TALK: Kabuki: Japan's Total Theatre
Leonard Pronko (Theatre, Pomona College)
Thursday, April 19 / 5:00 PM
McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020
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Leonard Pronko will discuss the history and aesthetics
of kabuki, performing in English several short scenes,
and demonstrating some of the fundamental movement
of kabuki. He will show a number of short videos
of famous moments, featuring movement, speech or other
important elements of kabuki production.
Pronko is professor of theatre at Pomona College where
he has directed kabuki in English since 1965. He
is the author of numerous books including Theatre East
and West and Avant-garde and has been awarded the Order
of the Sacred Treasure from the Japanese government,
a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for kabuki,
and in 1997 the Association for Theatre in Higher
Education Award for Outstanding Teacher of Theatre
in Higher Education. Pronko was the first westerner
to study at the National Theatre of Japanís
Kabuki Training Program, where he spent fifteen months. He
continues to teach courses on Kabuki Dance, Asian Theatre
and 20th century drama - From Ibsen to the Absurd. He
has directed dozens of plays ranging from Racine, through
Schiller, Oscar Wilde, and Ibsen to the comedies of
Shaw, Anouilh and Duerrenmatt. In 2006 he was
elected to the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Performance Studies Research
Focus Group
