Rakugo Performance

The performance will be in Japanese with English subtitles and will be followed by a Q&A with the performer. 

Register | FREE, but space is limited. Please register in advance. 

Join the Center for the East Asian Studies for an exciting evening of Japanese storytelling, presented in conjunction with Meiji Modern at the Smart Museum of Art. 

Performed by a single storyteller who brings to life multiple characters through gesture and voice, rakugo is a dynamic storytelling tradition with 200+ years of history in Japan. While it is perhaps most known today for its brief and comic stories, it has a long legacy of moving tales of human emotion and frightening ghost stories. For this event, Ponta has specially prepared a thrilling piece by San’yūtei Enchō I (1839–1900), the most influential rakugo storyteller of the Meiji period, whose stories captured the atmosphere and dynamism of Japanese society at the end of the nineteenth century. 

While the essential elements of rakugo are quite basic—one performer, a fan, a tenugui towel, and a story—the skill of rakugo performers have used these simple elements to develop a performance tradition with a staggering variety of narratives and rich expressive gestures which has lost none of its relevance, humor, or entertainment over its hundreds of years of history. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago, with support from a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the Global Voices Program at International House, and the Japan Business Society of Detroit.