His talent for shōmyō (Buddhist chant) being recognized, he received tutelage under the kusemai dance master Jifuku-dayū (?)
[h][17] Kōwakamai reached its peak during the 16th century when the actors received small fiefdoms (chigyō [ja]) from warlords Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the like.
[18][19] When Tokugawa Ieyasu founded the shogunate, the clan received 300 koku of rice as stipend, and the three families took turns serving in rotation.
[20] The Daigashira School of kōwakamai was founded by Yamamoto Shirozaemon (山本四郎左衛門), who learned the art from Kōwaka Yajirō Naoshige.
[21] Shirozaemon passed the art to his disciple Mukadeya Zenbē (百足屋善兵衛) then to Ōsawa Jisuke Yukitsugu (大沢次助幸次).
[32][page needed] Evidentiary documentation is too sparse to provide any detail on how kōwakamai was performed in its inception or during its heyday in the late 16th to the early 17th centuries.
[k][40][41] The surviving kōwakamai (the form transmitted in the Ōe region) involves three players,[42] the principal tayū and two supporting actors named waki, and shite.
[m][43][38][13] The kōwakamai performers do not impersonate characters, and do not "act", they merely narrate the lines spoken by the personae dramatis.
[45][46] One basis of making the connection are the records stating kusemai being performed by a certain "Kōwaka-tayū" of Tanaka Village in Echizen Providence.
[47][48] The Japanese government has designated kōwakamai to be an intangible cultural heritage (ICH) (重要無形民俗文化財, jūyōmukei minzoku bunkazai).
The instrumental melodic arrangements of eight ballads as well as the method of their oral recitation have been restored by the Kōwakamai Preservation Society in Setakamachi Ōe, Miyama City in Fukuoka Prefecture.
On 20 January 2008 "Atsumori", "Takadachi", and "Yōchi Soga" were performed by the Kōwakamai Preservation Society's adult troupe.
Both performances were recorded on CD & DVD by the Kyoto City University of the Arts' Research Centre for Japanese Traditional Music.