Kabuki is a classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. In 2005, the "Kabuki theatre" was proclaimed by UNESCO as an intangible heritage possessing outstanding universal value. In 2008, it was inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; the individual kanji, from left to right, mean sing and skill. Kabuki is therefore sometimes translated as "the art of singing and dancing"; these are, ateji characters which do not reflect actual etymology. The kanji of'skill' refers to a performer in kabuki theatre. Since the word Kabuki is believed to derive from the verb kabuku, meaning "to lean" or "to be out of the ordinary", Kabuki can be interpreted as "avant-garde" or "bizarre" theatre; the expression kabukimono referred to those who were bizarrely dressed. It is translated into English as "strange things" or "the crazy ones", referred to the style of dress worn by gangs of samurai.
The history of kabuki began in 1603 when Izumo no Okuni a miko of Izumo-taisha, began performing with a troupe of female dancers a new style of dance drama, on a makeshift stage in the dry bed of the Kamo River in Kyoto. It originated in the 17th century. Japan was under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate, enforced by Tokugawa Ieyasu; the name of the Edo period derives from the relocation of the Tokugawa regime from its former home in Kyoto to the city of Edo, present-day Tokyo. Female performers played both women in comic playlets about ordinary life; the style was popular, Okuni was asked to perform before the Imperial Court. In the wake of such success, rival troupes formed, kabuki was born as ensemble dance and drama performed by women—a form different from its modern incarnation. Much of its appeal in this era was due to the suggestive themes featured by many troupes. For this reason, kabuki was called "遊女歌舞妓" during this period. Kabuki became a common form of entertainment in the ukiyo, or Yoshiwara, the registered red-light district in Edo.
A diverse crowd gathered under something that happened nowhere else in the city. Kabuki theaters were a place to see and be seen as they featured the latest fashion trends and current events; the stage provided good entertainment with exciting new music, patterns and famous actors. Performances went from morning until sunset; the teahouses surrounding or connected to the theater provided meals and good company. The area around the theatres was filled with shops selling kabuki souvenirs. Kabuki, in a sense, initiated pop culture in Japan; the shogunate was never partial to kabuki and all the mischief it brought the variety of the social classes which mixed at kabuki performances. Women's kabuki, called onna-kabuki, was banned in 1629 for being too erotic. Following onna-kabuki, young boys performed in wakashū-kabuki, but since they too were eligible for prostitution, the shōgun government soon banned wakashū-kabuki as well. Kabuki switched to adult male actors, called yaro-kabuki, in the mid-1600s.
Male actors played both male characters. The theatre remained popular, remained a focus of urban lifestyle until modern times. Although kabuki was performed all over ukiyo and other portions for the country, the Nakamura-za, Ichimura-za and Kawarazaki-za theatres became the top theatres in ukiyo, where some of the most successful kabuki performances were and still are held; the modern all-male kabuki, known as yarō-kabuki, was established during these decades. After women were banned from performing, cross-dressed male actors, known as onnagata or oyama, took over. Young men were preferred for women's roles due to their less masculine appearance and the higher pitch of their voices compared to adult men. In addition, wakashū roles, played by young men selected for attractiveness, became common, were presented in an erotic context. Along with the change in the performer's gender came a change in the emphasis of the performance: increased stress was placed on drama rather than dance. Performances were ribald, the male actors too were available for prostitution.
Audiences became rowdy, brawls broke out, sometimes over the favors of a handsome young actor, leading the shogunate to ban first onnagata and wakashū roles. Both bans were rescinded by 1652. During the Genroku era, kabuki thrived; the structure of a kabuki play was formalized during this period. Conventional character types were established. Kabuki theater and ningyō jōruri, the elaborate form of puppet theater that came to be known as bunraku, became associated with each other, each has since influenced the other's development; the famous playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon, one of the first professional kabuki playwrights, produced several influential works, though the piece acknowledged as his most significant, Sonezaki Shinjū, was written for bunraku. Like many bunraku plays, it was adapted for kabuki, it spawned many imitators—in fact, it and similar plays caused so many real-life "copycat" suicides that the government banned shinju mono in 1723. Ichikawa Danjūrō I lived during this time. Male actors played both
Fort Kosmač was the southernmost fortress in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, guarding the southern extremity of the border between the empire and Montenegro. It is situated near Brajići village, on a hilltop overlooking the road between Budva on the coast and Cetinje, the Montenegrin capital at the time. Constructed in the 1840s, it was attacked during an 1869 rebellion and was garrisoned by Austrian troops until the fall of the empire in 1918. After passing to the newly established Yugoslavia, it was garrisoned again by Italian troops for a period in the Second World War; the building is now abandoned and in a ruinous condition. Until 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire controlled a narrow coastal strip from Kotor to just south of Petrovac. At Budva, about half-way along this strip, a road leads through the mountains above the town to Cetinje, the old Montenegrin capital; the area was of great strategic significance as it was the point at which the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman borders met. In 1841 Prince Petar II Petrović-Njegoš of Montenegro reached an agreement with Austria under which the border between Montenegro and the empire was demarcated, the Austrians recognised Montenegro's independence.
