The History
of Kabuki Kabuki is a typical Japanese drama art. Although "Kabuki" is a Chinese character with borrowed sounds, it skillfully summarizes its three major artistic elements: music, dance, and acting. Kabuki originated from the "Merry Dance" improvised when praying for the dead souls who died. Merry Dance later became popular in Japan and developed into a stage performance without masks and uniform movements. This is the original form of Kabuki. Its development has mainly gone through three stages: Aguo Kabuki (female kabuki), beautiful boy kabuki (ruo kabuki), and Yelang kabuki.
At the beginning of the Edo period (1603-1867), the society that had experienced a long period of war settled down and developed rapidly. In the feudal era dominated by the Tokugawa shogunate, a closed policy of closing the country was implemented, the cultural education of the people was restricted, and the feudal moral concept was emphasized. Although the emerging bourgeoisie already has strong economic strength, there is no possibility of development and improvement in political and ideological aspects. Society changed from "worrying about the world" to "floating world" at once, and the love between men and women, the greed for physical pleasures, and the catharsis of leisure and leisure have become the main entertainment content of the emerging bourgeoisie.
In the early 17th century, a witch named Aguo came to Kyoto to raise funds for the renovation of the shrine to perform in Kyoto. Aguo disguised herself as a man, sang minor tunes and danced provocative dances. This style of performance is very different from the solemn and elegant Noh music. Women disguised as men give people a novel feeling and sensory stimulation, which is incompatible with the orthodox concept. Arbitrary actions and unconventional styles have greatly released the dissatisfaction with the reality in the subconscious of the citizens and won a lot of applause. After Aguo left, several groups that imitated her appeared in Kyoto, Edo and other places. The actors were mainly prostitutes, both performing and selling themselves. Kabuki in this period was also called female kabuki. Female kabuki lasted only 26 years, and was eventually banned by the shogunate for disrupting morals.
Kabuki of this period is centered on love songs and dances, attracting audiences with fancy costumes, coquettish, eclectic styles, and some dramatic compositions. Existing representative works include "Yeping Yue Song", "Picking Women's Grass" and "Dancing". From the perspective of theatrical form, the female Kabuki era formed the earliest independent commercial performance group, and the earliest building that could be called a theater.
The prohibition of female kabuki was originally just the rapid development of individual beautiful kabuki, usually from the ban of female kabuki to the beginning of wild kabuki, it is called beautiful young kabuki. Beautiful young kabuki still mainly performs sensational songs and dances, adding drums, flutes, sanxian qin and other accompaniments, forming a performance form based on dance drama and folk art. His representative works include "Xiaowu 18", "Shoutun Boy", "Seven Lucky Gods" and so on.
Kabuki in this period, except that the actors were male, had no essential difference from female kabuki, that is, kabuki was mainly kabuki, and the actors were the first to sell their own color and charm. Bijou Kabuki spreads homosexuality, which was only prevalent among samurai, monks, and priests. Therefore, the shogunate banned "bijou Kabuki" on the grounds that it was "indecent and homosexual". Bijou Kabuki only lasted 23 years.
Under the pressure of public opinion, Yelang Kabuki's decree was abolished the following year, but the shogunate stipulated that it must be performed by an older actor, and the actor should shave the hair from the forehead to the top of the head in a half-moon shape. , This is the hairstyle of the lower-class citizens of the Edo period, commonly known as "wild head". It also stipulates that no more immoral performances are allowed. Affected by this blow, Kabuki was on the right track, and Yelang Kabuki gradually separated from the performance mainly based on singing and dancing, paying attention to the elements of musical drama in the form of singing and dancing, and adding the elements of realistic form of Kebai Opera, cultivating drama. factor growth.
During the Yuanlu period, the common people's culture became more and more prosperous, and Kabuki reached its heyday. In Edo, Ichikawa Danjuro pioneered the style of "Arashi" that reflected the masculine spirit of the samurai. The representative play is "Temporary", which depicts the image of a samurai with a sense of righteousness and justice. In Kyoto, Sakata Tojuro established the norm of "Japanese things" that expressed the tragedy of love, inheriting the elegant style of the aristocracy. Sakata Tojuro's success is largely due to the excellent script created by the Japanese Shakespeare known as Kanmatsumon Zaemon. Kinmatsumon Zaemon wrote many plays, among which the most touching is the tragedy of love and love. Representative works include "Love Death Sonezaki", "Love Death Skynet Island"
With the development of the city's commercial economy, the trend of realism prevailed, and the public's appreciation of psychology changed, which prompted Kabuki's script literature and expression to develop in the direction of realism. The Kabuki drama in the late Edo period is full of kitsch factors such as brutal murder, criminal conspiracy, ghosts and monsters, adulterers and prostitutes. Famous playwrights Tsuruya Nanbei and Moami are not exempt. During this period, the stage decoration was more gorgeous, the stage setting became more realistic, and the performance of organ sets and large props became indispensable elements on the Kabuki stage. The foreign scholar Sima Jianghan and the stage organizer Hasegawa Kanbei have made bold and unique innovations on the stage structure of Kabuki. The grotesque repertoire is paired with ingeniously designed mechanisms to create a real illusion, from which a visual and auditory satisfaction can be obtained. Kabuki in the late Edo period became more and more mature in realism and novelty.
