Hand-colored photograph, 1880’s, Tokyo, Japan. “In the Kabuki dance “Kitsu
Hand-colored photograph, 1880’s, Tokyo, Japan. “In the Kabuki dance “Kitsune-bi” (Fox-fires), Princess Yaegaki saves her lover by following magical fox-fires across a frozen lake to deliver a treasured battle helmet. Here she holds the fantastic horned helmet with its mane of flowing white hair. Her obi (sash) is decorated with Gunbai Uchiwa (Japanese War Fans) as a reference to an earlier scene in the play where Takeda Shingen uses a Gunbai to defend himself. The dance comes from the final scene of Act IV of the Kabuki play, “Honchō Nijūshikō” (Twenty-four examples of filial piety), one of the Confucian classics, although it is frequently performed as an independent item. Women were banned from performing in public for over two hundred and fifty years and Kabuki theatre remained the exclusive domain of male actors and dancers. However, in the closed and secretive worlds of the pleasure quarters and the flower towns, Geisha continued to perform dances in the Kabuki tradition, including all of the major solos from the most famous Kabuki plays." Text and image via Blue Ruin 1 of Flickr -- source link
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