History & Culture– category –

Kabuki actors apply their own kumadori makeup by hand, blending pigment with bare fingertips in a ritual that can take over an hour. Here's what the process actually looks like.

Shinju, kabuki's double-suicide genre, turned lovers' deaths into acts of devotion — and became so powerful it reshaped real behavior in Edo-period Japan. What the word means and where it came from.

Kabuki's entire 400-year tradition, and its name, traces back to one woman's bold, unconventional riverbed performances in 1603. The story of Izumo no Okuni, kabuki's founder.