Hinamatsuri, the doll's festival

        Hinamasturi is a festival celebrated in Japan on the 3rd day of March. But some parts of Japan have celebrations and doll arrangements lasting for a month. Usually, it is celebrated in families having a girl child and hence it is considered as the Girl children's festival. A set of dolls will be arranged in every home in special order. The dolls as well as the arrangement in the traditional way is costly and hence some houses will have only to main dolls for celebrating the Hinamatsuri.

      The exact arrangement contains dolls arranged in six or seven platforms/steps and it is based on the reduced priority of their social status beginning from the top.  The upper two layers of dolls have twelve layers of Kimonos one over the other and it shows their social priority. They are the Emperor and the Empress and their closest people. 

    The topmost step has the Emperor(Odairisama : おだいりさま) and the Empress(Ohinasama : おひなさま). The Emperor have a baton in his hand and the Empress holds a fan. This step also has two lanterns on the edges and they are called Hibukuro. The second platform has three ladies holding different items in their hand and they are called san nin kanjou (さんにんかんじょ). The third line has five male musicians with their instruments. They are called gonin bayashi(ごにんばやし).The forth step holds the ministers named Udaijin(うだいじん) and Sadaijin(さだいじん), two Samurais with their weapons. It also holds a Sakura and some other plants.The next step has three people called san nin jyougo(さんにんじょうご)  with faces of various expressions - anger,cry and laugh. The last platforms contains some jewel boxes, carriages etc. and there were two Kimonos also held at the bottom stage. 
      
   The arrangement and the appearance of the Hinamatsuri dolls are really attractive. There is another children's day festival meant for the boys also. And it will be celebrated in May.

Have you seen Kabuki?

        Hearing about Japan, Kabuki is one of the word that comes into our mind. Kabuki has a long history until no as it has gone through many technological and timely changes. Kabuki shows are now conducted in special theaters and sometimes small shows of Kabuki will be conducted by various cities. And the Kabuki I have watched is of the second kind.

A Brief history 

       

       Kabuki is the most famous Japanese classical dance drama. It is said to be originated from Kyoto, the previous capital of Japan. During the ancient times, the performers were only ladies. But currently, all the roles are played by males. Kabuki theatres are present in big cities associated with tea houses,food courts, etc. provided with souvenir shops and other attractions. From its ancient form, Kabuki has made timely advancements in it's performances, clothing, music, stage arrangements, appearance etc. incorporating technology. The stories are told via music and it will be only a part of some long story. 

Types of story told

       Usually the stories fall into three main categories: Jidaimono which are the historical Samurai stories, Sewamono which tells the story from the current society-comic or love story and the Shosagoto which gave importance to dance. The artists who performs in Kabuki nowadays become popular in TV shows also.

Kabuki stage

          The Kabuki stage has a path extending out in to the audience and is called hanamichi( flowerpath). It was the entry path for the actors from during the ancient times.But as technology developed, the stage arrangements and actors' entry also made advancements including rotating stage,sudden appearance or disappearance of the actors, and flying artists. Mawari-butai is a rotating circular stage while Seri is the special arrangement which brings the artists or sometinmes an entire scene onto the stage as a whole. Special threads are used to hang the artists on the stage to make the characters fly on the stage which is called Chunori.

          As the artist show up on the stage, the audients will shout his name to encourage him. There will be music played in the background which uses special small drums  and Shamisan-a three string musical instrument. 

     Makeup

 The make up ( Keshou) for Kabuki mainly uses rice flour as the base. Based on the characters, different colours are used to complete the rest of the make up. Red lines indicates good characters and heroes, Blue or Black lines are for negative roles, for supernatural characters green lines are used and purple color is used for showing nobility. These lines are called Kumadori.

Where to watch?

         Usual theatre performances will conduct two or three different shows per day with entry tickets.  Sometimes local performances will be carried out in special stages at different cities. For small troupes people used to throw money wrapped in papers on to the stage. They might not be having entry tickets for the show.