In 1969, he graduated from Nihon University, and took the name Ichikawa Ebizō X, acting in major roles such as the title character in Sukeroku and Togashi in Kanjinchō.

Though he underwent the formal shūmei naming ceremony at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, the celebrations continued for several months, as is traditional; his performances that year in New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles would mark the first (and as of 2006, only) time that a shūmei was celebrated abroad.

[citation needed] Active outside Japan, Danjūrō appeared in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Brussels, East Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, and Paris.

Danjūrō was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia in late spring 2004, after falling ill and becoming unable to perform alongside his son (Ichikawa Ebizō XI), who was celebrating his shūmei at the time, having become the latest to take the name Ichikawa Ebizō.

[3] Though illness, and subsequent hospitalization, forced Danjūrō to leave the stage for long stretches in 2004–05, he later returned.