Image, Stage, & Text

The kabuki were originally rōnin samurai who lost their feudal lord who had some education and instruction in courtly manners, but were now destitute and rebelious, living in the city, and looking for some fun and trouble. The word kabuki litterally means “twisted” and these rōnin went about with a swaggering gait and a contorted posture to demonstrate their disdain for military custom and stiff courtly manners. Wih their outlandish dress and wild ways they were no doubt the most extravagant and outrageous characters in the new city of Edo. They were certainly the subject of great fascination, because they became the subject of Izumo no Okuni’s play acting, which became the basis for the new kabuki theatre. These early skits by Okuni were object lessons on how to get twisted. She would dress up as one of these city ronin and swagger about with a sword at her side and flirt with a courtesan on stage. Their courtly love dialogues were interupted by a rustic bumpkin who would interject crude humor and contrast the fashionable ways of the lovers. In an important way the performance was a way to teach the common merchants who were flocking to the cities how to behave, how to talk to a courtesan, how to swagger like a kabuki. This pattern of dramatic action has appeared elswere and at other times on the world stage: commedia dell’arte, ludruk, burlesque, and MTV, to name only a few. In each instance the audience was invited to abandon bounded rural and domestic values and for a while learn to twist a new way.

At the AsiaNetwork conference this morning there was an illuminating talk on Chinese foot binding by Dorothy Ko from Barnard College. Now that footbinding is entirely a thing of the past she argues that a more balanced look is due to this now universally dispised practice of crushing women’s feet into a three inch shoe. Ko’s analysis is based on the material culture surrounding the shoes themselves as most of historic commentary that has survived is from the perspective of the male anti-foot binding crusaders who were wholly indifferent to the cultural meanings these shoes had for the women. Ko very quickly established the complexity of the topic by pointing out the variety of styles and functions that these miniscule shoes had as expressions of personal handiwork, regional ethnic identity, social gift exchanges, and religious offerings. Furthermore, there were styles and forms of shoes that seemed especially designed for outdoor wear. So, contrary to the common description of shackled and subserviant women unable to anything outside the domestic sphere, foot binding became a vehicle for self expression and status that women attempted to negotiate in order to exert some modicum of self control in their very bounded lives. The highlight of the talk was when a white male conference attendee agreed to have his foot bound. The shoe was very generously proportioned compared to the miniscule examples she passed about, but the effect seemed evedent as our curageuos volunteer wobbled in the painful constricting position. It was very heroic of him to make the effort for our edification, it must have taken supreme self-control to and self-sacrifice to be on bound feet for life.