Rakugo: Performing Comedy and Cultural Heritage in Contemporary Tokyo (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780739122464)

Rakugo introduces the storytelling genre of Edo-style rakugo as performed around the turn of the twenty-first century, focusing on the performers' image, training, and techniques and the art's contexts and audiences. Brau argues that, while storytellers' goal of making a hit with audiences sustains the art's vitality, rakugo has come to represent something more than simply popular entertainment: it is also regarded as the cultural heritage to which some Japanese may turn in a nostalgic search for identity.

Author: Lorie Brau
ISBN-10: 0739122460
ISBN-13: 9780739122464
Publisher: Lexington Books
Language: English
Published: 03/01/2008
Pages: 274
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.87h x 6.05w x 0.65d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 05/01/2008 pg. 322