Kyorakukan, Theatre building in Hitachi, Japan.
Kyorakukan is a theatre building in Hitachi, in northern Ibaraki Prefecture, built in the style of classical Japanese theatre during the Meiji era. It now sits within an open-air heritage site on the grounds of the former Hitachi mine.
The building was constructed in 1910 on the orders of Fusanosuke Kuhara, owner of the Hitachi mine, to give workers access to cultural entertainment. It is one of the few theatre buildings from that period still standing today.
The Kyorakukan is one of the few remaining theatres in Japan originally built to bring classical performing arts to mining workers. Today visitors can attend performances of kabuki or noh in a space that still carries that original sense of purpose.
The site where the theatre stands is an open-air museum that visitors can explore on foot. It is worth checking in advance whether a performance is scheduled on the day of your visit, as the building is not always in active use.
The Kyorakukan was not built for a city audience but specifically for the workers of an industrial site, making it a rare type of workers' theatre in Japan. The stage is built in the traditional kabuki style, with a hanamichi, a raised walkway running through the seating area.
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