The Actors Ichimura Uzaemon IX as a Male Fox Disguised as the Sake Seller Iseya (left) and Nakamura Tomijuro I as a Female Fox Disguised as the Beancake Peddler Hyugaya, in the Dance Sequence "Myoto-zake Kawaranu Nakanaka" (Everlasting Harmony of the Marital Cup), from the Second Part of the Play Chigo Torii Kitsune (Heavenly Child - The Fox Leaps Through the Shrine Gate), Performed at the Ichimura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1777

Katsukawa Shunsho captures the dance sequence "Myoto-zake Kawaranu Nakanaka" ("Everlasting Harmony of the Marital Cup") from the second part of Chigo Torii Kitsune ("Heavenly Child - The Fox Leaps Through the Shrine Gate"), performed at the Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month of 1777. The scene pairs Ichimura Uzaemon IX, as a male fox disguised as the sake seller Iseya (left), with Nakamura Tomijuro I, as a female fox disguised as the beancake peddler Hyugaya. Fox-spirit dances were a favored kabuki spectacle, demanding rapid shifts between human and animal carriage, and the marital-cup conceit gave the choreography its through-line of paired movement. Shunsho's design holds the two figures in mid-step, their bodies inclined toward one another, the long sleeves of their disguising aprons trailing behind. As a leading master of the Katsukawa school and a central figure in Edo ukiyo-e, Shunsho applies the workshop's reformed yakusha-e principles to the composition: each actor is given an individualized face under the white make-up; the costumes are flattened into a few decisive color blocks; the architecture of the stage is sketched in with minimal but legible line; and the printed contour holds the entire image together. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves this impression, which survives as both an aesthetic object and a primary record of an eleventh-month kaomise dance, and as a fine demonstration of how Shunsho's Katsukawa school workshop translated the kinetic energy of fox spirits into balanced printed design.