I’m back with more notes! I’ve not been posting them for recent princes because, honestly, there hasn’t been anything that stuck out as needing explaining, or it’s a translation thing that I’ve discussed with other princes. That is not the case with Hanare.
Honestly this probably doesn’t need much attention, but I wanted to give it a go. Basically, I wanted to talk more about Hanare’s dance, which he calls 女舞 (onnamai). This is a kagura, a ceremonial dance performed during Shinto rituals (if you’ve heard of the Lion Dance, that’s considered a kagura). There are actually two major types of kagura: 舞 (mai) and 踊り (odori). An odori is full of energy, jumps, and fast paced, while the mai is slower, focusing on circular motions, quiet control, and elegance.
Hanare’s dance, 女舞 , breaks down as 女, woman, and 舞, mai. From this we know what kind of dance Hanare is performing, and we know that the dance is typically performed by a woman. This isn’t that surprising, considering it was often shrine maidens who would perform these dances. However, I can’t find much mention of men dancing these, at least traditionally. When searching the terminology, I find videos of women actually doing dances, rather than men dressed as women. This could be a Kuyou-specific thing then, rather than a Japanese cultural thing. But I’m no expert and this was really a cursory search into the matter. There’s a whole bunch more on the internet just about kagura itself and different dances, but this isn’t the place to go into that, so I recommend doing some research if you’re interested in it!