NIPPON Kichi - 日本吉

2007/11/5

肥土山農村歌舞伎 Hitoyama-nouson-kabuki Farmers’ Kabuki in Hitoyama

Jp En


One of the cultural assets remaining on Shodoshima Island is the Noson Kabuki, or Farmers’ Kabuki. Each village used to have its own stage or theatre built in the precinct of its shrine. Of these stages, only two remain intact even today; at Rikyu Hachimangu Shrine in Hitoyama and Kasuga Shrine in Nakayama. Both stages are nationally designated as Important Tangible Folk Cultural Properties.

This theatrical tradition dates back some 300 years. In the Edo period (1603-1868), farmers in Hitoyama Village were suffering from drought. The head of the village, Ota Izaemon, spent as many as three years of time and all his own funds to construct an irrigation pond (Kaerugo-ike Pond). When villagers first saw water came flowing into the ditch beside the shrine, they were so glad that they planned to celebrate this feat by putting Kabuki plays on stage. They built a tentative theater in the shrine precinct and invited a Kabuki troupe. This was the beginning of Kabuki plays in Hitoyama.

Later on, the villagers, taking advantage of their accessibility to the Kansai region, began to perform Kabuki plays themselves by taking in some performing arts from Osaka areas, which led to the development of the rural Kabuki on the island, especially from the Meiji through Showa periods.

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Tonosho-cho , Shodo-gun, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan 761-4100
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Farmers’ Kabuki in Hitoyama




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