Line number: SHODAI (I)

Existence: 1700 ~ 13th day of the 7th lunar month of 1757

Connections:

Grandfather: Sadoshima Dembei

Father: Sadoshima Dempachi

Disciples: Sadoshima Chôgorô II (???), Sadoshima Chôzô

Career:

1700: born in Kamigata. Son of the dôkegata Sadoshima Dempachi and grandson of Sadoshima Dembei, who headed one of the Onna Kabuki ("Woman Kabuki") companies in Kyôto. He starts his career at the end of the Shôtoku era, performing in Ôsaka as a wakashugata.

An interesting story about Chôgorô's youth:
"Ever since my fifth year I was taught dancing by my father Dempachi. He took me to Edo and had me do a doll act on a go board. We had engagements all over the place, and worked from Spring to the ninth month. I attracted the attention of a certain gentleman and was frequently summoned by him to dance my go board dance. So great was his regard for me that he ordered some pottery figures of myself sitting on a go board to be made in Hizen, and they pleased him so much that he had three of them made and delivered to him. When we were travelling to Kyôto in the tenth month of that year, word got around about my go board doll dance, and I was asked to do it at every inn we stayed at. I always complied with these requests. When I reached my ninth year I was no longer able to perform on a go board." (from "The Actors' Analects" by Dunn and Torigoe)

1st lunar month of 1720: Chôgorô plays in Kyôto at Miyako Mandayû's theater in the new year drama "Keisei Hachimannichi". He achieves a great success by performing the dance "Nichô Tsuzumi". The origin of this dance is quite interesting: while on tour in Ise, Chôgorô had almost no musician with him and only one instrument, a kotsuzumi (shoulder drum). Chôgorô cut a piece of bamboo and made an ôtsuzumi (hip drum) out of it. He decided to call this short dance "Nichô Tsuzumi", which literally means "the two drums".

11th lunar month of 1720: Chôgorô plays at the Kado no Shibai in the kaomise drama "Hana Yakata Chibikizuru", which is produced by Kirinoya Gonjûrô I.

Summer 1730: tour in the Yamato province with Sugiyama Kanzaemon III.

Fall 1731: Chôgorô goes to Edo.

11th lunar month of 1731: Chôgorô plays at the Nakamuraza the role of En'ya Hangan in the kaomise drama "Wagô Ichiji Taiheiki". He successfully performs within this drama a dance called "Kantan".

1st lunar month of 1732: Chôgorô plays in the same theater the role of Soga Jûrô in the new year sogamono "Hatsugoyomi Ainai Soga". His stage partners in the roles of Soga Gorô and Kudô Saemon Suketsune are Ogino Izaburô I and Sawamura Sôjûrô I.

1741: Chôgorô sends an invitation to Ichikawa Ebizô II (and his adopted son Ichikawa Danjûrô III) to perform in Ôsaka in his theater. The Edo star "demanded an enormous salary for those days, something quite out of the ordinary in the way of remuneration. And Sadoshima Chôgorô, thinking that Ebizô would never ask such a sum unless he had something startling to offer, did not hesitate to comply with the extraordinary request" (Zoë Kincaid in "Kabuki, the Popular Stage of Japan"). The sum is 2,000 ryô!

11th lunar month of 1741: Chôgorô produces at the Ônishi no Shibai the kaomise drama "Bankoku Taiheiki", which includes the "Uirô Uri" scene and stars Ichikawa Ebizô II, Ichikawa Danjûrô III, Yamamoto Kyôshirô I, Arashi Shichigorô I, Onoe Kikugorô I, Yamashita Kinsaku I, Nakamura Jirôsa I, Bandô Toyosaburô I, Shibazaki Taminosuke, Yamanaka Heijûrô II and Yamatogawa Akashi.

1st lunar month of 1742: premiere at the Ônishi no Shibai of the drama "Narukami Fudô Kitayama Zakura", which is produced by Chôgorô [casting].

Fall 1747: Chôgorô goes to Edo.

11th lunar month of 1747: Chôgorô performs at the Moritaza in the kaomise drama "Aruji Môke Onna Hachinoki".

1748: Chôgorô goes back to Kyôto, retires from the Kabuki world and takes the tonsure. His new name is Renchibô and he settles in front of the famous Kenninji Temple. Later on, he goes to Ôsaka and dies there in the 7th lunar month of 1757. His tombstone is located in the precincts of the Yakuôji Temple.

Comments:

"This Sadoshima Chôgorô was the son of Dempachi, a dôkegata, or comedian, and a dancer of great skill who was prominent just before Genroku. Chôgorô was fortunate in having such an experienced stage father, and he was soon apprenticed to dancing. The chroniclers of Kabuki tell how the father taught the boy to dance on the goban, or small table used for playing go, the national chess game. The child was often summoned by persons of high degree to take part in entertainments, and once a prince ordered an artist to make a model of him dancing on the goban. He never seriously competed for a place among the actors, but long remained Kabuki's most famous dancing teacher. When he reached old age he shaved his head and retired from the world, taking up his abode in front of Kenninji, a Buddhist temple of Kyôto. Sadoshima Chôgorô left one of Kabuki's literary treasures, the "Sadoshima Nikki", or "Journal of Sadoshima", in which he disclosed the secrets of shosagoto. He criticised the actors of his time as having gone astray from the true path of dramatic art, and reflected in his writing the change that had already set in--the beginning of the decline of Kabuki, for the brilliancy of the Genroku period and the progress of Hôreki were not repeated in the years that followed." (Zoë Kincaid in "Kabuki, the Popular Stage of Japan")

Sadoshima Chôgorô I performing in the kaomise drama "Bankoku Taiheiki", which he produced in the 11th lunar month of 1741 at the Ônishi no Shibai