Early Edo-period kabuki

Timeline

1. c. 1603–1610Edo castle town · KantōIzumo Okuni and others performed "kabuki odori" in the Kyoto and Edo areas, attracting townspeople audiences with exotic dress and urban flair, establishing the basic form of kabuki as popular entertainment.
2. 1629–1652Edo · JapanThe shogunate successively banned women and youths from the stage, promoting the division of roles into onnagata (male actors playing female roles) and aragoto, wagoto and other role types, forming the institutional basis for later kabuki actor iemoto lineages and makeup traditions.
3. c. 1661–1670Around Nakamura-za, Edo · EdoIn the 1660s Edo's theater district (Nakamura-za, Ichimura-za and others) flourished; famous theaters such as Ichimura-za and Nakamura-za staged sewamono and historical plays, while the iemoto system and visual conventions such as the hanamichi and kumadori makeup tended toward fixed form, making kabuki a core feature of Edo urban culture.