What is the difference when an actor looks to kamite or to shimote?

The kabuki stage assigns meaning to its sides, and knowing this changes a great deal of what you see. Kamite, the audience's right, is the side of rank: in a palace scene the high-ranking figure sits there, and memorial tablets or altars are commonly placed there too. Shimote, the left, is the side from which people enter and by which they leave — which is also why the hanamichi runs along it.

Knowing the layout, a mere turn of the head becomes legible. A look toward kamite is often held to carry consciousness of a superior, or a formal turn of mind: attention to a lord, orientation toward the divine, a posture straightened before rank. A look toward shimote reads more readily as thought of someone gone, or a heart moving toward the outside world. When someone has just left along the hanamichi and the figure remaining gazes toward shimote, that alone conveys what is passing through them.

None of this is an absolute rule: plays and scenes admit exceptions, and a staging may load the sides differently. But held as a rough grammar, it makes the acting between the lines legible. Kabuki often gives an actor stretches of standing without speech, and the meaning of the sides is a very useful handle on what is happening in them.