ICU Professor Natsumi Ikoma, who specializes in gender studies, was awarded a grant of ¥335,380 from the JICUF for her program “Performance of Gender in Kabuki.” This one-day program co-hosted by ICU’s Center for Gender Studies and the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs took place at ICU on November 16th. It was part of a week-long fact-finding trip to Tokyo organized by the Carnegie Council’s “Asia Dialogues” initiative. The theme of the trip was gender equality in Japan. Whereas other partner universities in Japan, Sophia University and Hitotsubashi University, focused on gender and the workplace and ethnicity/race and gender respectively, ICU’s program focused on traditional culture.

13 professionals and students participated from overseas, and 17 were pre-registered to attend the event from ICU, with an additional ten or so walk-ins. The international guests included journalists, corporate employees, graduate students, a military officer and UN staff among others from the U.S., Indonesia, Taiwan, Myanmar, the Philippines, Mongolia, India and China. Participants from ICU included six faculty members, seven graduate students and about a dozen undergraduate students.

The session at ICU started off with Dr. Akira Ohno of Tama Art University giving a lecture on “Early Days of Kabuki: Onna Kabuki and Wakashu Kabuki”. This was immediately followed by a workshop on “Gender, Performance, and Kabuki” chaired by Professor Ikoma, in which she discussed Mishima Yukio’s short story about a male actor who plays a female part in Kabuki. After a buffet lunch in the faculty lounge on the seventh floor of the Dialogue House, ICU Professor Kenji Yanai presented on “‘Onna–gata’ in Kabuki.”

In the evening, the participants gathered at Kabuki-za to view a special Kao-mise (face-showing) ceremony for Nakamura Hashinosuke, who took the name Nakamura Shikan VIII. Even for the Japanese audience, it was a treat to see the kojo (formal stage announcement). The guests later enjoyed the plays “Genroku Chushingura” and “Moritsuna Jinya,” as well as the dance number  “Shikan Yakko.”

Devin Stewart, Senior Program Director at the Carnegie Council remarked, “Thanks to generous support from the Japan ICU Foundation as well as project funding from the Henry Luce Foundation, the delegates and the International Christian University community had the extraordinary opportunity to devote a full day on the ICU campus and at the Kabuki-za in Ginza to understanding gender norms in Japanese art and theater. The delegates described the day’s activities as a once-in-a-lifetime experience that they will always remember.”

Professor Ikoma commented that the event was a huge success. She said, “The Center for Gender Studies had never focused on Kabuki and gender before, but Professor Ohno’s lecture on the inception of Kabuki, Professor Yanai’s commentary on the techniques of the “onna–gata” and the pre-distributed materials on gender performance in Japan all enabled a vigorous intellectual discussion. Participants raised many questions and we needed more time. Without the support from the JICUF, this event would not have materialized.”