{"id":112,"date":"2006-06-03T23:02:47","date_gmt":"2006-06-04T04:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/wordpress\/?p=112"},"modified":"2024-11-01T21:13:14","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T20:13:14","slug":"kabuki-with-ebizo-ichikawa-xi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/2006\/06\/03\/kabuki-with-ebizo-ichikawa-xi\/","title":{"rendered":"Kabuki with Ebizo Ichikawa XI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kabuki\">Kabuki<\/a> is a strange phenomenon. In Western terms it could perhaps be described as a combination of silent movies, opera and abstract dance. It is a very Eastern form of art, in its strong adherence to tradition. I can&rsquo;t think of any Western art where performers are born into their job, and most plays in the repertoire are handed down through centuries with little change.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/helen\/blog\/images\/Kabuki.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\nThis evening&rsquo;s performance consisted of two parts. The first was a lyrical \/ abstract piece, where a young girl (well, a male actor playing the role of a young girl) danced of love, then heartbreak, quarrel, and making up. The second was a dramatic story blending love and horror.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nKabuki&rsquo;s popular roots were quite apparent in the story, which was a melodrama worthy of any soap opera: lovers fleeing in the night through pouring rain to commit suicide together, possessions by ghosts, bloody fights, and so on. A lot of traditional Japanese stories seem very dramatic, in fact, and involve lots of ghosts and violent deaths &ndash; I&rsquo;ve noticed the same in Japanese <i>manga<\/i> and fairy tales as well.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe acting, meanwhile, was at once stylised and extravagant. A lot was communicated through small and subtle gestures that may well be obvious to a more experienced audience, but would have remained completely incomprehensible to us, if it hadn&rsquo;t been for the audio guides that were available. &ldquo;Note how she crosses her arms to indicate intimacy&rdquo; or &ldquo;the deep drum signifies a heavy downpour of rain&rdquo;&#8230; umm, OK. Other feelings and facts were acted out most expressively &ndash; the fights in particular were almost overly obvious, as the fighters froze repeatedly in pre-defined tableaus.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe acting was supported by excellent music &ndash; quite discrete and low-key, but expertly performed &ndash; as well as beautiful costumes and impressive scene designs. Even the programme was good, and the audio guide added the final touch. A great introduction to kabuki, and a nice break from ordinary theatre fare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kabuki is a strange phenomenon. In Western terms it could perhaps be described as a combination of silent movies, opera and abstract dance. It is a very Eastern form of art, in its strong adherence to tradition. I can&rsquo;t think of any Western art where performers are born into their job, and most plays in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,797],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art_entertainment","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18595,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/18595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}