Book Break

Gender Gymnastics: Performing and Consuming Japan's Takarazuka Revue

By Leonie Rae Stickland

Tuesday, September 8, 2009, 6:30PM to 8:30PM

(The speech and Q & A will be in English)

Across from Tokyo's Imperial Hotel in Yurakucho, groups of young women dressed in identical tops emblazoned with crests or cryptic slogans often are observed loitering in palpable anticipation outside a tall, narrow building somewhat reminiscent of New York's Radio City Music Hall. At intervals, they cleave in gleeful yet disciplined excitement as tall, slim, androgynous-looking women in flamboyant trousers and jackets-the much-adored male-role stars of Japan's oldest and largest all-female musical theatre company, the Takarazuka Revue-stride confidently among them on their way to or from the stage door.

These performers, together with their equally-talented but less-renowned female-role counterparts, are the product of a unique theatrical genre with almost a century of tradition, in which they learn how to mimic male or
female gender, which is not merely a natural offshoot of biological sex, but rather something that must be
rehearsed and perfected through repeated performance, both onstage and off. The lives and experiences of these
exceptional women, as well as of the fans that nurture and applaud them, form the focus of Stickland's book, Gender Gymnastics.

From nearly 40 years of engagement with Takarazuka-as a stage-struck teenager and would-be performer, a fan, a
translator and voice-actor for the Revue's English Earphone service, and ultimately an academic-Stickland has
marshalled her personal observations, archival research and exclusive interviews into a comprehensive volume
offering what critic Donald Richie, in The Japan Times, calls a 'near anthropological account of this singular
entertainment... [Stickland] answers all the questions you may have had about the performances, as well as realiz
[ing] her intention to explore the significance of gender in the Takarazuka production.'

Glimpses of the Revue can be accessed from the Company's official website: http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/

A dinner will be served at a cost of 1,850 yen (including tax). Sign up now at the reception desk (3211-3161) or
online at http://www.fccj.or.jp. To help us plan proper seating and food preparation, please reserve in advance,
preferably by noon of the day of the event. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats
are filled.

Reservations cancelled less than 24 hours in advance will be charged in full.

Library Committee, THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS' CLUB OF JAPAN

Book Break: Gender Gymnastics