PANO – A Bunraku exchange and performance program, themed “Traditional Puppet of Asia: BUNRAKU Meets ASEAN”, by six representatives from Bunraku Company from Osaka, Japan, will take place at Vietnam Puppet Theater in Hanoi on August 30th, announced the Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam.

Ranking with Noh and Kabuki as one of Japan’s foremost stage arts, the Ningyo Johruri Bunraku puppet theater (Bunraku) is a blend of sung narrative, instrumental accompaniment and puppet drama. The plots related in this new form of puppet theater derived from two principal sources, including historical plays set in feudal times (Jidaimono) and contemporary dramas exploring the conflict between affairs of heart and social obligation (Sewamono).

Ningyo Johruri had adopted its characteristic staging style by the mid eighteenth century with three puppeteers that are visible to the audience. From a projecting elevated platform (yuka), the narrator (tayu) recounts the action while a musician provides musical accompaniment on three-stringed spike lute (shamisen). To solely dubs all characters voice in a play, one tayu has to change different voices and intonations. Although the tayu “reads” from a scripted text, there is ample room for improvisation. Approximately 160 works out of the 700 plays written during the Edo period have remained in today’s repertory. Nowadays, the aesthetic qualities and dramatic content of the plays continue to appeal to modern audiences.

Last year, Bunraku Puppet Theater was staged for the first time in South East Asia in Kuala Lumpur to celebrate 40th anniversary of ASEAN Japan Friendship and Cooperation, paving a way to a new collaboration between Japan and ASEAN countries through traditional puppets.

This year, young professionals of Bunraku Puppet Theater will tour to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Hanoi. In Hanoi, the Japanese artists will perform “Hinomi Yagura” from the story of “Date Musume Koi No Higanoko” and have exchange with Vietnamese water puppeteers.

Chung Anh