Kabuki Theater: Dance, Music and Art

About the mysterious and distinctive features of culture and customs of the Land of the Rising Sun can be told for hours. For hundreds of years, Japan has been closed to Europeans, preserving in almost unchanged form a unique and distinctive national art. An important role in the cultural life of the country was played by the national kabuki theater.

The origin of the theater began in the 7th century with the emergence of two interesting genres: a pantomime called Gigaku (acting) and Bugaku (the art of dance).

Pantomime on theatrical stages lasted almost to the tenth century, but Bugaku is performed today. At first, many theatrical performances were poured into temple festivals and colorful ceremonies, and a little later they were played separately, and only by the 17th century did the people's Japanese theater-kabuki, which still has great popularity.

The creator of the kabuki is considered to be a priestess of one of the temples in Kyoto, who was able to sing well and perform sacred dances - prayers called Nembutsu-odori. And her name was Izumo-no Okuni, she easily transformed into men in various comedies about Japanese everyday life.

Perch gradually gathered her troupe and began to improve the new original technique of acting, adding more plasticity and sensuality to the dance. Watch on these performances gathered numerous fans, and later it was invited to the emperor himself. However, such attention was also desired by others, many Japanese women decided to create women's troupes and perform in front of the public.

Actresses began to change into men's clothes, put their hair like samurai and even wore swords. And the theaters, in which the purely male troupes played, were called wakashu-kabuki. The name of the kabuki theater is designated by 3 hieroglyphs: dance, music and art. True, sometimes many townsfolk used "art" instead of a hieroglyph, another, with the meaning "courtesan".

Some, who drank too much, often tried to touch their idols, and at times expressed gratitude to them ridiculously and vulgarly. Such liberties did not please the authorities at all, it was time to stop the disgrace on the performances. There was a ban on the participation of women in any productions, and then it was extended to youthful kabuki.

Instead of liberated Japanese women on the stage, men (onnogata, or oyama) began to perform, they were able to win the public's interest in an excellent acting game. These men knew how to skillfully submit their figure in order to look more like graceful women.

Before the onnogata there was a difficult task. From a very early age they were trained to reincarnate: they taught women's grace and plastics, walk in a special way, lower their shoulders, stretch their necks, push their chest forward ...

In the XVII century, a new trend was born, which began to be called yaro-kabuki. In the theater began to perform 60-70-year-old actors who play even girls, and few people knew about it :)

There are several main characters in the Kabuki Theater:

tatiyaku - the main character, more often he was a wise and handsome young man, who always resisted
katakiyaku - a negative image;
dokekata - a funny character, a kind of fool;
koyaku - the so-called child (koyak often came to the sons of actors).

Multicolored make-up was applied to actors' faces according to the roles they performed. When a comedian played a girl or a guy his face was painted in pure white, and in order to show a more age-old character to this color, others were added: bluish, brown, gray. Art Kumadori, as the original way of makeup was introduced in 1673 by Ichikawa Dandzyuro. His technique of applying makeup immediately acquired a stunning success, and since then all the artists of the Kabuki Theater use many of his techniques.

Multicolored lines of various shapes, emphasized the emotions and character of those or other characters, with each color symbolizing some kind of human quality. So, the red lines implied devotion and courage, honesty and decency. Black is magic or divinity. But the blue - some otherworldly forces, anger and bitterness, fury and irritation.

After some time, the actors of kabuki, directly from their own face, began to make an impression of the Kumadori's stage makeup on a blank sheet of paper, they were called axes. Even today, some prints decorate the homes of the Japanese, and in many Tokyo museums are preserved by the axes of popular artists.

Ainosuke in one of the interviews said that he was going to come to Russia shortly and try to combine kabuki with the art of classical ballet. I hope that he will succeed, and we will be able to see bright intriguing performances already on the Russian stage.

Another no less popular actor of the kabuki theater is Saotome Taichi. His acting game really surprises, see a short video from the "Japanology" channel on YouTube:

Frankly speaking, there are unexpected and strange sensations, especially for the European audience: such unusual plastic, facial expressions, and the very plot of these plays. The basis for many of them is the Buddhist teaching, in which all villains must necessarily perish, and those whom they tormented - to triumph.

In the kabuki audience could see and exciting stylized tate fights. Much was put in the plays and silent dammar scenes, which could not be changed, and there were necessarily special rappo gestures. In such intriguing scenes, the actors' play often went beyond realism.

The scene also had a meaning for a successful theatrical production. It is arranged here quite differently than in the theaters that we are accustomed to.

The wooden platform Hanamati ("flower path" or "flower path") stretched from the left edge of the stage and passed through the auditorium. It was also used for the appearance or departure of artists from the stage. On it, some moments from the performance itself could be played.

It was in the Kabuki for the first time began to use the rotating stage and secret hatches. A very important place was given to bright scenery and odogu. True, there were also the so-called smoky (stage workers) who dressed in black robes and were considered "invisible", and they changed the scenery right before the eyes of admiring spectators.

In the Kabuki Theater, even ordinary steps could serve as a kind of shop for an enterprising merchant, or become a small room for a young courtesan, everything depended on the decorations. It is also surprising that even in the theater, the decorations are much smaller than their real sizes, thus emphasizing the significance of the acting game.

In the Japanese theater it is necessary to pay attention to much: on movement and costumes, speech and intonation, face coloring, gait of heroes, and even on musical design. With the help of the unusual folk instrument of the shamisen and the plectrum, a spiritualizing melody was created accompanying all theatrical performances.

Kabuki used a special song style called uta-mono. Look at how music, as if connecting the past, present and future, the video is taken from the channel "kineienami" on YouTube:

After the penetration of many kinds of European art into Japan, the people's theater also changed. Today, the kabuki theater is not the same as it was before. Modern viewers have new preferences: the time of presentation has significantly decreased, the pace of all actions has accelerated, yes, and the costumes of the heroes have become different. The theater does not stand still, the world is changing and kabuki is forced, albeit gradually, but to adjust to new realities.

When I first watched the performance of the kabuki theater, it seemed to me mysterious and unusual, but the more I was interested in Japan, the more people's theater became clearer. In the Land of the Rising Sun, everything is different, and only by learning the history and traditions of this amazing country we will be able to understand and accept much.