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Kissing the mask : beauty, understatement, and femininity in Japanese Noh theater : with some thoughts on muses (especially Helga Testorf), transgender women, kabuki goddesses, porn queens, poets, housewives, makeup artists, geishas, valkyries, and Venus figurines / William T. Vollmann.

by Vollmann, William T.

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New York, NY : Ecco, c2010.

Women in the theater -- Japan.

Gender identity in the theater -- Japan.

Sex role in the theater -- Japan.

Feminine beauty (Aesthetics)

Transgender people -- Social aspects.

9780061228483 :

xxi, 504 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Understatements about this string-ball of idle thoughts -- Black hair -- "The mask is most important always" : the Noh performances of Umewaka Rokuro -- Schematics : roles, rules, props -- Malignance and charm : a catalogue of female masks -- A branch of flowers : steps to ineffability -- The dragons of Kasuga : texts, places, histories, masks -- Sunshine at midnight : an interview with Mr. Mikata Shizuka -- Perfect faces : maiden, mask, geisha, wife, princess -- Aya Kudo and the zo-onna : a porn model compared with a Noh goddess -- Her golden lips slightly parted : an image of Kannon -- Crossing the abyss : the three beings of three women -- What is grace? A list and a possible hermeneutic -- Rainbow skirts : the loveliness of Lady Yang -- Jewels in the darkness : the dances of Kofumi-san and Konomi-san -- "She cannot do anything else" : compulsions, costs, achievements -- Suzuka's dressing room : a geisha gets ready -- "They just want to look in the mirror" : Yukiko makes me over -- "I sit with my legs closed" : glimpses of onnagatas -- "There's no ugly lady face" : Katy transforms -- The phallus of Tiresias : what is a woman? -- White arms -- A curtain of mist : understatement and concealment -- In the forest : an apology -- Sun-bright like swords : the beauty of valkyries -- Passing light : Andrew Wyeth's Helga pictures -- Who is the willow tree goddess? Snatches of a play -- Beauty's ghost -- Snow in a silver bowl : an epitaph for Radha's grace -- Beauty's ghost : Ono no Komachi in traditional Noh plays -- Urashima's box : a few thoughts about time -- The decay of the angel : Komachi in the Noh plays of Mishima Yukio -- The moon maiden goes home -- Sunshine on Silla : the unknown -- Pine tree constancy : "Takasago," "Izutsu" and "Matsukaze" -- Kagekiyo's daughter : "Semimaru" and the plays of separation -- Behind the rainbow curtain : going home beneath the skin -- Appendix A : Descriptions of feminine beauty in The pillow book of Sei Shonagon (ca. 1000-1010) -- Appendix B : Descriptions of feminine beauty in some Old Norse sources -- Appendix C : Descriptions of feminine beauty in Sappho and miscellaneous Greek lyric sources -- Appendix D: Proportions of feminine beauty in some classical and Western European sources -- Appendix E : Noh play groups, and plays mentioned.

Explores the enigma surrounding Noh theater and the traditions that have made it intrinsic to Japanese culture for centuries and extracts the secrets of staged femininity and the mystery of perceived and expressed beauty.

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