Guide Ayano gets instructions from one of the Kabuki Theater staff guys. The word Kabuki is made of three words that mean Singing, Dancing, and Acting. To get tickets you have "rine up" an hour and a half early. All of the actors are men. The stage was huge, 3 or 4 times wider than most stages. You can watch an all-day performance of various scenes from various Kabuki plays for $300. Or you can watch one scene from the 4th floor balcony for $6. We chose the $6 option, which, for our chosen time-slot was a famous 15 minute scene of "acrobatic rice dumpling making". If you're thinking "WTF?" you're on the right track. I was there and that's exactly what I'm thinking. It seems that the word "acrobatic" in this case means shuffling around in slow motion and hitting a glob of rice with a wooden sledge hammer, in slow motion. Every once in a while an actor would cock their head slightly, or move their wrist just enough to make their fan move. This would bring shouts of excitement from some members of the audience that sounded like maybe they were shouting "Bravo" or maybe the actor's name. It was a very interesting experience.
End of Line guy.
A beautiful Kabuki poster in the subway.
A Kabuki puppet on display in a subway station.
Front of the Kabuki Theater
