Gagaku

Gagaku (雅楽, lit. "elegant music") is a traditional Japanese performing art comprising court music, song, and dance. Historically centered on the imperial court, it has also been transmitted at Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, and regional ceremonial centers. Its repertories combine indigenous Japanese ceremonial songs and dances with instrumental, vocal, and choreographic traditions introduced from the Korean Peninsula, China, and other parts of continental Asia and subsequently reorganized in Japan. Gagaku encompasses several repertories differing in historical origin, ceremonial function, instrumentation, performance format, and line of transmission. These include the indigenous court songs and dances known as kuniburi no utamai (国風歌舞, "song and dance in the native manner"), the continental-derived repertories tōgaku and komagaku, and the vocal genres saibara and rōei. Its principal performance formats are kangen, instrumental ensemble music without dance; bugaku, dance with instrumental accompaniment; and vocal performance. The principal organization of the continental-derived repertories took shape during the early Heian period, particularly during and around the reign of Emperor Ninmyō (833–850). The modern court repertory was further selected and standardized after the Meiji Restoration. Although gagaku is written with the same characters as Chinese yayue, much of its continental-derived repertory originated in court entertainment and banquet music rather than in the Confucian sacrificial tradition primarily denoted by yayue. The gagaku tradition maintained by the Music Department of the Board of Ceremonies of the Imperial Household Agency was designated an Important Intangible Cultural Property of Japan in 1955, with its performers collectively recognized as holders of the tradition. It was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.