The history of Japanese theater begins with women who perhaps shouldn’t be on stage.
Austria flourished in the early 17th century and is considered the originator of Kabuki. But finding out his true background is like trying to catch smoke. There are paintings, drawings and diaries, but they are contradictory. They don’t record life, they suggest life. What we really know is surprisingly little.
According to legend, she was a maid at Izumo Taisha, Japan’s oldest shrine. The reality can be even harsher. She could be a temple dancer, a performer of sacred rituals, or a prostitute working on the margins of society. it doesn’t matter. Importantly, she assembled a group of female dancers and changed the Japanese entertainment industry forever.
In 1603, they arrived on the banks of the Kamogawa River in Kyoto.
They didn’t set the stage properly. They use temporary platforms. Their performance combines dance and understatement. This is unpleasant. Traditional Noh theater relies on slow, deliberate movement and graceful artistry. This is different. It is very fast. It’s noisy. Very popular.
It’s so popular that Okune continues to make it.
He organized many other activities for us. Other theater groups followed suit. According to some reports, Okuno himself dressed as a young man for some dances, blurring gender lines, before this became a theatrical convention. This form is called okukuni kabuki. “Onna” Kabuki, or women’s Kabuki, quickly gained popularity. This is not limited to sports. It matters who it is designed for.
Why are women banned from participating in Kabuki performances?
The nobility supported the birth of Austrian companies and many imitators. But their hearts are with the townspeople. The themes come from everyday life. The sexiness comes from the performers themselves.
But there’s a problem.
Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu saw this performance and felt threatened. In 1629 he declared the ban. Women were officially banned from performing in Kabuki. The reason is public order and morality. These dances are considered suggestive. Dancers earn extra money through prostitution. The general considered such indecent acts harmful to social order.
The ban lasted for more than two centuries. This continued until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
Theater must fill this gap. They turned to boys and young men. They cross-dressed. It’s a bit like an Elizabethan play where men played women’s roles. However, even this solution did not last long. In 1652, the general forbade young people from taking these roles for similar moral reasons. Eventually, older male dancers became mainstream, forming the all-male tradition known as “aragoto” and “wakashu” that characterize today’s kabuki.
The founder’s myth
There is no Austrian diary. No letters have come from him. There are shards.
Sawako Ariyoshi tried to break the silence. His 1969 novel Izumo no Kuni (published in English as Kabubu Dancer) provides a fictional biography. Provides an illuminating perspective on Japanese culture in the 16th and 17th centuries. It gives Okney a voice never before heard in history.
Is this true? No, this is fiction. But is it as true as silence?
Okuni died, and with his death the story of that riverside disappeared entirely. What remained was a new form of art. It is loud, controversial and built on the backs of women
