''Yose'' (Japanese: 寄席) is a form of spoken

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

theatre of Japan This article is an overview of traditional and modern Japanese theatre. Traditional Japanese theatre is among the oldest theatre traditions in the world. Traditional theatre includes Noh, a spiritual drama, and its comic accompaniment ; kabuki, a ...

cultivated since the 18th century. The term also refers to the exclusive theater where ''yose'' is held.

History

The ''yose'' was a popular form of spoken theatre in the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

. The term is the shortened form of ''Hito yose seki'' (人寄せ席), roughly "Where people sit together". Towards the end of the Edo period, there were several hundred theatres, about one per district (町, ''

chō is a Japanese actor and narrator from Kōnosu, Saitama. His former stage name was . He is a graduate of the Nishogakusha University Department of Literature and received training at Bungakuza's research establishment and the Seinenza Theater ...

''). The entrance fee, the "wooden door penny" (木戸銭, ''Kido-zeni''), was small. A number of variants existed: * "Narrative stories" (講談, ''

Kōdan is a style of traditional oral Japanese storytelling. The form evolved out of lectures on historical or literary topics given to high-ranking nobles of the Heian period, changing over the centuries to be adopted by the general samurai class and e ...

'') * "Emotional stories" (人情噺, ''

Ninjō in Japanese, is human feeling that complements and opposes the value of '' giri'', or social obligation, within the Japanese worldview. Broadly speaking, ''ninjō'' is said to be the human feeling that inescapably springs up with social obliga ...

-banashi'') * "Comic stories" (落語, ''

Rakugo is a form of ''yose'', which is itself a form of Japanese verbal entertainment. The lone sits on a raised platform, a . Using only a and a as props, and without standing up from the seiza sitting position, the rakugo artist depicts a long ...

'') * "Magic Arts" (手品, ''Tejina'') * "Shadow theatre" (写し絵, ''

Utsushi The Japanese term, can be translated as, appropriation, emulation, inspiration, attribution, etc. However, the word Utsushi encompasses the meanings found in all the terms mentioned. An Utsushi can be a work where an artist is inspired by a tr ...

-e'') * "Imitation of several people" (八人芸, ''Hachinin-gei'') * "Ghost Stories" (怪談, ''

Kaidan is a Japanese word consisting of two kanji: 怪 (''kai'') meaning "strange, mysterious, rare, or bewitching apparition" and 談 (''dan'') meaning "talk" or "recited narrative". Overall meaning and usage In its broadest sense, ''kaidan'' refers ...

'') * "Artful Tales" (芸屋噺) and others The main direction was the ''kōdan'', the narrative stories. The beginning goes back to the beginning of the Edo period, to the ''Taiheiki-yomi'' (太平記読), the recitation of the ''

Taiheiki The (Chronicle of Great Peace) is a Japanese historical epic (see ''gunki monogatari'') written in the late 14th century and covers the period from 1319 to 1367. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Taiheiki''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', pp. 923� ...

''. In addition, there were military stories such as the "revenge stories" (仇討物, ''Adauchi-mono''), "chivalric stories" (俠客物, ''Kyōgaku-mono''), "civic stories" (世話物), etc. When this form of lecture developed, it was called ''Kōshaku'' (講釈), roughly "Explanatory Lectures", and was only common in places where the ''bushi'' (武士), i.e. the Japanese nobility, played a role in which the common people were interested. The lecturers, called ''hanashi-ka'' (噺家), corresponded to the ''

rakugo is a form of ''yose'', which is itself a form of Japanese verbal entertainment. The lone sits on a raised platform, a . Using only a and a as props, and without standing up from the seiza sitting position, the rakugo artist depicts a long ...

'' narrators of the present day. A well-known lecturer at the end of the Edo period into the

Meiji era The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization b ...

was San'yūtei Enchō (三遊亭圓朝; 1839-1900), who was a master of all variants and laid the foundation for modern performance practice. He published his lectures under the title "

Peony The peony or paeony is a flowering plant in the genus ''Paeonia'' , the only genus in the family Paeoniaceae . Peonies are native to Asia, Europe and Western North America. Scientists differ on the number of species that can be distinguished, ...

Lantern" (牡丹燈籠, ''Botan dōrō'') and ''Shiobara Tasuke'' (塩原多助). The later ''Kaidan botan dōrō'' (怪談牡丹燈籠) from 1884 was also successful, with Enchō's lectures having been taken down in

shorthand Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...

. Small theatre spaces typically seating 200 people existed for performances. Most theatres operated on an ''Iromonoseki'' (色物席) basis, i.e., after a series of younger lecturers, the master performed. Around 1900, 70 such theatres were still active, of which the Suehiro-tei (末廣亭) in

Shinjuku is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative centre, housing the northern half of the busiest railway station in the world (Shinjuku Station) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration ...

district, the Tachibana-tei (立花亭) in

Kanda Kanda may refer to: People * Kanda (surname) *Kanda Bongo Man (born 1955), Congolese soukous musician Places * Kanda, Tokyo, an area in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan **Kanda Station (Tokyo), a railway station in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo * Kanda River, a ri ...

and the Suzumoto-tei (鈴本亭) in

Ueno is a district in Tokyo's Taitō Ward, best known as the home of Ueno Park. Ueno is also home to some of Tokyo's finest cultural sites, including the Tokyo National Museum, the National Museum of Western Art, and the National Museum of Na ...

were the best known. They were broadcast on radio from the 1920s onwards, while most ''yose'' theatres later had to close due to the surge in

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking * ...

competition. So the ''yose'' lives on today on television and radio and in special

live broadcast A live broadcast, also called a live transmission, generally refers to various types of media that are broadcast without a significant delay. The most common seen media example of the live transmission is a news program or a news broadcasting. Oth ...

s. Other forms include ''Manzai'' (漫才) and ''Naniwa-bushi'' (浪花節).

''Yosemoji''

are

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

lettering style Lettering is an umbrella term that covers the art of drawing letters, instead of simply writing them. Lettering is considered an art form, where each letter in a phrase or quote acts as an illustration. Each letter is created with attention to de ...

s invented for advertising during the

. The name ''yosemoji'' () literally means "letters for ''yose''". It was used for posters and flyers. Unlike other calligraphic styles, ''yosemoji'' allows and even encourages multiple brushstrokes in order to fill in the characters as much as possible.

References

Bibliography

* Hanabuki Kazuo (ed.): ''Yose''. in: O-Edo mono-shiri zukan. Shufu-to-seikatsusha, 2000. . pp. 392. * S. Noma (ed.): ''Yose''. in: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, , pp. 1755.

External links

Traditional Japanese "Yose" Performance
{{Authority control Cultural history of Japan Performing arts in Japan Theatre in Japan