Japan has a great many traditional performing arts. The narrative arts, called katarigei, are especially numerous and continue to evolve as multilayered art forms based on the foundations of earlier genres. Even in our visually oriented times, performing arts that require listening skills and imagination are being handed down in various ways and continue to thrive. They include Noh, fushidan sekkyo (Buddhist story-telling sermons), sekkyo-saimon (sermon ballads), kodan (storytelling), gidayu bushi (bunraku narrative), rakugo (comic storytelling) and rokyoku (story recitation accompanied by shamisen). We will invite leading performers as well as writers and researchers in the types of katarigei being performed today. First we will hear superb katarigei performances; then we will learn about each performing art from a historical perspective–how it emerged from a specific environment, what its unique characteristics are, who presented it and who came to hear it. The experts will shed light on the identity of each genre and provide insights on the training of performers and the ways in which the arts are carried on by successive generations. Over the course of the program’s eleven sessions, we aim to provide a broad perspective on the underpinnings of Japan’s “narrative” and to think about the future of the narrative arts.