The lanterns come on under their small wooden roofs in Gion Higashi, and upstairs, behind a sliding door, a tatami room is laid for dinner. That room is the geisha experience Kyoto keeps at its centre: a private ozashiki in an ochaya, a teahouse in one of the city's five geisha districts, where geiko and their apprentices, the maiko, dance, play, pour and talk at the guests' own table. In the market such an evening runs at about 50,000 yen for each geiko or maiko engaged, with the dinner on top, and the ochaya receives no one it does not already know.
Most ochaya do not cook, do not advertise and do not take a reservation from a stranger. Everything that makes the evening, the kaiseki sent in from a caterer, the geiko called from her okiya, the sake, the car home, is gathered by the proprietress of the teahouse and settled later, on trust. That one fact explains nearly everything a visitor finds puzzling about the geisha world of Kyoto.
geiko and maiko
Geiko and maiko: the artist and the apprentice
In Kyoto a geisha is called a geiko, a word that puts gei, the art, first. She is a professional artist of the city's traditional performing arts: dance above all, then song, the shamisen, the drums and the flute, and the art Kyoto prizes as highly as any of them, conversation. A maiko is her apprentice, attached to an okiya and to the teachers of her district, training most days of the week in dance, song and instruments, and she becomes a geiko only when the district judges her ready.
Within the profession there are two callings. The tachikata is the dancer. The jikata is the musician, who sings and plays the shamisen, the drums or the flute while the tachikata dances.
In Gion Kobu every geiko and maiko studies one school of dance, the Inoue school of Kyomai, a style that took its shape in the eighteenth century in the reception rooms of Kyoto. It takes its control from Noh, so that the angle of a closed fan or the slow turn of a wrist carries a meaning, and it is made for a tatami room a few metres across. Kyomai is parlour dance, and the ozashiki is where it was meant to be watched, at arm's length.
To the eye the two are told apart by dress: the maiko in the long hanging darari obi and a red collar, the geiko in a white collar and a shorter obi tied in the plain otaiko knot.
The ornaments are a craft of their own. Kanzashi, the pins and combs of formal Japanese dress, are made in lacquered wood, tortoiseshell, silver and silk; the kushi, a comb, and the kogai, a long bar, come as a pair, the lacquer gilded or inlaid with shell. The flowered hana-kanzashi of a maiko are made by the tsumami technique, small squares of silk folded with tweezers into petals one at a time, and they change with the calendar month by month. The makers serve an apprenticeship of five to ten years, and today only the maiko of the hanamachi still wear the full sequence of the seasons.
the world
The five hanamachi, the okiya and the ochaya
Kyoto keeps five hanamachi, flower towns: Gion Kobu, Gion Higashi, Miyagawacho, Pontocho and Kamishichiken. Kamishichiken, beside the shrine of Kitano Tenmangu in the north-west of the city, is the oldest, its first seven teahouses raised in the Muromachi era from timber left over when the shrine was rebuilt. Gion is a separate district, larger and later, on the east bank of the Kamo River. Each district trains its own geiko and maiko, keeps its own crest and stages its own dance.
Kyoto's five geisha districts, and the oldest of them →
Two buildings matter to the evening. The okiya is where a maiko lives and trains, under the woman the district calls okaasan, mother, who keeps her kimono, her lessons and her calendar of engagements. The ochaya is where she works. It is a teahouse in name, a set of tatami rooms in practice, each one an ozashiki, run by a proprietress who knows her patrons by name and by taste. For an evening she calls the geiko and maiko from their okiya, orders the kaiseki from a caterer in the district, chooses the sake and sees to the car. The kenban, the registry office of each district, collects the tallies of the night and sends them on to the okiya.
the introduction
Why an ochaya turns away first-time guests
Ichigen-san okotowari: no first-time guests. The phrase governs every ochaya in Kyoto, and abroad it is read as hauteur. Its real origin lies in the teahouse's accounts.
The ochaya takes no money on the night. The proprietress advances the hanadai, the fee for each geiko and maiko, along with the caterer's bill, the drinks and the taxis, and even a second evening elsewhere if the party moves on, and the patron settles the account later, sometimes much later. A teahouse that extends that much credit extends it only to people it knows, or to people vouched for by a patron who will answer for them. A guest who arrives with an introduction arrives with a guarantor, and the evening that follows is shaped around what the proprietress has been told of that guest.
The rule binds the patron as firmly as the teahouse. A guest received by one ochaya in a district is that ochaya's guest, and taking an evening to a rival on the same lane is a serious breach of manners. Nor is the door closed to foreigners in particular: Japanese guests without a recommendation from an established patron find it closed in exactly the same way. A single good introduction in Kyoto opens a door that no sum offered on the step will open.
the evening
What happens at an ozashiki
An evening runs about two to three hours. The guests are seated at a lacquered table on cushions, a scroll and flowers in the alcove, and the first courses of the kaiseki arrive from the caterer while the room is still quiet. Then the door slides back. The geiko and maiko greet the party from the threshold, kneeling, before they come to the table, sit between the guests and pour the first sake.
