means a japanese performance art built on exaggerated gestures, elaborate makeup, and all-male casts playing every role, often used today to mean any elaborate show staged to hide the fact nothing real is happening.

from from the verb kabuku, meaning to lean or deviate from the norm — coined for the tilted, rebellious style of a female performer named izumo no okuni in kyoto around 1603, before women were banned from the stage and men took over every role, including the women.