| Research Abstract |
The present research subject relates to, in brief "An Investigation ofAudio-Visual Level of EDO Style KABUKI Drama House" The EDO Style KBUKI Drama House are considered to have started in 1724. Prior thereto, KABUKI plays were performed outside. There was a roof above the stage area but there was no roof above the seat area Therefore, when it was raining, a KABUKI play could not be performed. Along with the development of KABUKI plays, the structure of the drama house had improved The drama houses were changed to have a roof and walls surrounding the entirety of drama house. It caused the inside of the drama house to be dark. Although it had the windows for exclusive use for taking in daylight, it was still very dark The illumination intensity in the drama house was only one hundredth of that of outside. That is, there was a significant difference in the illumination between the outside and the inside.
Surprisingly, we could not find any old references with regard to audio and visual le
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vels in the EDO style KABUKI drama houses. KABUKI historians, before us, had not explored the subject of the area. One would easily be able to presume that the EDO style wooden drama houses had no electricity or gas light in the stage and seat areas. Thus, the stage and seat areas were dark. Therefore, we came up with the question of how actors played in the dark drama house and how the acting and the costumes appeared to the audience. We further had a question of how well the audience could listen to elocution in such wooden drama houses where acoustic effects were not so good. Thus, we selected the following five themes as our research subject and performed scientific investigations.
1) The intensity of illumination in the drama house : It was generally100〜101ux. The seat area had more light than the stage. Therefore, actors were able to see their audience well.
2) The intensity of illumination on costumes : We conducted experiments using 9 kinds of cloth, each including 12 specimens in different colors. Under the illumination of lOOlux or less, they all appeared blackish. That is, we could not observe the original colors.
3) Acoustics and elocution : The spatial scale of the theaters of those days, in general, was small. Therefore, there seemed to have no problem to listen elocution even in wooden drama house where an acoustic effect was not so good. The acoustic level of elocution of KABUKI actor, according to our measurements, were around 70db. And the elocution of KABUKI is considered to have inherited from the elocution of KYOUGEN by the elocution waveform graph.
4) Acting : With regard to the subject of acting, we focused on the issue of what the gesture of the Aragoto "MIE" originated from, which had not been conventionally discussed much. According to our study utilizing a so-called motion-capture experiment, we came to a conclusion that, it was originated from the shape of the Sanskrit character, which means "FUDOU-MYOUO". That is, according to our study, it became apparent that the body expression of "MIE" represents the shape of the Sanskrit character itself
5) Rotatable Stage : We investigated on the stage structure of the Kamimikawa Rural Kabuki stage. the drama house has a stage including two platforms, one of which is suspended from the ceiling and the other of which is connected to the floor. Each of them is rotatable in an opposite direction from each other, which creates interesting visual. effects. We measured the rotation load of the floor rotatable stage dynamically.
Further, we expand our investigations to old theaters in foreign countries, in particular, Europe and China. Our investigation thereon revealed new fact with regard to structure of old theaters, which were not apparent conventionally in Japan. Less
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