Fuji Musume

Fuji Musume 藤娘
Seki Sanjuro II playing the Wisteria Maiden at the Nakamura-za, print by Utagawa Kunisada c. 1826
Written by	Tsuuchi Hanjuro Yasuda Abun Nakata Mansuke
Characters	Wisteria Maiden
Date premiered	1826
Place premiered	Nakamura-za, Edo
Original language	Japanese
Genre	shosagoto

Fuji Musume (藤娘, The Wisteria Maiden) is a kabuki dance with lyrics written by Katsui Genpachi, choreography by Fujima Taisuke and music by Kineya Rokusaburô IV, first performed in 1826.

Originally part of a set of five different dances performed as a sequence, Fuji Musume is the only one that has survived. The first time these dances were staged in 1826 at the Nakamura-za in Edo, actor Seki Sanjuro II performed all of them as part of his farewell performance.

One of many revisions to the play, playwright Oka Onitaro and actor Onoe Kikugoro VI created a new, more supernatural version of the dance, staged for the first time in March 1937 at the Kabuki-za. In this version, the maiden becomes the spirit of the wisteria. The next year, performances of the dance by Onoe Baiko VII at the Minami-za in Kyoto and at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, helped popularized the dance.

Fuji Musume remains a popular and famous dance in the kabuki repertoire.

Characters

The titular Wisteria Maiden is the only character seen in the play, and is accompanied by a nagauta musical ensemble of singers, shamisen, drums, flute and small gongs.

Translation

The play was translated into English by Leonard C. Pronko in Kabuki Plays on Stage III: Darkness and Desire, 1804-1864, edited by James R. Brandon and Samuel L. Leiter and published in 2002.

• Kabuki Plays on Stage III: Kabuki Plays on Stage III: Darkness and Desire, 1804-1864. (2002) University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 978-0824824556.

External links

• Fuji Musume at Kabuki21.com
• Fuji Musume at Zen Garden