The kabuki actor is also a film artist

Although kabuki as a theater form in Japan has been around and embedded in the Japanese arts and culture for four hundred years, it has not reached mass audiences in the Philippines except perhaps to lit students and theater enthusiasts and practitioners and Oriental philosophy learners.

Unlike anime which has swept the whole world by storm, kabuki has been relegated to the background, basking on its own glory.

In the emergence of K-pop culture, kabuki is still appreciated in Japan although the hallyu craze is something to contend with.

By and large, one of kabuki’s unique characteristics is the performance of a male actor portraying female characters.

Kotaro Nakamura, a famous sixth generation of kabuki players in Japan, is happy and optimistic that Japan’s traditional theater is still a stuff among the Japanese youth.

Kotaro is in town to promote kabuki as a living theatrical treasure in the House of the Rising Sun.

Although Kotaro has yet to schedule his kabuki performances in the country, he is sure to conduct kabuki orientation and teachings in any form, particularly in this age of digital technology such as online tutorials.

“But it has to be planned and scheduled,” he said in Nihongo from an English interpretation by a Japanese woman whose name has skipped us at the moment.

“We would like to introduce Japanese kabuki to a new audience so I decided that the Philippines, given your rich tradition in art and culture would be an ideal stage to promote our traditional theater,” Nakamura said through the interpreter.

Kotaro’s bringing kabuki to the Philippines in a very limited engagement is part of the celebration of friendship between the Philippines and Japan.

The younger Nakamura is a passionate kabuki artist who was formerly a rugby player in Japan.

The younger Nakamura will stage a comeback to the Philippines anytime soon to continuously orient the Filipinos about kabuki as Japanese literature and as a performing art.

Kotaro is also a TV and film actor having appeared in various TV productions in Japan and starred in the movie “Musume Dojoji: Jaenno Koi” which he said has kabuki features. (Boy Villasanta)