Living painting: Tokyo Oiran Dramatic

After a vocal stretching animated by the master of ceremony, the public is finally ready to welcome the Ouen-za troupe, composed of eleven artists. With a refined and elegant walking, they cross the 15th anniversary stage and are about to interpret their show: Tokyo Oiran Dramatic.

Tokyo Oiran Dramatic tells us the sublime and tragic story of the tumultuous life of a courtesan in the pleasures ‘district of Edo. The Japanese courtesans had as principle a fervor and a cast iron will. They both submitted to money, nor to power and lived the life they had chosen, in a closed world based on the rule of sheer splendor.

Thus staying in the shadow, they stepped up their efforts to teach themselves just about everything. Back then, being witted and insightful was very important if you wanted to hold a conversation with an intellectual such as a warrior, an important merchant or even a poet. A moment’s rest and another courtesan could easily take your place, leading to your own fall. Thus, there really was a sort of war between those women!

Lulled by an enigmatic music and hypnotized by the Japanese whirling umbrellas, it’s the beauty of the kimonos that the spectators have been able to admire, bewitched by the grace and the charisma drawn by the performers. These ones bring us to diverse universes: insouciance, rivalry, romance… the life of courtesans is not a quiet river. The bitter taste of lost love, the melancholy felt during the rainy season or the innocence of the first love, it’s a cascade of emotions that the troupe has been able to transmit to its public at each of their footsteps, a public enchanted by the charm of this living picture.