Like a natural
He may be the world's sole male geisha, but Enosuke Hirose is only following tradition, writes Julian Ryall
Slowly and with a degree of grace that can only partly be learned, the geisha moves in time to the music. The notes of the three-stringed shamisen lute hang in the air and there is the faintest rustle from the elaborate, powder-blue kimono as it slips across the tatami-mat floor. Beneath the white powder make-up, the face is a second mask – one of concentration.
The trailing arm is raised with deliberation above shoulder height and remains poised as the geisha pivots on one foot. The chin dips lower, making the decorations set in jet-black hair shimmer as they catch the light. Holding position as the last note dies away and, amid a smattering of applause, the geisha gives a deep, demure bow.
At 26 years old, Eitaro is in the prime of a geisha’s career – although no geisha would ever be so gauche as to make such a claim herself. One of the first tenets of this uniquely Japanese tradition is that a geisha never stops learning and must take classes right up to her retirement.
Eitaro has had more to learn than most. The gracefulness exhibited in the dances, the feminine movements as drinks are poured, the coquettishness required when conversing with male patrons, the shy looks away at a compliment, the delicate hand covering a smile and the final wave as a customer is bidden farewell – none of this is likely to have come as second nature.
Eitaro is one of a kind: he is the only male geisha in Japan; indeed, the world.
“I started learning the skills that a geisha needs when I was 10 years old, although I didn’t really want to do it at the start,” Enosuke Hirose (Eitaro is his “stage” name) explains later, at a bar in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. “But my mother told me she would buy me a computer game if I did it the first time and it went on like that.”
Without the geisha’s clothing, make-up and carefully coiffed hair, the difference is remarkable. From being one of those almost fabled creatures of the “willow world”, as geisha reality is known, Eitaro has become a modern, urbane young man. On an evening off, he wears cargo trousers and trainers, coupled with a thin, tight jumper that shows off his slender frame. His hair is cut fashionably – short at the sides, longer on top, and hanging down in front of his eyes. He frequently flicks it away.