Japanese puppet - B U N R A K U

Hope you readers are well!


Look at this poster.. it's called Bunraku, Japanese traditional puppet theater, having existed here more than 300 years since it got developed today's style.
Its origin even dates back to the 12C.


I joined the Bunraku lecture today set up by the guide federation I belong to to enrich my knowledge of it.

Having living in Osaka over 20 years where the culture was originated, I didn't have any opportunity to watch it, but now that I was so much fascinated by its tradition and the passion of puppeteers and Tayuu (a mixture of a narrater and voice actor ), it makes me feel I really gotta see it.






What grabs your attention when you first watch Bunraku is that puppets are manipulated by as many as 3 people. The main puppeteer does the body, head, and the right hand, while other two do the left hand and legs respectively. It used to be just one puppeteer, but as more improvements were done on puppets, they got difficult to manipulate and came to require more than one.

And like other Japanese traditional arts, there are no female players as in old times women were strictly prohibited to perform on stage of any art form for moral reasons.



So this is how puppets are usually manipulated.

The omozukai who does the head can show his faces. Others must wear hoods. To become omozukai, it takes nearly 30 years. You have to start off from doing chores, opening and closing the stage curtains, etc to manipulating legs for about 10 years, and then a left hand for another 10 years. Being a great puppeteer is not just about technique and skill, it's more about how much life experience one has, how you live your own life. Every single day of your life makes up who you are, and it naturally builds up your own taste in playing puppets.

To be continued..