Actors Segawa Kikunojô III as Yasukata and Iwai Hanshirô IV as Utôin Performing a Hobbyhorse Dance (Harugoma odori) in “The Fifth Genji Mitsugi’s Robe (“Godai Genji Mitsugi no Furisode”)

This Katsukawa Shunsho diptych shows the two leading onnagata of the Nakamura troupe -- Segawa Kikunojo III as Yasukata and Iwai Hanshiro IV as Utoin -- performing a harugoma odori, or hobbyhorse dance, in Godai Genji Mitsugi no Furisode, the eleventh-month 1782 production at the Nakamura Theater. The harugoma was a stylised New Year-themed dance featuring small wooden hobbyhorses on poles, and its inclusion in the play gave the two female-role specialists a spectacular paired dance interlude. Shunsho coordinates his two hosoban sheets so that the dancers' gestures, kimono patterns and hobbyhorses interlock across the join, producing a unified composition that nonetheless preserves the individualised likeness of each player. By 1782 the Katsukawa school's dominance of Edo ukiyo-e actor portraiture was at its peak, and multi-sheet yakusha-e of major kaomise productions were among its principal commercial successes. This impression is held in the Art Institute of Chicago. It illustrates not only Shunsho's command of compositional pairing but also the way late eighteenth-century Edo kabuki integrated dance interludes with longer narrative jidaimono, and the way Edo ukiyo-e developed multi-sheet formats to record such interlocked stage moments for a print-buying public.