This woman is actually a man. You might think that it's easy to tell from this photo but sometimes it's not so simple.

If you've read our 'History of Kabuki' page you will know that kabuki has a long and illustrius tradition of drag, men dressing up as women. In Japanese kabuki, being an 'onnagata' (woman-style) is an art form, where the best actors are said to have reached the pinacle of stylised femininity, a style of movement, posture and expression which is thought to be unsurpassable even by women themselves.

In our university, student productions, you can imagine that this task might be a little more difficult: To begin with, most Australian boys are around six-foot tall and look somewhat less than effeminate... not to mention their predominantly blokey manner. But in keeping with the Kabuki tradition of onnagata we try. We try to have all of our female roles played by males. It's a lot of fun and you'd be seriously surprised how many of the boys get into it and love every minute of their female impersonation.

How many of THESE lovely ladies are actually men?

HOWEVER it would be tragically unfair if the boys not only had all the fun, but if only the BOYS could perform...

So in Za Kabuki's performances we try to have all the male roles played by girls

How many of these manly men are actually women?

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