High-Definition Kabuki Screening

Acclaimed Kabuki & Taiko Collaboration
Tamasaburo Bando x Kodo
Cinema Kabuki: “Yugen”(幽玄)
 

What is Cinema Kabuki?
Since 2005, Kabuki production company Shochiku Co. Ltd. has released Cinema Kabuki which offers English speakers the unique opportunity to experience full-scale Kabuki performances by some of Japan's biggest stars in high definition on the big screen with English subtitles. This, however, is no regular film screening; Cinema Kabuki allows the audience to vividly experience the excitement of the live stage through the full use and wide-range capability of high-definition (HD) images and 6-channel sound. Enjoy the authenticity of Kabuki as if you were sitting in the best seat of the Metropolitan Opera House!

Date & Time:
Saturday, January 13 @1:00pm
(Door Open @12:30pm)

Pre-screening live Taiko performance by TAIKOPROJECT
& Mini Kabuki Lecture by Satoko Shimazaki (UCLA)
 
Venue:
JACCC Aratani Theatre
(244 S. San Pedro St., Los Angeles, CA 90012)
 
Admission:FREE
*Registration Preferred
Click HERE to Register

Title:
Yugen (幽玄)
Featuring Tamasaburo Bando, Kodo, Jusuke Hanayagi, Hanayagi-ryu Dancers
Recorded live at Hakataza Theatre, Hakata, 2017
121mins / Subtitled in English
 

Click HERE to watch trailer
（Japanese Conversation only. No English Subtitle)
 

In this production, world acclaimed Kabuki actor, Tamasaburo Bando has sublimated the traditional Japanese performing arts of Noh and Kabuki into a new dimension of art by fusing them with Kodo’s soul-stirring taiko. In addition to starring in and directing the play, Tamasaburo also edited and supervised the video, creating the ultimate worldview. A special video that can only be seen in this production will be included.

Yugen depicts the beauty and ethereal world of Japan incorporating themes from iconic works such as “Hagoromo” (The Feather Mantle), “Dojoji” (Dojoji Temple), and “Shakkyo” (The Stone Bridge).

  “Hagoromo”
A fisherman finds the Hagoromo (heavenly feather robe) in the Miho no Matsubara and attempts to take it home. A tennyo (the celestial dancer), the owner of the robe, performs a graceful dance in order to get the robe back from a fisherman.

 

  “Dojoji”
A female dance comes to a temple where women are forbidden. She enters the temple grounds, puts on a raven hat, and begins to dance, but it turns out that she is the ghost of a girl who burned a man to death out of resentment for an unfulfilled love. In the midst of the glamorous dance, the girl's appearance changes rapidly...


  “Shakkyo”
Deep in the Mount Seiryo of China. A lion spirit appears on a stone bridge leading to the heaven. The solemn sound of the lionesses echoes through the air, and mythical lions dance heroically as if playing with the beautifully blooming peonies, showing their dynamic hair swing.