Geisha
Geisha, also known as or, are female Japanese performing artists and entertainers trained in traditional Japanese performing arts styles, such as dance, music and singing, as well as being proficient conversationalists and hosts. Their distinct appearance is characterised by long, trailing kimono, traditional hairstyles and make-up. Geisha entertain at parties known as, often for the entertainment of wealthy clientele, as well as performing on stage and at festivals.
The first female geisha appeared in 1751, with geisha before that time being male performers who entertained guests. Only later did the profession become mainly characterised by female workers.
The arts that geisha perform are considered highly developed and, in some cases, unique throughout Japan to the world of geisha. For example, the Gion district of Kyoto is the only district wherein the style of Japanese traditional dance is taught. This style of dance is taught solely to the geisha within the district by the Inoue school, with the school's former head, Inoue Yachiyo, having been classified as a "Living National Treasure" by the Government of Japan, the highest artistic award attainable in the country, in 1955.
Etymology and terminology
A number of terms are used to describe the profession and community that geisha both live and work in. Though each has its own distinct meaning and translation, some are used interchangeably to describe the geisha community on the whole, such as and.History
Origins
In the early stages of Japanese history, were mostly wandering girls whose families had been displaced by war. Some of these girls offered sexual services for money while others made a living by entertaining at high-class social gatherings.After the imperial court moved the capital to Heian-kyō in 794, aspects of now-traditional Japanese art forms and aesthetic ideals began to develop, which would later contribute to the conditions under which the geisha profession emerged. Skilled female performers, such as dancers, thrived under the Imperial court, creating the traditions of female dance and performance that would later lead to both the development of geisha and kabuki actors.
During the Heian period, ideals surrounding relationships with women, sexual or otherwise, did not emphasise fidelity, with marriage within the Heian court considered a relatively casual arrangement. Men were not expected to be faithful to their wives, while women were expected to remain faithful to their husbands. The ideal wife instead was seen as a modest mother who managed the affairs of the house, following Confucian customs wherein love had secondary importance to the other roles a wife fulfilled within the marriage. As such, courtesans—who provided not only sexual enjoyment, but also romantic attachment and artistic entertainment—were seen both as an outlet for men and as common companions.Though geisha would not appear until the 1800s, the role and status of courtesans as artistic and romantic entertainers were a tradition that geisha came to inherit, with the basic artforms of entertaining guests through song, dance and conversation being employed and adapted to contemporary tastes by geisha.
Walled-in pleasure quarters known as were built in the 16th century, with the shogunate designating prostitution illegal to practice outside of these "pleasure quarters" in 1617. Within the pleasure quarters, – a term used to refer to prostitutes as a whole – were classified and licensed, the upper echelons of which were referred to as, a category with its own internal ranks, the highest of which being the.
Though women in the lower ranks of did not provide as much artistic entertainment as they did sexual,, whilst still prostitutes, also included the traditional arts as a key aspect of their entertainment, their practice of which differed considerably from those of geisha. As were considered to be low-ranking members of the nobility, the instruments they played and the songs they sang were often confined to those considered "respectable" enough for the upper classes. This typically meant that sang long, traditional ballads, and played instruments such as the and the .
Some miko and wandering female performers also performed theatrical plays, dances and skits. One such person was Izumo no Okuni, whose theatrical performances on the dry riverbed of the Kamo River are considered to be the beginnings of kabuki theatre.
18th-century emergence of the geisha
Following their inception by the shogunate in the 17th century, the pleasure quarters quickly became popular entertainment centres that developed their own additional forms of entertainment outside of sex. The highly accomplished courtesans of these districts entertained their clients by dancing, singing, and playing music. Some were renowned poets and calligraphers as well; the development of the cultural arts of the pleasure quarters led to the rise in being considered to be the celebrities of their day.Around the turn of the 18th-century, the first geisha, or forerunners of geisha, performing for guests of the pleasure quarters began to appear; these entertainers, who provided song and dance, developed from a number of sources. Some geisha, who were something of travelling entertainers going from party to party, were men, who would entertain the customers of courtesans through song and dance. At the same time, the forerunners of female geisha, the teenage, developed trained and hired as chaste dancers-for-hire within these teahouses. Further still, some courtesans, whose contracts within the pleasure quarters had ended, chose to stay on to provide musical entertainment to guests, making use of the skills they had formerly developed as part of their job.
