Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Puppet Show
Edo Marionette
Until last Saturday, for us, puppets in Japan were always associated to Bunraku, the famous Japanese puppet theater where each large size puppet is controled by three puppeteers. But thanks to our friend S., we got a chance to discover another type of Japanese puppets, the Edo Marionette (Edo-Ito Ayatsuri Ningyo).
M. Mitsuru Kamijo is a puppeteer of Edo Marionette, a Japanese traditional type of puppet coming straight from the Edo period. These are the more standard type of string controled marionettes. Actually, these 45 cm high marionettes are controled by up to 25 strings. This allows for a very fine control of each part of the body and the limbs, in any direction, thus expressing all kind of attitudes. These strings are divided into the three main ones (the kiki-ito for the control of the head and the shoulders) and the rest of them, the asobi-ito.
On his web site, I discovered that M. Kamijo was a technical engineer who started working with marionettes over 25 years ago. He wanted to know more about the Japanese culture and spirit, because he was feeling that the Japanese people were gradually losing their own identity. This was in 1979, the year I arrived in Japan. His group, the puppet theatre Youkiza creates modern plays based on traditional techniques.
The location, a small theater in the middle of a lovely flower park (Hyakkaen) was selected because it is the only such theater today in Tokyo that allows drinking. Yes, eating and drinking were an integral part of going to watch a theater play during the Edo era, and this point was important to M. Kamijo. There was only seating for some 35 people.
The show started with an explanation of the puppets, a little word about their history, and a description of the differences between the man and the woman characters. Male character marionettes are larger, have feet, but do not have buttock, and instead only feature a simple string. This is to allow more freedom of movement of their legs. The female character marionettes don’t have feet (we wouldn’t see them under the long kimonos) but do have a derriere, and therefore have very limited movement of their legs — this is to represent the restrained way Japanese women move and walk while wearing a kimono. On the other hand, their trunc is hollow to allow for minute detailed movements of their body.
We had several little plays. 
Kappore was a very popular dance performed by men in the streets when Tokyo was called Edo.
Yoidore, a drunkard. During the Edo era, people liked to dance in a funny way to the merry music of flutes and drums. The almost complete mimesis of the puppeteer and the puppet was impressive. M. Kamijo was the drunk dancing.
Shishimai, Lion dance, that remains in various parts of Asia. People believed that if a strong lion roars loud, bad things like sickness and harmful insects will be gone. Here, we realized that it was not only the lion that M. Kamijo was controling directly, but the two men under the lion costume!
The last play, Setsubun, involved a human and an Oni, you know, these little gremlins that are chased away with beans. Great fun!
Have a look at M. Kamijo web site and if you have a chance to see this show, don’t walk, run!
