<P> Japan, after a long period of civil wars and political disarray, was unified and at peace primarily due to shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543--1616). However, alarmed at increasing Christian growth, he cut off contact from Japan to Europe and China and outlawed Christianity . When peace did come, a flourish of cultural influence and growing merchant class demanded its own entertainment . The first form of theatre to flourish was Ningyō jōruri (commonly referred to as Bunraku). The founder of and main contributor to Ningyō jōruri, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653--1725), turned his form of theatre into a true art form . Ningyō jōruri is a highly stylized form of theatre using puppets, today about 1 / 3d the size of a human . The men who control the puppets train their entire lives to become master puppeteers, when they can then operate the puppet's head and right arm and choose to show their faces during the performance . The other puppeteers, controlling the less important limbs of the puppet, cover themselves and their faces in a black suit, to imply their invisibility . The dialogue is handled by a single person, who uses varied tones of voice and speaking manners to simulate different characters . Chikamatsu wrote thousands of plays during his career, most of which are still used today . They wore masks instead of elaborate makeup . Masks define their gender, personality, and moods the actor is in . </P> <P> Kabuki began shortly after Bunraku, legend has it by an actress named Okuni, who lived around the end of the 16th century . Most of Kabuki's material came from Nõ and Bunraku, and its erratic dance - type movements are also an effect of Bunraku . However, Kabuki is less formal and more distant than Nõ, yet very popular among the Japanese public . Actors are trained in many varied things including dancing, singing, pantomime, and even acrobatics . Kabuki was first performed by young girls, then by young boys, and by the end of the 16th century, Kabuki companies consisted of all men . The men who portrayed women on stage were specifically trained to elicit the essence of a woman in their subtle movements and gestures . </P> <P> Butoh is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the Ankoku - Butoh (暗黒 舞踏, ankoku butō) movement . It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper - controlled motion, with or without an audience . There is no set style, and it may be purely conceptual with no movement at all . Its origins have been attributed to Japanese dance legends Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno . Butoh appeared first in Japan following World War II and specifically after student riots . The roles of authority were now subject to challenge and subversion . It also appeared as a reaction against the contemporary dance scene in Japan, which Hijikata felt was based on the one hand on imitating the West and on the other on imitating the Noh . He critiqued the current state of dance as overly superficial . </P> <P> The most popular forms of theatre in the medieval Islamic world were puppet theatre (which included hand puppets, shadow plays and marionette productions) and live passion plays known as ta'ziya, in which actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history . In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the shaheed (martyrdom) of Ali's sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali . Secular plays known as akhraja were recorded in medieval adab literature, though they were less common than puppetry and ta'ziya theatre . </P>

Who made up the french and english royal era theatre audiences