression through music and sound.
• Song and instrumental performance both take place on the stage.
• Okuni’s Kabuki was the first dramatic entertainment of any importance that was designed for the tastes of the common people in Japan.
• The sensuous character of the dances proved to be too disruptive for the government, which in 1629 banned women from performing.
• Young boys dressed as women then performed the programs.
• Older men took over the roles, and it is this form of all-male entertainment that has endured to the present day.
• Eventually, by the early 18th century. Kabuki had become an established art form that was capable of the serious.
• As merchants and other commoners in Japan began to rise on the social and economic scale, Kabuki, as the people’s theatre, provided a vivid commentary on contemporary society.