Abstract
This article focuses on the relationship between social trust and familism within the iemoto system. The iemoto system imitates family inheritance and provides the basic rule of inheritance for traditional Japanese arts such as tea ceremony and flower arrangement. The inheritance of kabuki also follows the iemoto system. Familism in inheritance of kabuki has a positive impact on social trust, which is essential to the reputation of kabuki as a representation of Japan traditional art. Familism guarantees kabuki’s artistic value and kabuki actors gain social trust from their family background because they are trained as kabuki actors in their early years and willingly sacrifice their freedom for the value of art. Family, corporation, and government encompass the inheritance of kabuki. Among the three, family plays a pivotal role. Families in which kabuki actors and musicians are born and educated from take crucial part in the inheritance of kabuki. Several famous families of kabuki actors such as Danjuro’s, Kikugoro’s, Koshiro’s, Ennoske’s, and so on support and compete to raise sons as promising kabuki actors and inherit their family tradition. Adoptions between kabuki families often occur. Talented children outside kabuki families become members of kabuki families through adoption usually in their early ages and grow as kabuki actors. Kabuki actors who represent major kabuki families work for kabuki production companies such as Shochiku corporation. Shochiku runs four significant kabuki theaters including kabukiza and dominate kabuki production. Shochiku not only supports Kabuki actors but also guide them to the entertainment market, in which Kabuki competes with other genres of performing arts. Thanks to the guidance of Shochiku, Kabuki has been sold and reproduced in todays’ market rather than withdrawn to the shield of the government’s national heritage. Government’s role is also indispensable. Japan Arts Council, which runs National Theater contributes to Kabuki in different ways than Shochiku. National Theater organizes Kabuki performances usually in the form of one complete piece of Kabuki repertoires unlike theaters under Shochiku being likely to focus on popular scenes and spectacles. It also runs training programs to educate Kabuki actors and musicians, who are not members of Kabuki families and want to become Kabuki actors and musicians. This training program brings the modern values of individual freedom and equal opportunity for the world of Kabuki, which is dominated by familism. It is also essential for Kabuki production which suffers from insufficiency of Kabuki actors and musicians.
| Translated title of the contribution | Familism and Social Trust in Inheritance of Kabuki |
|---|---|
| Original language | Korean |
| Pages (from-to) | 159-182 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| Journal | 동아시아문화연구 |
| Issue number | 78 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2019 |