Rankei Fujima

Fujima Rankei was a Japanese dancer and choreographer known for her dedication to the preservation and transmission of classical tradition. Her teacher—and mother—Fujima Fujiko (1907–1998) was a leading postwar dancer and choreographer and the first woman to be designated a Living National Treasure (Important Intangible Cultural Property holder) in the field of kabuki. Within this lineage—also known as the Daichi branch—Fujima Kanpachi, her daughter Fujiko, and Rankei all held key roles in the Fujima school and were deeply engaged in training and choreographing kabuki actors.

Since the Edo period, kabuki’s codified patterns of movement, direction, breath and others—its kata—have been transmitted primarily bodily and orally among actors and choreographers— a practice known as furi-watashi (“handing over” of choreography). During the reforms of the Meiji era, calls to “improve” the theater sometimes pressed against Edo kabuki conventions, yet Fujima Kan’emon II championed the preservation and refinement of classical kata. He contributed choreography to Ichikawa Danjūrō IX in Shunkyō Kagami Jishi (Kagamijishi) and Sagi Musume, as well as to leading actors including Ichimura Uzaemon, Onoe Baikō, and Onoe Kikugorō VI. From that position, he served as a technical committee member of the Japan Performing Arts Association (Nihon Engei Kyōkai) associated with Okakura Tenshin and others, thereby contributing—beyond the stage—to the preservation and dissemination of classical practice. As Onoe Shōroku II later recalled in writing, Kan’emon II’s distinguished disciple Fujima Kanpachi subsequently assumed that instructional role.
Within this lineage—Kanpachi, Fujiko, and Rankei—the choreographies they transmitted became performance standards throughout the twentieth century. Productions by Nakamura Utaemon VI of Tsumoru Koi Yuki no Seki no To (Seki no To) and Shinobi Yoru Koi ha Kusemono (Masakado) were structured in accordance with that inherited choreographic line.

(References)
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Tsubouchi, Shōyō. Shōyō senshū (Collected Works of Shōyō), vol. 12. Tokyo: Shunyōdō, 1927, pp. 632–633.
Ihara, Toshirō. Meiji engeki-shi (A History of Meiji-Period Theater). Tokyo: Waseda University Press, 1933, p. 399.
Tsubouchi Shōyō Meisaku Buyō Taikai” Centenary Festival [program booklet]. Tokyo: Waseda University Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, 1959.
Onoe, Shōroku II. Odori no kokoro (The Heart of Dance). Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1971, p. 19.
Onoe, Shōroku II. Yakusha no ko wa yakusha (An Actor’s Child Is an Actor). Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha, 1976, pp. 23–24.
American Tour: 1982 Grand Kabuki. New York: Metropolitan Opera Association, 1982, p. 25.
Ishii, Kuniyuki. Buyō Fujima no rekishi (The History of the Fujima School of Dance). Tokyo: Ishii Kuniyuki Ikō Hensan Iinkai, 1984.
Ningen kokuhō: Geinō—Buyō (Living National Treasures: Performing Arts—Dance). Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 2006.