Matsui, Sumako (1886–1919)
Matsui Sumako was the first superstar shingeki actress in Japan’s modernist theater movement.
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Mayama, Seika (1878–1948)
Mayama Seika was a novelist, historian, and one of the most prominent playwrights in Japan’s modernist theater movement.
Kazuo, Ohno (1906–2010)
When Ohno Kazuo died at age 103, he was an international legend memorialized in newspapers around the world as a Japanese modern dancer, a pioneer…
Shin Kabuki
Shin Kabuki literally “new kabuki,” a modern outgrowth of traditional kabuki and one of the fruits of Japan’s modernist theater movement.
Ishii, Baku (1886–1962)
Baku Ishii is widely regarded as the creator of Japanese modern dance. He was born in Mitane-cho, Akita Prefecture in 1886. Despite his difficulty adapting…
Modernism in East Asia
The term ‘modernism’ is commonly used to describe some of the literary and cultural production of the early twentieth century in China, Japan, and Korea,…
Architecture Subject Overview
Modernist architecture and design represented a utopian vision of how the built environment could be adapted to the needs to modern industrial society. Industrialization had…
Dance
Historically, modern dance scholarship has followed the contours of the field as defined by John Martin, the revered dance critic for The New York Times,…
A Page of Madness (1926)
A Page of Madness [Kurutta ichipeiji or ippeiji] is a black and white silent Japanese film directed by Kinugasa Teinosuke that has been celebrated for…
Yokomitsu, Riichi (1898–1947)
Riichi Yokomitsu was a Japanese novelist who, as one of the founders of Shinkankaku-ha [New Sensation School], helped introduce European avant-garde literature into Japan during…
Shinmuyong (ca. 1926)
Shinmuyong means literally “New Dance” in Korean, but today it is categorized as creative Korean dance. In the early 20th century, Ausdruckstanz (Expressionist Dance) from…
Tokyo Monogatari; 東京物語 [Tokyo Story] (1953)
Tokyo Monogatari [Tokyo Story] (1953) is a Japanese family drama co-written and directed by Ozu Yasujiro at Shochiku Studios. Renowned as one of the greatest…
Shinpa
Shinpa, the shortened version of the Japanese word shinpageki, or new school drama, was an early Japanese attempt at reforming the theater along modernist lines.…
Katsureki-mono
“Living history” plays were historical kabuki plays produced during the Meiji period 10s and 20s (1868–1888) in an attempt to reform the practices associated with…
Yorozu, Tetsugorô [萬 鉄五郎] (1885–1927)
Yorozu Tetsugorô was a Yôga [Western-style] painter associated with the avant-garde movement during the Taishô period (1912–1926). His foray into art began when he started…
Hijikata, Yoshi (1898–1959)
A shingeki director and one of the most important early leaders of the modernist movement in Japanese theater, Hijikata Yoshi was the cofounder of the…
Satō, Haruo (1892–1964)
Satō Haruo was a modern Japanese writer and poet active from the late Meiji to the mid Shōwa era, roughly from the 1910s until his…
Kinugasa, Teinosuke (1896–1982)
Kinugasa Teinosuke (1 January 1896–26 February 1982) was a Japanese actor and film director, most famous for his experimental films of the 1920s and art-house…
Maekawa, Kunio (1905–1986)
The Japanese architect Kerio Maekawa was pivotal in the consolidation of a Japanese architectural Modernism. He was born into a noble family in Niigata prefecture…
Mingei [民芸]
Developed in Japan in the mid-1920s, “Mingei” denotes a concept that encompasses objects, aesthetics, and philosophy. Developed by three individuals—religious philosopher and aesthete Yanagi Muneyoshi…
Shinohara, Kazuo (1925–2006)
Kazuo Shinohara was born in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from the Department of Architecture, Tokyo Institute of Technology, in 1953. That same year, he…
Bungei Kyōkai
Launched in February 1906 out of a drama club of Waseda University students, Bungei Kyōkai was one of the two pioneering organizations of the modernist…
Butoh
The Japanese avant-garde dance, butoh, developed out of experiments and collaborations directed by Hijikata Tatsumi (1928–1986) and often involved Ohno Kazuo (1906–2010) in Tokyo beginning…
Hijikata Tatsumi (1928–1986)
Hijikata Tatsumi is considered to be the founder of butoh, though titles such as instigator or ringmaster may be more appropriate. Hijikata premiered his first…
Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi (1911–1969)
Known as the Dancing Princess of the Peninsula, based on the title of a Japanese-made film in which she appeared (Hanto no Maihimei), Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi’s…