The actor Ichikawa Raizo II performing the Shakkyo Lion Dance

Ichikawa Raizō II raises a carved lion’s head mask on a stage set with hanging metal lanterns of the type found at Buddhist temples. The mask was used as part of a “lion dance” known as Shakkyō (“Stone Bridge”), derived from the Noh play by that name. In the play, based on an ancient Buddhist legend, a monk on a pilgrimage encounters a boy woodcutter. Later the youth appears to the monk as a lion (or two lions), performing a dance among peonies. Kabuki versions, popular in the eighteenth century, reenact the “lion dance” through the use of masks and peonies, the lion’s favorite flower — shown here decorating the actor’s outer robe.
Born in 1754, Raizō II would have been in his late teens at the time this print was made. This sheet of the “lion dance” probably once formed the left half of a diptych, where it was likely paired with an image of an actor dancing in a female role from the same performance.