In the 1680s, had become popular entertainers and were often paid to perform in the private homes of upper-class samurai. These dancing girls, who were too young to be called geisha but too old to be called odoriko, began to be called geiko. By the early 18th-century, lots of these had also begun offering sexual services as well as chaste performances. Performers who were no longer teenagers. At that time, the word "geiko" became synonymous with illegal prostitute.
The first woman known to have called herself "geisha" was a prostitute from Fukagawa, roughly around 1750, who had become a skilled singer and player. The geisha, who took the name of Kikuya, became an immediate success, bringing greater popularity to the idea of female geisha.Following Kikuya's success as a geisha, many girls began to make names for themselves as talented musicians, dancers or poets, instead of becoming prostitutes. In the next two decades, female geisha became well known for their talents as entertainers in their own right; these performers often worked in the same establishments as male geisha.
Geisha in the 19th-century to present day
By 1800, the profession of geisha was understood to be almost entirely female, and was established as a distinct role in its own right; however, geisha were, throughout various points within the Edo period, unable to work outside of the pleasure quarters, being affected by reforms aimed at either limiting or shutting down the pleasure quarters. These reforms were often inconsistent, and were repealed at various times.Once established as an independent profession, a number of edicts were then introduced in order to protect the business of courtesans and separate the two professions. Geisha were firstly forbidden from selling sex, though many continued to do so; if a courtesan accused a geisha of stealing her customers and business of sex and entertainment, an official investigation was opened, with the potential for a geisha to lose her right to practice the profession. Geisha were also forbidden from wearing particularly flashy hairpins or kimono, both of which were hallmarks of higher-ranking courtesans, who were considered to be a part of the upper classes.
Despite their official status as lower-class entertainers, geisha continued to grow in popularity. While courtesans existed to meet the needs of upper-class men and prostitutes met the sexual needs of lower-class men, this left a gap of skilled and refined entertainers for the emerging merchant classes, who, though wealthy, were unable to access courtesans because of their social class.
The status of courtesans as celebrities and arbiters of fashion had also waned considerably. The art forms they practiced had become stiffly-cherished relics of the upper classes, as had their manner of speech and their increasingly gaudy appearance. In contrast, had begun to successfully establish themselves as worldly, cutting-edge entertainers, more artistically daring than their cloistered, indentured cousins, and able to come and go and dress as they pleased.
This popularity was then increased by the introduction of various laws intended to clamp down on and regulate the lower classes – in particular, the emerging merchant classes who had established themselves as the premiere patrons of geisha. Both had, over time, come to hold much of the purchasing power within Japan, with their status as lower class allowing them a degree of freedom in their tastes of dress and entertainment, in contrast to upper-class families who had little choice but to appear in a manner deemed respectable to their status.
As the tastes of the merchant classes for kabuki and geisha became widely popular, laws introduced to effectively neuter the appearances and tastes of geisha and their customers were passed. This, however, had the adverse effect of leading to the rise in popularity of more refined and subversive aesthetical senses within those classes, further alienating courtesans and their patrons from popularity and contemporary taste; the introduction of laws on dress only furthered the popularity of geisha as refined and fashionable companions for men. As a result, over time, courtesans of both higher and lower ranks began to fall out of fashion, seen as gaudy and old-fashioned.
By the 1830s, geisha were considered to be the premiere fashion and style icons in Japanese society, and were emulated by women of the time. Many fashion trends started by geisha soon became widely popular, with some continuing to this day; the wearing of by women, for example, was first started by geisha from the Tokyo of Fukagawa in the early 1800s.
There were considered to be many classifications and ranks of geisha, though some were colloquial or closer to a tongue-in-cheek nicknames than an official ranking. Some geisha would sleep with their customers, whereas others would not, leading to distinctions such as geisha – a geisha who slept with customers as well as entertaining them through performing arts – and geisha, whose only entertainment for male customers was sex, and geisha, who did not, officially and in reality, sleep with customers at all.
By the end of the 19th-century, courtesans no longer held the celebrity status they once did.
This trend would continue until the criminalisation of prostitution in Japan in 1956.