Kabuki in Ginza

The famous Kabukiza

Kabuki posters

070314, Wednesday

I met up with a friend in Ginza to get hold of tickets to see Kabuki. Back in 1603, in Kyoto, a women named Izumo no Okuni invented this special type of dance drama. Both men and women characters were played by women performers and it became a huge hit. However, in 1629 women were banned by the Tokugawa shogunate from this performance and instead young male actors took over. The young male performers were however after a couple of years replaced by mature men. My friend and I were lucky to get hold of good yet expensive (15000 yen) tickets for the play "Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura". We got good seats just by the "Hanamichi" (flower path) which is a walkway to the scene. On this walkway the actors make dramatic entrances and exits so we were able to get a close up view of the performers :) The perfomers are dressed in spectacular outfits and their make up is truly extraordinary. While the performers act another person plays a special instrument, that ressembles a small guitar but has lesser strings. The actors talk in a very special way so it is not always easy to understand what they are saying. Although one might not understand everything, merely watching the acts is fun. Since I had not been sleeping a lot during the last nights I accidentely dozed off for a minute or two a couple of times during the play hehe but I am very happy I went to see this special type of Japanese drama :)