Female Deities, Dancers and Impersonators: from Mythology to Kabuki Theatre

This book explores the role of women in the history of theatre and the processes of construction of ‘ideal’ female body, gender and sexuality onstage. It traces the journey of the female body and its representations in the performative space from Greek and Japanese mythologies to the Japanese all-male kabuki theatre.

Galia Todorova Petkova has been teaching and conducting research on Asian and Japanese traditional performing arts at universities in Europe, Canada, Indonesia, and Japan for over 20 years.  She earned her PhD in Japanese Studies from SOAS, University of London. She has been in receipt of grants from Open Society Foundation, Japan Foundation, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Her research interests are performing arts in Asia, focusing on Japan, and gender studies – cultural re/presentation of gender and construction of idea(l)s of femininity and masculinity in performative space. Since 2019, she teaches courses on Japanese culture and traditional performing arts at universities in Japan.