Kabuki 歌舞伎

Towards the end of the 16th century a new form of Japanese theatre art began to develop in Kyôto from the performances of Izumo no Okuni, a dancer from the Shintô shrine Izumo-taisha. This form of variety show, in which women were banned from performing from 1629 onwards, was perfected during the Edo period (1603-1868). Kabuki, mainly cultivated by the bourgeois class, became, next to Nô and Bunraku, the most important classical theatre form in Japan. The art of onnagata, the male female actors, reaches its highest perfection.