How one woman is rewriting kabuki’s ‘all-male’ narrative in Japan

Out of the backstage shadows, an onnagata – the traditional female role in the Japanese traditional theatre art of kabuki – steals into the light. Her hair is swept high into a voluminous bun, framing a face veiled in a thin layer of porcelain-white powder. Touches of cherry blossom flush across her eyelids and lips. She glides across the starkly lit stage so weightlessly that her steps leave silence behind. With precision, she turns, twirls and looks into the distance, face perfectly...