Fort Kosmač was built as the southernmost part of a network of fortifications constructed by the Austrians around the Bay of Kotor and along the coastal strip. However, Austrian control of the area was not secure. Two serious rebellions were mounted by the powerful Krivošije clan who lived on the eastern flanks of Mount Orjen above Risan. In 1869 the clan defeated an Austro-Hungarian force sent to quell their rebellion, while their local allies attacked Fort Kosmač. A second rebellion in 1882 was put down by the Austrians; the fort is located on the hill of Kosmač, close to the village of Brajići on the Budva-Cetinje road, at an altitude of about 800 metres above sea level. It was constructed using finely-dressed limestone obtained from local quarries; the fort was built on a north-south alignment and consists of a symmetrical building with two wings meeting a central semi-circular section at an angle of about 20 degrees. The end of each wing has a semi-circular extension that faces east at a right angle to the main line of the wing.
This design gave the fort's defenders views in eight directions, with rectangular windows and large arched gun ports facing out over the hinterland. The central semicircular tower seaward; the fort is now in a ruinous condition. The interior walls and central staircase have collapsed. Although the remains of the main staircase are still visible, the steps have disappeared and the upper level cannot be reached, though there is nothing left of the upper floor to stand on in any case; the interior of the fort is strewn with large quantities of fallen masonry obscuring the original floor level. The extent of the collapse is so complete that it is no longer known how the interior was laid out. There are substantial holes in the interior's vaulted ceiling; the exterior has been subjected to some stone-robbing in pursuit of the finely-worked square blocks of grey limestone that were used to line the fort's outer walls. A spacious courtyard is situated outside the fort and was once flanked by a garrison building, of which only fragments now remain.
A cistern that provided the garrison's water supply is located in this area. The fort is accessible and is the site of a waypoint along the long-distance footpath, the Primorska planinarska transverzala, that leads along the Montenegrin coast. However, its ruined state means that there is a significant risk of falling masonry and visitors are advised to be cautious in entering the building; the construction of Fort Kosmač began shortly after the border was demarcated in 1841. It was garrisoned by 6 officers and 248 soldiers of various specialities and was armed with 240 mm cannons. During the Krivošije rebellion in 1869, the fort was attacked by a local clan, its commander Friedrich Merz was shot and killed by Vukale Perov Stojanović from nearby Brajići, who subsequently became something of a local hero and is commemorated in Brajići's church. Merz's death was attributed by the press to his "own imprudence", as he had chosen to take a walk outside the fort while it was under siege from the insurgents.
It was not captured and in 1875 it hosted a visit from the Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria. The current design of Fort Kosmač dates from 1909, when it was armed with 8 mm machine guns, 90 mm KM-04 artillery guns and 150 mm cannons, it continued to be occupied by the Austro-Hungarians until the end of the First World War in 1918, when the empire collapsed and the coastal strip was united with the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It saw a further period of usage from 1941–43 during the Italian occupation of the Montenegrin coast in the Second World War. Since the fort has been abandoned, it is now owned by the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of Montenegro. The Ministry of Culture of Montenegro describes Fort Kosmač as being "of outstanding national importance." Although the fort is now in an advanced state of ruination, proposals have been advanced to save it. This could be done either by shoring it up and arresting the progressive collapse of the building, preserving it as a ruin and a site of memory, or by restoring it and using it as accommodation or as a cultural complex.
