The Otojiro & Sadayakko Kawakami's Album of European and American Performance Materials is published in the ARC's Shochiku Otani Library Special Data Browsing System
The Otojiro & Sadayakko Kawakami's Album of European and American Performance Materials (commonly known as Otosada Album)/「川上音二郎・貞奴一座欧米公演関係資料アルバム（通称【音貞アルバム】）」 has been published in the Art Research Center's Shochiku Otani Library Special Data Browsing System.
Implementing the FY 2020 Adopted Joint Research Project (Open Theme) "A Study on the Construction of a Theater Material Image Search System that Utilizes the Theater Performance Record Database (演劇上演記録データベースを活用した、演劇資料画像検索閲覧システムの構築に関る研究)" as part of the International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art and Culture (ARC-iJAC), the Shochiku Otani Library has released the Otojiro & Sadayakko Kawakami's Album of European and American Performance Materials (Otosada Album).
Please access the database from here:
https://www.dh-jac.net/db1/resource/search_sol.php?lang=en
The Shochiku Otani Library Special Data Browsing System has been developed by the ARC-iJAC.
The digital archiving of these materials was made possible by funds raised through the crowdfunding project [No.7] Preserving the Trajectory of Otojiro & Sadayakko Kawakami on the Global Stage for the Future that was launched by the Shochiku Otani Library in 2018. Currently, the crowdfunding project has successfully reached to the round [No.9].
Otojiro Kawakami was a pioneer of the Liberal Civil Rights Movement, actor, and entertainer who enjoyed great popularity with his Oppekepe song. Regarded as a founder of the shinpa theatrical form that originated in the Meiji Period, he played a major role in the modernization of Japanese theater. Furthermore, Sadayakko, who became his wife, is considered as Japan's first actress in the modern period.
This album is extremely valuable because it contains letters and magazine articles from the time when Otojiro and his troupe toured the United States and Europe starting from April 1902.
For more details on the Otosada Album, please see the article below:
https://readyfor.jp/projects/ootanitoshokan7
The Shochiku Otani Library, founded in Tokyo in 1956, is dedicated to materials concerning Japanese theatrical works (mainly kabuki, bunraku, shinpa, shingeki, and commercial plays) as well as movie and TV-related scripts, magazines, posters, and photo collections, amongst others.