The dance comes when the table is settled. The open floor between the guests and the alcove becomes a stage of a few tatami, a jikata takes up the shamisen and begins to sing, and a maiko or geiko dances a short piece chosen for the season, a few minutes long and close enough that the silk of the sleeve moves the air. Watched from so close, a fan opening or closing makes a sound.
Then the games, which are the part of the evening guests least expect and most enjoy. Konpira fune fune is the best known: a small object sits on the table between two players, the song of the boats to Konpira shrine is sung, and on each beat the players take turns to touch the object or lift it away. The tempo quickens until someone slips, and the first to slip loses. Tora tora is a game of the folding screen: two players disappear behind it as a song is sung and step out at its last line as a samurai, an old woman with a stick or a tiger. The old woman beats the samurai, the tiger eats the old woman, the samurai cuts down the tiger. It is rock, paper, scissors played as theatre, and guests in a Kyoto teahouse take it with complete seriousness.
And then, the dishes cleared and the shamisen laid on its side, the conversation. This is the art the guests remember longest and the one a geiko works hardest at: reading which guest wants to talk and which would rather listen, turning a question about the obi into an account of the Nishijin weaver who made it, saying a great deal about the dances in rehearsal and nothing at all about the patrons of other evenings. Most ochaya work entirely in Japanese, so a foreign party needs someone at the table who speaks both languages well enough to carry a joke across.
the introduction
Why an evening with geiko needs an introduction
Kyoto publishes no tariff for an evening with geiko. The ochaya bills its own patrons on account, and its figures stay between them.
the stage
When the geiko dance in public
Each district stages its own dance once a year, a full company on one stage, and these are the open door to the same arts the ozashiki keeps private:
- Kitano Odori, Kamishichiken: from late March into early April (in 2026, 20 March to 2 April).
- Miyako Odori, Gion Kobu: the whole of April, at the Gion Kobu Kaburenjo theatre.
- Kyo Odori, Miyagawacho: in April (in 2026, 4 to 19 April).
- Kamogawa Odori, Pontocho: in May.
- Gion Odori, Gion Higashi: 1 to 10 November, at the Gion Kaikan.
At the Miyako Odori the tea ceremony is performed before the dance for the holders of the tea ticket, by a geiko or maiko of Gion Kobu in formal kimono, and the guest is served matcha and a sweet before taking a seat.
In the lanes between the theatres, a geiko walking to an engagement is at work, and Gion's own rules for visitors set out how she is let pass.
the way in
How a visitor reaches an ozashiki
A guest travelling with someone the teahouse already knows is received on that person's word, which is exactly how the system was made to work. On the Custom Tour of Japan and The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan, we arrange the evening and the party arrives ready to be received.
the journey
A private geisha dinner in Kyoto, on the Custom Tour of Japan
Late in the evening, the dances over, a maiko asks a guest which season brought them to Kyoto and listens to the answer as if it were the only question of the night. Outside, the lanterns of the district are still lit when the car comes to the door.
On The Custom Tour of Japan, a private journey created for one party on the dates they choose, an evening with geiko and maiko takes its place among the days in Kyoto: a tatami room, a kaiseki of the season, the dance, the games and the long conversation, Japanese elegance at its height. The Tour Director, who shapes the journey with the party and the company's Japan specialists and then travels with it, sits at the table and carries the conversation between Japanese and English, and the party arrives knowing how the evening runs and ready to be received. The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan, from 30 March to 10 April 2027 and limited to 8 guests, gives one evening of its Kyoto stay to the geiko and maiko of a private teahouse room in Gion.
questions
Questions
How much does it cost to see a geisha in Kyoto?
Kyoto publishes no tariff for an evening with geiko. The ochaya bills its own patrons on account, and its figures stay between them. The Custom Tour of Japan arranges the evening within the journey.
What is the difference between a geiko and a maiko?
A geiko is a fully trained artist of Kyoto's geisha districts, a dancer or a musician; a maiko is her apprentice, still in training, who becomes a geiko when her district judges her ready. They are told apart by dress: the maiko in a long hanging obi and a red collar, the geiko in a white collar and a shorter obi.
Can visitors attend a geisha dinner in Kyoto?
Yes, with an introduction. Ochaya keep the rule of ichigen-san okotowari, no first-time guests, because they advance every expense of the evening and settle it later on trust. Visitors are received on the word of someone the teahouse already knows, or through a journey that arranges the evening, such as the Custom Tour of Japan.
Where can you see geisha in Kyoto?
In the five hanamachi: Gion Kobu, Gion Higashi, Miyagawacho, Pontocho and Kamishichiken, the oldest. The open ways to see geiko and maiko are the public dances in spring and November, and the private ozashiki by introduction.
What happens at an ozashiki?
Geiko and maiko join a private dinner in a teahouse room: they pour the sake, dance Kyomai to shamisen and song, lead games such as konpira fune fune and tora tora, and talk with the guests. An evening runs about two to three hours.
When are the geiko dances in Kyoto?
The Kitano Odori from late March into early April, the Miyako Odori through April, the Kyo Odori in April, the Kamogawa Odori in May, and the Gion Odori from 1 to 10 November.