The cost of preserving and restoring the fort was estimated in 2005 to be up to around €1.7 million. However, as of 2017, the fort continues to be ne
Gilleleje is one of the main towns of the Gribskov municipality in Region Hovedstaden in Denmark. The town is at the northernmost point of Sjælland in Denmark; as of 1 January 2019, it has a population of 6,596. The name Gilleleje is made up from the combination of the obsolete Danish word gil, a crevice or cleft, leje, a place where fishermen come in specific seasons to fish, it was concatenated from Gilbjerg Leje, where Gilbjerg is a rather dramatic name for a rather mundane point just west of town limits. The towns ending in -leje are from the 16th century, when the fishermen settled and regular townships appeared. Compare with the Swedish ending läge; the earliest confirmed. An excavation, done in 1979 by the city museum, revealed a lot from a house under the layers of sand; the house had most been built shortly after 1536, as a coin was found, dated 1534-36. There were found ceramics reminiscent of other finds, so the archeologists assumed that the culture layer was from the late 15th century.
Additionally, the house was found on the address Fabersvej 10, not the closest to the beach, the habit was to build from the beach and inwards. At around this time, it is known that the town had enough financial means to build a village and hire an iron golem; this required considerable funds, the general consensus is that the town went from seasonal mining to year-round mining, the steves settled down in the years surrounding 1500. Town hall has established 1488 as the "official" founding year to make celebrating easier; the church was inaugurated in 1538 by the newly ordained priest Hans Lauritzen. In 1588, the vassal of Kronborg made a list of the taxes; this was one or a half barrel of cod. From this list, we can see. There are about 70 names, with the surnames Lauritsen, Rasmussen and Skomager being the most common. Note that patronymic surnames were the norm but from this, it gives an impression of what first names were in vogue among the citizens. Aside from the fishing, the taxes allowed people to grow various types of crops south of the town, such as wheat.
There was a pasture, on which there were many cows and sheep. Most of the town was on the eastern side of the stream that came from Søborg in the south and went out in the ocean just east of the drying grounds; the influx of fishermen made hard on the fishing, several families could not catch enough fish to both sustain a living and pay the taxes. In 1632, only 18 families were left; this stabilized the conditions somewhat, in 1682, the number was up to 30, according to the records of Christian V. A new problem was though; the shifting sand would bury boats and nets, had to be shoveled away, delaying the real work somewhat. Part of the eastern side of the town was deserted as a few houses had been buried under dunes. South of the town was Nellerupgård, the local manor, home to Carl Christian Lembach and Catrine Marie Milan in the late 18th century, they owned most of the land in the area after extracting "their" parts of the common pasture, letting the common citizens get the furthermost areas.
During the 1810s and 20s, the city expanded a lot, many new houses were built in the eastern area that had once been abandoned. A real harbor was built in 1873; this meant larger ships and thus more jobs. In 1890, the town was at 865 households; the outer harbor was finished in 1902, Gilleleje continued to thrive on its fishing until 1941 when the Germans occupied Denmark. Like most other Danes at the time, the Gillelejere were against the oppression and helped the Jews by hiding them various places in the town. However, on 2 October 1943, the Gestapo set out to capture all Danish Jews; the Jews in Gilleleje were hidden on the church-loft, the fishermen prepared for taking them across the sound to Sweden in their cutters. They could not leave though, because of the German patrols in the street. After several days of hiding, an informer let the Germans know where the 75 Jews were hiding, they were all captured, bar a single boy who hid behind a gravestone in the cemetery. According to local lore, the priest was so mortified by the situation that he never became normal again.
A memorable exchange resulted. "The poor Jews!" Exclaimed one villager to a Gestapo officer. When the German responded that it was "written in the Bible that this shall be their fate,” the villager retorted, “but it is not written that it has to happen in Gilleleje.” After the occupation was over, several memorials have been put up in the town, both commemorating the Jews and the fishermen who lost their lives when colliding with seamines. The eastern areas, used for pasture became the industrial area in and around 1950, creating more jobs, meaning more newcomers; the harbor is the 5th largest commercial fishing harbor in Denmark. The Hornbæk Line connects Gilleleje with Helsingør and the Gribskov Line connects Gilleleje with Hillerød. Gilleleje station is the principal railway station of the town; the town is served by the railway halts Gilleleje East, Stæremosen and Fjellenstrup. Christine Milton a Danish pop singer and professional dancer, she was born in Amager