SHITARA, JAPAN (NYTIMES) - More than three centuries of tradition rest on Mao Takeshita's narrow shoulders.. Read more at straitstimes.com.
Mao is six and swaddled in a heavy kimono, her face covered in the thick white greasepaint of a Kabuki actor. Before her, an audience of hundreds sits on tatami mats. She steps forward, towards the footlights, and performs a dance, then introduces herself in the droning style of an ancient soliloquy.
As Damine contends with the same forces decimating other Japanese villages - an ageing population and an exodus to cities - this ritual stretching back a dozen generations may one day disappear. But for now, its magical quality endures. This year, there were 11 young performers. But after Mao enters first grade, some classes that follow at Damine Elementary will have no students at all.
Decades later, she cuts a graceful figure as she runs students through their lines and demonstrates the emphatic movements and striking poses that have become shorthand for Japan's most famous traditional theatre. While the festival has remained largely the same through the years, the village, and the township to which it belongs, Shitara, have changed in ways big and small.
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