"Backstage to Hanamichi: Kabuki" came to SF State's McKenna Theatre Oct. 17, offering locals an inside look at the 400-year-old Japanese theater tradition.

In a lecture and performance combination that filled the theater's 700 seats, the 14-person troupe sampled two classic dances -- Sagi Musume's "The Heron Maiden," and Shakkyo's "The Stone Bridge" with an introduction to Kabuki basics.

The art centers itself around three central components: "ka" stands for music, "bu" means dance and "ki" translates to drama.

The presentation began with a look at the functions of music and sound within kabuki. Each sound can act as a noise of nature, the rattling of windows or babbling of a brook, each made with a single drum, often four to five feet in diameter.

Choreographed music played on a shamisen, a string instrument similar to a guitar in appearance, can both represent a sound in nature and narrate a scene.

Matanosuke Nakamura, one of two lead actors in the performance group, led the lecture and explained how different sounds accompany "natural phenomenon." These are sounds that do not make noise, such as snow falling or a person walking, so that the audience may recognize both their existence and importance within a production.

"[The lecture] was interesting, I know almost nothing about kabuki, so I needed some instruction," Marianne Glaspey, 52, an attendee said.

Performing under the stage name Kyozo Nakamura, no relation to Matanosuke Nakamura, performers told the story of unanswered love through a series of unexpected on-stage costume changes and several dances in "The Heron Maiden."

"It's beautiful, all so beautiful," said Nell Noguchi, an attendee who watched the show with her daughter and granddaughter. "I've seen kabuki before -- the kimono changes and music all have to coincide. It is a beautiful performance. It takes years and years of training for a male to take a woman's role -- it is a true honor."

After the performance, Kyozo Nakamura elaborated on the roles of women as an abstract concept viewed through a male point of view, distilled over four centuries. He went on to show the complexity in performing these roles, by demonstrating the necessary techniques -- posture, gait, mannerisms and expressing emotion.

Matanosuke Nakamura then showed the audience something that citizens of the tradition's native country rarely, if ever, get to see: behind-the-curtain details preceding a production.

Painting his face white, and applying red to his lips and eyes followed by dashes of black, Matanosuke Nakamura demonstrated the application of makeup. Once finished, he dressed in a vibrantly colored costume adorned with gold brocade before the audience -- a task often viewed as ceremonial by actors and kept private.

Following the second portion of the lecture, Matanosuke Nakamura and Kyozo Nakamura end the production with a performance of "The Stone Bridge," a drama based on a fable that tells of a Buddhist monk's pilgrimage and his encounter with two legendary lions that meet him at a bridge.

The scene the actors recreated is of the lions happily frolicking among peonies. In the scene, the lions represent heaven and their devotion to the bodhisattva, one capable of reaching nirvana, to whom they are messengers.

"My favorite part was the lion dance," said Peter Bockman, 21, a senior drama major. "You could see the dedication they put into [the swishing of their manes] to sustain the movement. I loved it -- I've never studied kabuki, this was a great introduction to it."