Wed, Aug 9, 2023
Professional performers from kabuki, bunraku, ballet, opera and other genres of stage arts who have trained in national training programs organized by the Japan Arts Council will come together at the National Theatre in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward for a special stage event on Aug. 20, 2023. International visitors are invited to participate in one of four workshops — for nohgaku (noh and kyogen), bunraku, kabuki and kumiodori — to be held after the event to experience the fun of taking part in Japan’s traditional performing arts.
The Japan Arts Council (Tokyo), an independent administrative agency which operates the six national theaters of Japan — namely, the National Theatre, National Engei Hall (Tokyo), National Noh Theatre (Tokyo), National Bunraku Theatre (Osaka), New National Theatre, Tokyo and National Theatre Okinawa — runs training programs to nurture the next generation of traditional performing artists, and also in the fields of ballet, opera and drama.
More than 30 percent of kabuki actors and a little less than 60 percent of bunraku performers (puppeteers and musicians) today are former trainees of the council’s programs, and therefore non-hereditary. Takemoto Aoidayu, 62, who was taught Takemoto gidayu-bushi (musical narration in kabuki), is the first former trainee to have been designated a “living national treasure” or a holder of important cultural property by the Japanese government.
More than 100 former trainees will show up at the 100-minute special stage event to entertain the audience with traditional kabuki, nohgaku, kumiodori and bunraku performances, as well as with daikagura, yose bayashi (rakugo theater music), ballet, opera and reading drama. English subtitles will be provided throughout the show. The workshops will open after the stage event and be led by the performers themselves.
*Tickets for the stage event and workshops can be booked via the Yomiuri Travel Service website.
The National Theatre will temporarily close its doors at the end of October 2023 to undergo major renovation. The Large and Small Theatres, National Engei Hall, office building and Traditional Performing Arts Information Centre — the four buildings that compose the theater complex — will all be demolished and replaced with a new facility, which is expected to open in the fall of 2029. The special stage event featuring non-hereditary performers will be held as one of many events to mark the transition from the old theater — which opened in 1966 — to the new.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun and other sources)
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