Okuni Kabuki

The screen shows a raucous street scene in the entertainment quarter of Kyoto and a performance by Izumo no Okuni, the shrine priestess credited as the founder of the Kabuki theater. Okuni, dressed as a samurai, is performing one of her most famous skits, “Teahouse Entertainments” (“Chaya asobi”). She and her “male” attendant (who is played by a woman) perform a dance directed toward the owner of a teahouse. This screen could be by the hand of an artist from the school of Iwasa Matabei.