桟敷

Sajiki are special viewing seats set a step above, or partitioned off from, the general audience. The word is said to derive from sazuki, an ancient term for a raised temporary viewing platform; by way of Heian nobles' festival stands and the premium seats of medieval sarugaku, the sajiki passed into the playhouses of Edo.

In the Edo period, sajiki were the finest seats, reserved through the shibai-jaya teahouses, where a full day at the theatre unfolded over food and drink. The Kabukiza preserves its east and west sajiki to this day, where tea and a sajiki lunchbox carry on the old luxury of playgoing.

From sajiki came the phrase tenjō sajiki, the "ceiling gallery": the theatre's topmost, cheapest seats farthest from the stage, said to be the haunt of devoted regulars, and a name borrowed by a celebrated film and by theatre troupes. That a word for the finest seats came also to name the people's gallery is part of the pleasure of word history.

Sajiki is a word of the theatre itself, belonging to kabuki as a whole. Overlooking the hanamichi at close range, these seats remain among the finest places to feel the breathing of Danjūrō's stage.