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Kabuki
Kabuki was created around the 16th century by a shrine maiden of the Izumo Shrine, Okuni. She started with performances to enterain and eventually evolved it into an enterprise. At first, kabuki theater was dominated by female performers but as the female performers took up the side position as prostitutes, the government banned all females from stage performance allowing male performers to take the mantle as exclusive kabuki performers.
Now that females were banned from stage performance, a problem developed. Who was going to play the female role? As it turns out, the male performers trained themselves to play the female role. In Kyoto and Osaka, the men were trained to portray a delicate and soft image for their female roles. However, as Kabuki traveled to Edo, the people wanted to have the women roles become more stronger and not so docile.
Kabuki is seen as a traditonal stlye of theater and therefore doesn't seem as interesting. As time progresses, Kabuki had to compete with many other entertainments in Japan. Televison, radio and movies had appeared and Kabuki was forced to keep itself stable. Many people started to not like the old form a theater and some Kabuki activist tired to raise it's reputation and adapt some of the modern elements into Kabuki.
Scenes from Kanjincho (played by Ichikawa Danjuro) at National Theater in 1990
© Nihonhaiyukyokai/Aoki Shinji