More from Questia.
Top Takarazuka otoko-yaku star Makoto Tsubasa comments on how the otoko-yaku role is just that, a role: 'Acting [as an otoko-yaku for me] is essentially about deceiving (damasu) the audience' (Matsuo 2000a:8)1. Many top stars also use the metaphor of 'killing themselves' in order to get into character. Top otoko-yaku male impersonator Shizuki Asato was famous for sewing teddy bears together during show intermissions, in great contrast to her strong, masculine stage performance. Many are aware, from the stars to the fans, that the Theatre is just theatre and the actors are just actors.
I didn't know about Zunko's teddybears! XD
)1 --(2000a) 'Watashitachi wa Takarazuka, hoka to dōka wa shinai. Tsukigumi toppu Makoto Tsubasa' (We are Takarazuka, we will not assimilate with others; an interview with Makoto Tsubasa: the top star of the Tsukigumi), Takarazuka 1999-2000 Memories to Millennium, Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha.
Source: Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan: Dislocating the Salaryman Doxa. Contributors: James E. Roberson - editor, Nobue Suzuki - editor. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2003. Page Number: 70
Mami did an interview on Takarazuka. It's japanese, but who cares? WANT!
All in all, the whole experience has been rather disappointing. I was trying to get more information on kyogen (i.e. plot summaries) and Shigeyama Chuzaburo. And whatever I can get about kyogen in Takarazuka. I only found a handful of kyogen scripts, but not the right ones.
It's sad that Takarazuka is only interesting to [western] researchers and essayists in terms of gender studies and gender relations. And even this only in a narrow scope.
(And it's I-don't-know-what-to-call-it, that Ms. Robertson is so often uncritically cited as source, while there are works that prove hers to be flawed in several aspects.)
From what is available via Questia one gets the impression there's little, if anything, about other traditional japanese art and culture (noh, kyogen, japanese dance/music, tale of genji etc.) and their [changing?] role/weight/importance. I actually found a paragraph noting a linguistic influence of Takarazuka to be a refreshing change from the rest.
The Osaka dialect . . . had been showing in recent years the features of a language on the verge of a bold leap. Whatever the reasons, there appeared a vernacular that seemed to set a new standard, especially for the speech of women. This was the patois spoken by the actresses of the Takarazuka Musical Theater. The chaos and confusion of this language exerts an incomparable allure over those with a certain predisposition. It is characterized by the indiscriminate introduction of Tokyo speech into the Osaka dialect, and the borrowing of the coquettish accents of the gay quarters into the speech of wives and daughters of respectable families. What is more, these complicated linguistic currents appear directed toward achieving the power of expression and the feel of Western languages. Even now this dynamic new vernacular is being spread, expanded, and consolidated among the women of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe as it proceeds on the road toward the establishment of a new spoken language. There is no way Tanizaki could ignore such a development. It is with a sense of gratitude for his contributions to the making of the Osaka dialect of the future that we have watched him caught up in the whirlpool of the movement to construct a new language.
The Takarazuka Musical Theater, which Origuchi identifies as the source of the new dialect, was an all-female troupe founded in early Taisho at a hot springs resort built by the Hankyū Railway.
With this, my research adventure with Questia will end and I will stop dumping trivia on you. For now. I have appointments in libraries in the next days. ;)
I didn't know about Zunko's teddybears! XD
)1 --(2000a) 'Watashitachi wa Takarazuka, hoka to dōka wa shinai. Tsukigumi toppu Makoto Tsubasa' (We are Takarazuka, we will not assimilate with others; an interview with Makoto Tsubasa: the top star of the Tsukigumi), Takarazuka 1999-2000 Memories to Millennium, Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha.
Source: Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan: Dislocating the Salaryman Doxa. Contributors: James E. Roberson - editor, Nobue Suzuki - editor. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2003. Page Number: 70
Mami did an interview on Takarazuka. It's japanese, but who cares? WANT!
All in all, the whole experience has been rather disappointing. I was trying to get more information on kyogen (i.e. plot summaries) and Shigeyama Chuzaburo. And whatever I can get about kyogen in Takarazuka. I only found a handful of kyogen scripts, but not the right ones.
It's sad that Takarazuka is only interesting to [western] researchers and essayists in terms of gender studies and gender relations. And even this only in a narrow scope.
(And it's I-don't-know-what-to-call-it, that Ms. Robertson is so often uncritically cited as source, while there are works that prove hers to be flawed in several aspects.)
From what is available via Questia one gets the impression there's little, if anything, about other traditional japanese art and culture (noh, kyogen, japanese dance/music, tale of genji etc.) and their [changing?] role/weight/importance. I actually found a paragraph noting a linguistic influence of Takarazuka to be a refreshing change from the rest.
The Osaka dialect . . . had been showing in recent years the features of a language on the verge of a bold leap. Whatever the reasons, there appeared a vernacular that seemed to set a new standard, especially for the speech of women. This was the patois spoken by the actresses of the Takarazuka Musical Theater. The chaos and confusion of this language exerts an incomparable allure over those with a certain predisposition. It is characterized by the indiscriminate introduction of Tokyo speech into the Osaka dialect, and the borrowing of the coquettish accents of the gay quarters into the speech of wives and daughters of respectable families. What is more, these complicated linguistic currents appear directed toward achieving the power of expression and the feel of Western languages. Even now this dynamic new vernacular is being spread, expanded, and consolidated among the women of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe as it proceeds on the road toward the establishment of a new spoken language. There is no way Tanizaki could ignore such a development. It is with a sense of gratitude for his contributions to the making of the Osaka dialect of the future that we have watched him caught up in the whirlpool of the movement to construct a new language.
The Takarazuka Musical Theater, which Origuchi identifies as the source of the new dialect, was an all-female troupe founded in early Taisho at a hot springs resort built by the Hankyū Railway.
With this, my research adventure with Questia will end and I will stop dumping trivia on you. For now. I have appointments in libraries in the next days. ;)