Welcome to The Extra, a biweekly newsletter of complimentary stories — that’s right, free for all to read — curated from The Japan Times archives.

In this issue, we stand at center stage to deliver a few reinterpretations of traditional Japanese performing arts.

Also, if you haven’t yet, please take a moment to complete our short survey on reading preferences. It should take no longer than 5 minutes of your time. Thank you to those who’ve already contributed.