Table Display Fans :: Kabuki Masks

All things have a story...

Japanese Kabuki is a form of theatre that dates back to the Edo period. It emerged out of the distinction between the warrior/noble class and the commoners in the year 1603. Kabuki was in essence a performance art for the commoners or popular culture. It is sometimes roughly translated as "the art of singing and dancing."

Kabuki of Japan is distinguished by its colorful costumes, outrageous characters, exciting stories, stylized drama and its spirited dance movements. Another aspect of kabuki that sets it apart from other performance arts is its rotating stage and trapdoors that characters can disappear and reappear through. Kabuki also employs a footbridge (hanamichi) that cuts into the audience. Sometimes during a performance, characters will be wearing masks. The mask can represent that specific character’s personality.

During the beginning years of kabuki, women and men acted in its performances. But soon after, in 1629, women were banned from performing in kabuki, possibly because men in the audience were growing too infatuated with them and performances were attracting the wrong kind of crowd. To this day, only men can perform traditional kabuki, and they sometimes must dress and perform the role of a woman. Male performers who dress up as women in kabuki are called "onnagata."

Kabuki remained popular for the next several centuries, until the devastation of World War II, when occupying forces banned kabuki. But not long after Japan began to rebuild, kabuki came back into vogue. Today it remains a popular art and is the most prevalent of all the traditional drama styles in Japan. Many of the kabuki theatre’s star actors make appearances in film and TV. While only several large theatres exist in the major cities, such as Kyoto, Tokyo and Osaka, smaller kabuki theatres are frequently seen in the countryside.

The art of kabuki has penetrated into Europe and America too, with regular kabuki troupes performing in various cities across those continents. Perhaps because kabuki was originally created as a means of entertaining the common people, it will always have a place in popular culture.