Grand Kabuki Spectacle

Kabuki is the classical and popular larger-than-life Japanese music theater tradition dating back to the early 1600s and going through many evolutions as popular theater and dance to flourish now, some 400 years later. Kabuki (whose name comes from the verb, “kabuku”, meaning tilt or lean, like a rakish tilt to your hat), started as ladies dancing on the river flats in old Kyoto. From there it evolved into a male-based dance/drama form, and then reached a heyday in the mid-1800s, in Saruwaka Town Kabuki in Edo (modern-day Tokyo).

Our 2023 festival has invited guest Kabuki dancers Kikuhiro Otowa and Ritsuyo Wazaogi, both from Tokyo, to produce and present a Kabuki dance extravaganza, replete with live music, drama, dance and stage effects, audience participation and much more.

Our festival kabuki presentations will be forty-five minute shows that will take you back in time and space to the environs of old Edo and its Saruwaka Town Kabuki theater world. Dances will be performed in three iconic forms, the celebrational Sanbaso (Harvest Prayers and Celebrations), the female role Dōjōji (Maiden of Dōjōji Temple), and the male role Sukeroku (The Edo Dandy), all connected by a dramatic script that ties them together and welcomes the audience in.

An additional part of the program features Japanese dancer Kikuasuka Wakayagi performing the classic Japanese dance piece, Kyōganoko Dōjōji (Maiden of Dōjōji Temple).

• Opening: Travel through time and space to 19th century Saruwaka Town in Edo (modern-day Tokyo), when Kabuki was at its heyday, after over 200 years of evolution and development.
• Dance: Shitadashi Sanbaso (Tongue-out Sanbaso) by Kikuhiro OTOWA. A Kabuki dance celebrating the autumn harvest, longevity, and vitality.
• Stage Action: Kurogo, the invisible stagehands.
• Music and Kabuki
• Dance: Kyôganoko Dôjôji (The Maiden of Dôjôji) by Ritsuyo WAZAOGI. A Kabuki dance in the Onnagata(female role) style.
• Inside Kabuki: percussion, poses and audience participation.
• Dance: Sukeroku (The Edo Dandy, Sukeroku) by Kikuhiro OTOWA. A Kabuki dance in the Aragoto (male role) style.