of the culture of the geisha district with a unique training system which f lourished into the modern age. Inoue school “kyomai” probably developed its allure with the aesthetic leadership of the generations of heads of the school. Inoue Yachiyo I (1767–1855) and Inoue Yachiyo II (1770–1868) were dancing teachers in the geisha district and added expressive techniques from the dances of the classical noh theater and the ningyo joruri puppet theater. Inoue Yachiyo III (1838–1938), both maintained the innovations of her predecessors and organized it into a dance school and also took the dances from being performed exclusively in the banquet chambers of the geisha districts by staging recital performances in theaters as well. To take the current performance as an example, the jiuta
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dance Masazuki (The New Year’s Moon) (composed by Tsuruyama Koto) is often performed as a solo dance, but this time there were 4 dancers and 4 singers and shamisen players along with a sou koto zither. The Inoue school uses the Yanagawa shamisen, a type of shamisen developed in the early Edo period by Yanagawa Kengyo with a narrow neck and thin wooden body which produces a kasokeki (“delicate”) sound. The dancers wore red aprons like the nakai attendants at a restaurant with one end of the apron tucked up. This careful attention to little touches in the costumes gave a very sophisticated air to the dance. The lyrics depict the time of taking off the shime sacred ropes at the end of the New Year’s season, but combine this with the feelings of a woman waiting for a lover. This was combined with the graceful movements of the Theatre in Japan
Theatre Yearbook 2020
