The foreigners who are preserving kabuki

 

Makoto Nishimura's tiny flat in Tokyo's Meguro neighborhood is filled with antique Japanese instruments. A row of three-stringed shamisen, a kind of square-shaped lute, draped in kimono cloth, hangs in front of her bookshelves. Around the bookcase and off to the side are other instruments used in kabuki plays, including drums, flutes, and a 13-stringed Japanese harp known as a koto. The shamisen, however, take center stage, much like in a kabuki group.

When Nishimura was seventeen years old and attending high school, her mother took her to see renowned music professor Hiroaki Kikuoka, who was playing a shamisen for the first time. As Nishimura suffered as a working mother of two, Kikuoka encouraged her to learn the instrument and provided free shamisen lessons for almost 25 years. Nishimura became extremely appreciative of this generosity and quickly established a home studio to teach kabuki music to upcoming generations.

Even while contemporary musicians like the Yoshida Brothers have modernized the shamisen's look, the art form is gradually fading away as pop music becomes more popular among young Japanese. The few surviving professional shamisen players are mostly from families where the instrument is passed down through the generations, with children beginning to learn as early as age six or seven.

It's interesting to note that foreigners are particularly interested in Nishimura. An Australian was really one of her first shamisen students. She comments, "It's very ironic," on the website of her studio. "My foreign students are more Japanese than most Japanese."

Nishimura would have more than 200 students studying kabuki music over the course of the following 20 years. Germany, Brazil, France, South Africa, England, Poland, Canada, and the United States are among her current clientele.

The sound of students singing, whistling, and plucking fills Nishimura's flat on the weekends and in the evenings. She hosts a concert once a year, most recently in August, that is funded by the money earned from the lessons. Her students perform for crowds of over 100 people while wearing full kimonos and being supported by professional musicians.

Visitors who are unable to attend Nishimura's concerts have a number of other options to witness live shamisen performances in Tokyo's kabuki theaters. Nishimura suggests the recently refurbished Kabukiza in the Ginza neighborhood of the city. The players, who are all guys, cover their features with heavy makeup and wear ornate costumes and wigs. The shamisen and other instruments provide sound effects to highlight the actors' range of emotions as they sing and dance while narrating stories about love, family, and war.