Bunraku     Traditional Japanese Puppet Theater

The Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe is available for live puppetry performances, demonstrations, and workshops as well as film and television work anywhere in the United States. If you would be interested in bringing the Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe to your school, college, university, museum, festival, or other venue for a performance of traditional Japanese Bunraku puppetry, please contact the director below:

About Bunraku Bay

Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe is the only troupe in the United States that performs the traditional Japanese puppetry known as "ningyo joruri" or Bunraku. The “bay” of the Troupe’s name derives from the Bay State of Massachusetts, where the Troupe was first organized, and from the “bei” (pronounced “bay”) of the Japanese word “Beikoku,” which means “America,” suggesting the Troupe’s slogan, “Traditional Japanese Puppetry in America.”

The performers of the Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe all have been trained in Japan by artists from the 170-year-old Tonda Puppet Troupe of Biwa-cho in Shiga Prefecture, northeast of the old capital of Kyoto, and the Imada Puppet Troupe and Kuroda Puppet Troupe--both more than 300 years old--of Iida City in Nagano Prefecture in central Japan. Under the direction of Prof. Martin Holman of the Japanese Studies Program at the main campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe offers performances of pieces from the traditional Bunraku repertoire, as well as puppetry demonstrations and workshops.
    

In August 2004 and again in 2005, 2006, and 2007, Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe participated in the Iida Puppetry Festival, the largest theater festival in Japan devoted to the art of puppet drama. Bunraku Bay performers were honored to appear on the stages of the Imada Puppet Troupe and the Kuroda Puppet Troupe.  Bunraku Bay members were trained most recently in summer 2005, 2006, and 2007 by leaders of the Imada and Kuroda Troupes.
 

Besides appearances in Japan, Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe has performed at many venues in the United States, including the Hopkins Center for Performing Arts and the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire; Williams College in Massachusetts; Bowdoin College in Maine; Austin College in Texas; the University of Chicago; the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, Florida;  the Orlando Puppetry Festival; the Japan Society in New York; the First Night Celebration in Columbia, Missouri; Penn State University; the University of Southern Indiana; the University of Missouri; as well as at the Troupe's former home at the University of Massachusetts. Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe also performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC in April 2005 and the Smithsonian Institution in 2007.

Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe is available to perform anywhere in the US with shows that range from a short 10-minute piece to a full evening performance. Bunraku Bay can also offer demonstrations, lectures, and/or workshops.

Some of the Pieces that Bunraku Bay Regularly Performs:


Kotobuki Shiki Sanbaso. A celebratory dance piece of divinely-inspired puppetry that originated in masked Noh drama, the Sanbaso is meant to who purify the theater and scatter good fortune on the audience with lively gestures that mimic the planting of rice and also suggest felicitous creatures like turtles and cranes. But the piece also includes comedy because even a puppet charged with the solemn task of blessing a venue sometimes gets tired and needs to cool off after a taxing turn on the stage. The Sanbaso opens every Bunraku Bay performance.

Hidakagawa Iriaizakura. The young woman Kiyohime is in love with a man who will not return her affection. In the scene at the crossing of the Hidaka River, Kiyohime entreats a boatman to ferry her across as she pursues the object of her obsession. But the grumpy boatman has been paid by the young man not to comply with Kiyohime’s wishes. Ridiculed by the boatman for her desires, Kiyohime becomes enraged when she learns the story of her intended love’s infidelity.  Her demonic jealousy transforms both her heart and her form in ways that terrify the crusty boatman and ultimately spell doom for the hapless young man she pursues.

Yaoya Oshichi. Oshichi, daughter of the greengrocer, must relay information and a lost sword to her lover by dawn or he will die. But on this snowy evening with the gates of the city already secured for the night, she cannot reach him. Passing near a fire tower, Oshichi realizes that all the gates will be opened if a fire alarm is sounded. But the penalty for sounding a false alarm is death. Oshichi chooses to climb the icy tower to ring the bell, a testament of her devotion to her love.

Keisei Awa no Naruto is the most popular plays in the traditional puppet repertoire. In the "The Scene of the Pilgrim's Song" Oyumi meets her daughter Otsuru, whom she had been forced to abandon as an infant ten years earlier in Tokushima. But now, because of the perilous situation of the girl's samurai father, Oyumi must send her daughter away for the girl's own safety without revealing that she is the mother her daughter is seeking. Naruto exhibits the pathos and engaging drama for which Bunraku puppetry is famous.

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

Plans are in the works for Bunraku Bay performances in the following locations in spring 2008 and beyond.
Check back for more detailed information.

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MISSOURI

Moberly, Missouri

Moberly Area Community College

MAINE
Camden, Maine
Strom Auditorium

Fall 2008, date TBA

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MASSACHUSETTS

Fall 2008, date TBA

OHIO
Cleveland, Ohio

Fall 2008, date TBA

OKLAHOMA

Fall 2008, date TBA

MISSOURI

Columbia, Missouri TBA
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin TBA

Bunraku Bay Performs for the Opening Ceremonies
of the Iida Puppetry Festival in Japan
August 2006

www.city.iida.nagano.jp/puppet/english/

Bunraku Bay Offers Two Performances
at First Night Festivities 2005 in Columbia, Missouri

The Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe Performs
at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC

Prof. Martin Holman, Director
Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe
Japanese Studies, GCB 443
University of Missouri
Columbia, Missouri 65211
Tel. (573) 882-3368

Email: holmanma@missouri.edu

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FLORIDA

Novermber 4~7, 2006