The art of "female shape" transformation
Since the Tokugawa shogunate banned the performance of female Kabuki in the name of corruption, the performance of all male actors formed the unique "female shape" transformation art of Japanese Kabuki. "Female form" is a special product of Kabuki, and its artistic charm lies in the fact that it possesses an artistic field that cannot be replaced by the skills of actresses. The women played by "Female Shape" does not pursue a kind of authenticity of women, it pursues a sense of female abstraction from the perspective of men, and pursues women who are more real than women in real life, creating a world that surrounds men The dream-like, human-penetrating theatrical world between the female and the sexual fringes is the "color gas" in Kabuki jargon.
The "female form" transformation of Kabuki is different from the Chinese Peking Opera or Western stage plays in which men disguise themselves as women. What it emphasizes is not a "disguise" character, but a "change" character. "Female form" is not just about male actors wearing women's clothes to imitate a woman, but to completely transform male actors who play female roles into "female form" in terms of spirit, psychology or behavior. Good looks are the basic condition for "female" actors. They are different from the male danjiao in Peking Opera who disguise themselves as women. In their daily life, they strictly abandon the daily habits of men, consciously abide by the living habits of women, and live completely like a woman. .
The formation of "female form" transformation art also reflects the characteristics of Kabuki "refined from vulgarity into art". In the social atmosphere of advocating romance in the Edo period, the "female form" in the period of beautiful young Kabuki was the object of indulgence. During the Noro Kabuki period, the ideology of acting practice began to be realized. In the Genroku period, the "female form" became a kind of escape A unique art that requires penance for the pleasure of the flesh. The traditional play "Ming Shen" epitomizes the various elements of the "female form" transformation art. The Venerable Mingshen of Beishan Cave closed the outlet of the flow pot, causing a severe drought in the world. The beauty Juejian Ji went to seduce Venerable Mingshen, which greatly reduced her physical strength and made her drunk. Juejian Ji successfully cut off the rope and released the water from the flowing pot. In an instant, it rained heavily, saving the world from the drought. In the play, Juema Ji's beauty, her means of seducing Mingshen, Mingshen's hesitation, movement, and depravity touch the root of human nature and reflect the sexy charm of "female shape".
It has been more than 400 years since the development of Japanese Kabuki to this day. The female images on the stage are still played by men. However, with the development of society and the renewal of concepts, there has been a separation of daily life from the stage and only performance on the stage. The new generation of female actors. This is regarded as an unorthodox path by some older Kabuki authorities, and they worry that it will inevitably lead to the disappearance of the mystery of the "female form", so it can no longer be called a "female form".
The Dramatic Value
of the point of view of beauty, Kabuki is a kind of entertainment for the common people and a common desire. Compared with Japan's other three classical "arts" - Gagaku, Noh, and Ningyo Joruri, it expresses the beauty of ugliness and beauty. It runs counter to the noble music of the nobles and the Noh music of the samurai. Noh music is a "genuine" stage that purifies the soul and is elegant in ink and wash; , colorful "entertainment" stage. The dramatic spirit emphasized in Kabuki is "comfort", that is, to comfort the audience physically and mentally. If the Western European drama theory is used to evaluate the value of Kabuki, then Kabuki can only be regarded as a kind of folk performance with low literary, low ideological and high entertainment. Because the general drama theory holds that: drama has a dual nature, it faithfully reflects the society, and at the same time has the quality of affecting the society with its artistic power, which Kabuki does not have.
In the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate strengthened the indoctrination of the people with feudal morality, formulated a number of orders to strengthen morals, ruthlessly suppressed kabuki that was indecent and satirized reality, and prohibited the communication between the theater industry and the upper class. Kabuki actors It is even called "Kawahara begging". As the businessmen who are the economic backing of Kabuki, they have not changed the consciousness of the society, they only hope to numb themselves in the indulgence. Sex drama too. However, among the four major classical performing arts in Japan today, only Kabuki has achieved success in commercial performances. Although Kabuki has experienced several blows and oppressions by the rulers and the impact of Western drama art, it still maintains a strong vitality.
Masayoshi Gunji (a Kabuki research expert) believes: "The negative theory adopted by the academic circles on the dramatic value of Kabuki is the result of using Western drama theory as the standard to measure. There may be mistakes made by comparative studies. , that is to say, use a borrowed ruler to measure things that are not in this ruler, and of course those that do not meet this standard are easily abandoned." Kabuki's vitality and dramatic value are not only entertaining, but more importantly, it reflects It expresses the unique aesthetic thought of the Japanese nation, "Never leave without leaving." Literary and artistic works with a strong political and ideological nature are difficult to find in Japan, and they are often short-lived. On the contrary, Kabuki reflects the social reality, adopts the methods of satirizing the present and the present, and integrates a large number of folklore. It conforms to the aesthetic taste of the Japanese nation. It can be said that it is a drama that represents the artistic level of the Japanese people. The artistic value of Kabuki is something that the so-called orthodox art system or Western scientific theories cannot intervene. This is the characteristic of oriental drama art, and it is also the difficulty of oriental art research.
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