ABSTRACT
Centrally connected to the Japanese performing arts is the notion of shintai 身体 (body), a term that relates to the corporality, presence and expressivity of the actor. The first Sino-Japanese character, shin 身, correlates to a person with an identity, while the second conveys a sense of the materiality of the body and can be read singularly as karada 体. This reading of the second character alone emphasizes the body as a structure and, perhaps, as something that can be objectified and given an aesthetic foundation or form of idealized expressivity. The combination of characters that together form an idea of a thinking and uniquely expressive body is the fuller, more complex meaning of shintai.
