Yose

Drawing depicting a yose scene

The Asakusa yose

Suehiro-tei in Shinjuku

Yose (Japanese: 寄席よせ) is a form of spoken vaudeville theatre of Japan cultivated since the 18th century. The term also refers to the exclusive theater where yose is held.

History

The yose was a popular form of spoken theatre in the Edo period. The term is the shortened form of Hito yose seki (人寄ひとよせ席せき), roughly "Where people sit together". Towards the end of the Edo period, there were several hundred theatres, about one per district (町まち, chō). The entrance fee, the "wooden door penny" (木戸銭きどせん, Kido-zeni), was small.

A number of variants existed:

• "Narrative stories" (講談こうだん, Kōdan)
• "Emotional stories" (人情噺にんじょうばなし, Ninjō-banashi)
• "Comic stories" (落語らくご, Rakugo)
• "Magic Arts" (手品てじな, Tejina)
• "Shadow theatre" (写うつし絵え, Utsushi-e)
• "Imitation of several people" (八人芸はちにんげい, Hachinin-gei)
• "Ghost Stories" (怪談かいだん, Kaidan)
• "Artful Tales" (芸げい屋や噺ばなし)

and others.

The main direction was the kōdan, the narrative stories. The beginning goes back to the beginning of the Edo period, to the Taiheiki-yomi (太平たいへい記き読), the recitation of the Taiheiki. In addition, there were military stories such as the "revenge stories" (仇討あだうち物ぶつ, Adauchi-mono), "chivalric stories" (俠客物ぶつ, Kyōgaku-mono), "civic stories" (世話物せわもの), etc. When this form of lecture developed, it was called Kōshaku (講釈こうしゃく), roughly "Explanatory Lectures", and was only common in places where the bushi (武士ぶし), i.e. the Japanese nobility, played a role in which the common people were interested. The lecturers, called hanashi-ka (噺家はなしか), corresponded to the rakugo narrators of the present day.

A well-known lecturer at the end of the Edo period into the Meiji era was San'yūtei Enchō (三さん遊ゆう亭てい 圓朝えんちょう; 1839-1900), who was a master of all variants and laid the foundation for modern performance practice. He published his lectures under the title "Peony Lantern" (牡丹ぼたん燈籠どうろう, Botan dōrō) and Shiobara Tasuke (塩原しおばら多助たすけ). The later Kaidan botan dōrō (怪談かいだん牡丹ぼたん燈籠どうろう) from 1884 was also successful, with Enchō's lectures having been taken down in shorthand.

Small theatre spaces typically seating 200 people existed for performances. Most theatres operated on an Iromonoseki (色物いろもの席せき) basis, i.e., after a series of younger lecturers, the master performed. Around 1900, 70 such theatres were still active, of which the Suehiro-tei (末廣すえひろ亭てい) in Shinjuku district, the Tachibana-tei (立花りっか亭てい) in Kanda and the Suzumoto-tei (鈴本すずもと亭てい) in Ueno were the best known. They were broadcast on radio from the 1920s onwards, while most yose theatres later had to close due to the surge in cinema competition. So the yose lives on today on television and radio and in special live broadcasts. Other forms include Manzai (漫才まんざい) and Naniwa-bushi (浪花節なにわぶし).

Yosemoji

Example of Yosemoji

Edomoji (Japanese: 江戸えど文字もじ; furigana: えどもじ) are Japanese lettering styles invented for advertising during the Edo period. The name yosemoji (寄席よせ文字もじ(よせもじ)) literally means "letters for yose". It was used for posters and flyers. Unlike other calligraphic styles, yosemoji allows and even encourages multiple brushstrokes in order to fill in the characters as much as possible.

Bibliography

• Hanabuki Kazuo (ed.): Yose. in: O-Edo mono-shiri zukan. Shufu-to-seikatsusha, 2000. ISBN 4-391-12386-X. pp. 392.
• S. Noma (ed.): Yose. in: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X, pp. 1755.

External links

Media related to Yose at Wikimedia Commons

• Traditional Japanese "Yose" Performance