Takemoto Gidayū

  • Japanese performing arts

    TITLE: jōruri
    ...the script, until the appearance of one of Japan’s greatest playwrights, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. A 30-year collaboration between Chikamatsu and the chanter Takemoto Gidayū (1651–1714) raised the puppet theatre to a high art. Gidayū himself became so famous that his style, gidayū-bushi...
    TITLE: Japanese performing arts: Tokugawa period
    SECTION: Tokugawa period
    TITLE: Japan: Commerce, cities, and culture
    SECTION: Commerce, cities, and culture
    ...was for the first time arranged as a form of dramatic literature accompanied by puppetry and the samisen (a lutelike musical instrument). It continued to develop until the three great masters—Takemoto Gidayū as narrator, Chikamatsu Monzaemon as composer, and Tatsumatsu Hachirobei as puppeteer—made jōruri into a highly popular Tokugawa performing art, enjoyed by...