Exploring The Role Of Kabuki Theater In The Tokugawa Era

I chose to make my project about kabuki theatre in Tokugawa Era Japan. Created early in the era, kabuki theatre is an iconic and important aspect of the Tokugawa Era. Its importance is still relevant today as kabuki theatre remains a popular form of entertainment in modern day Japan. In my exhibit, I made sure to use a neutral tone to avoid any bias in providing viewers with the history of kabuki theatre. The purpose of this exhibit is to provide the history of kabuki and let the viewers make their own conclusions about the role of kabuki theatre in Tokugawa Japan. The first picture I used in my exhibit is of a statue of the founder of kabuki style theatre, Izumo no Okuni. Selecting this image as the first is not only important because it shows who started the form of theatre, but it also shows that kabuki started …show more content…
The importance of this image is it lays the setting of where kabuki theatres were located once they started gaining popularity. For the third image, I chose one of Bando Tamasaburo V in his onnagata attire. Even though the image is of a modern actor, I like this image because it shows the lasting presence of male roles in kabuki theatre once they start to get involved. Following this, I picked a woodblock printing of a scene from the famed kabuki play “Sonezaki Shinju”. Being one of the most prolific kabuki plays, I chose this image to show the crossover of culture from one form to another (e.g. kabuki to woodblock printing). For the fifth picture in my exhibit, I chose to use an image from a modern bunraku (puppet theatre) play. Bunraku grew out of kabuki so I thought it was important to show the influence of kabuki on other forms of entertainment. Next, I used a woodblock print of one of the most influential kabuki actors, Ichigawa Danjûrô I. The significance in using his image is simply to give a face to an important piece of kabuki