One evening we went to a show depicting 5 different kinds of Japanese performances in 1 hour. I guess most tourists are on a pretty tight time schedule. Not shown here is Ikebana, the art of flower arranging, which in our opinion really should not be shown as a performing art but I guess they had to fill the hour.... These women are playing the Koto.

This guy is preforming Gagaku, which is a strange/special dance done very slowly to kind of annoying high pitched 'court music.' We liked his costume but were happy it only lasted for about 7 minutes.

These guys were in a performance called Kyogen which is a traditional comic play. They are tied up because their master thinks they will steal his Sake while he goes to town. And of course they do steal his sake even though they are tied up they get totally drunk before their master comes back. This one was Jay's favorite, the acting was pretty good.

This performance was the most interesting and is called Bunraku. Three men all in black control the movements of this large puppet. Apparently they train for years to get the movements just right. It was pretty cool to watch.