柝

The ki are two squared sticks of hardwood struck together, commonly known as hyōshigi. They are sounded, out of the audience's sight, by theatre functionaries called kyōgen sakusha, who keep their own personal clappers and are said to tend them daily for the finest sound.

Its beats run the theatre's clock: the shirase announcing that all is ready, the kikkake cueing the traps and the revolving stage, the tsunagi sustaining the tension after the curtain closes. Though also wood striking wood, it differs in role from the tsuke, which accents the actors' movements from the side of the stage.

These paired hardwood sticks have long sounded outside the theatre as well: in the night watchman's rounds crying 'hi no yōjin' against fire, in the sumo arena where the yobidashi strike them, in the street clatter that once gathered children to the paper-picture shows. As a sound that draws attention and marks time, the clappers are rooted deep in Japanese daily life.

The ki belongs to no single family; it is the timekeeper of the whole theatre. Every performance begins and ends with its strike—including those of Danjūrō XIII, whose stages open and close on this one sound.