Tsumura Kimiko: Google Doodle celebrates Japanese leading Noh actor’s 120th birthday

Google Doodle celebrates the life and 120th birthday of Tsumura Kimiko (津村紀三子), a Japanese actor, and playwright who was one of the first female figures in the world of Noh, on August 16, 2022.

Who was Kimiko Tsumura (津村紀三子)?

Tsumura Kimiko was born in Akashi, Japan on 16th August 1902. Noh is a sophisticated and mysterious artform of traditional Japanese theater where performers act, dance, chant, and play instruments while wearing exquisite masks and elaborate costumes. She separated obstructions in the once male-dominated work of art and presented new artistic qualities through her plays.

Very early age, Tsumura Kimiko decided to seek after the traditional theater in the wake of falling in love with playwriting. This would have been a challenge since girls in Tokyo in the mid-1900s were taught lessons in Noh yet were barred from professional productions.

At the point when she was seventeen, Tsumura Kimiko’s life took an intense turn when she became a student of Kanze Kasetsu, an established actor. During her studies, Tsumura learned and remembered every one of the two hundred classical Noh plays by heart. She was then offered the chance to travel to Busan, Korea, and educate, eventually constructing her standing as a skilled teacher. At nineteen, she unveiled her first public performance on stage.

Fresh insight about this performance reached her homeland and shocked the Nohgaku Association, which intervened and administered all Noh performances in Japan. Tsumura was ordered not to contact the association, and her teacher-student relationship with Kasetsu finished suddenly.

Unfitting to abandon her dream, Tsumura Kimiko looked to master each aspect of the work of art and opened up her own school, Ryokusen-Kai, when she got back to Japan in 1925. For the next fifty years, she composed and played out her very own few plays, traveling to and fro between Japan and Korea.

A large number of her students became regarded performers and proceeded with her legacy of love and admiration for the artform. Tsumura prepared for generations of female Noh actors to come, and her work is as yet celebrated and recognized today.

Kimiko Tsumura (津村紀三子) is also considered a pioneer of female Noh performers in the history of modern and contemporary Noh.

On August 16, 2022, Google featured a Doodle on its homepage for celebrating Kimiko Tsumura’s 120th Birthday.