26.3.10

__ sunlight into evening __


"Tamasaburo bando. Onna-gata Tamasaburo. Tokyo ."
SHINOYAMA Kishin

The Written Face ( a movie ) Directed by Daniel Schmid Switzerland/Japan 1995, 35mm, color, 89 min. With Tamasaburo Bando, Yajuro Bando, Yagoro Bando. Japanese with English subtitles. Schmid’s impassioned tribute to Kabuki theater, the time-honored Japanese art of stylized drama punctuated with singing and dancing, documents an important art form that is beginning to disappear. The film features one of Kabuki’s most respected practitioners, Tamasaburo Bando, who first appeared on stage at the age of five. One of Kabuki’s finest Onnagata—men who specialize in playing female roles—Bando is seen in four continuous acts. "The man playing the woman’s role," says Schmid, "does not imitate the woman as in the West, but tries to capture her significance, [which] he draws from his own identity."

_" It is morning sunlight into evening."
. . . tamasaburo bando as he describes how he plays a woman's role . ( in The Written Face )