aimeekitty

The Kabuki demonstration/performance/lecture last night was AMAZING. It was just as good as the Bunraku (Japanese puppet) event last year. Now all we need is for them to bring Kabuki and Bunraku AGAIN,... and bring out Takarazuka. TEE-HEE! Please pardon my gibberish spewing about it.

They explained the musical cues (how the drums immitated rain and snow... ) and then we watched the performance of Sagi Musume (look it up on youtube... it'll make you cry.) Even though I probably should have gotten there earlier, I still was sitting quite close. The theater is relatively small, so I think everyone got a really intimate view of it.

Sagi Musume is about a snow heron who imagines herself as a human girl. As she daydreams,... visually, she's transforming into a woman. With the help of one stage hand, she's able to change extremely quickly (often while still dancing) from kimono to kimono. She dances through her imagined human life, but things get darker and her love ends badly. In despair, she changes back into her real form, the heron. At the very end... the bird maiden, standing on a platform, with a sudden spotlight on her highlighting her feather-patterned kimono... really DID look like a bird. The illusion was fascinating.

a few random notes and sketches done during the lecture and performance:

The onnagata, after performing sagi musume,... came out in his makeup, sans-wig, just in a simple yukata... and explained how he did the female movements!

His explanation and demo was utterly amazing. He'd be standing normally, as a guy... and then he'd say, watch me become a woman... and he'd pull his shoulder blades back, and slope his shoulders,... and roll his upper body delicately as he walked with his knees together... one foot pigeon-toed right in front of the other. That was impressive, but seeing JUST the shoulder part from behind... you really got the impression that he suddenly was a woman. You could hear the murmur of surprise and delight ripple across the audience.

They also showed from start to finish doing the kumadori red makeup! ON STAGE! With a camera on him so we could see close up! They impressed upon us how lucky we were to see this "backstage" information... that they don't show this kind of thing even in Japan. (They even took off one of the "stage ninja"'s masks.)
and then the two actors performed a male and female lion dance. ENCHANTING. We of course gave them a standing ovation.

The most important thing I learned, though, was how to laugh like a woman. <3