Ancient art of Bunraku gets a revamp

Bunraku Theatre in Osaka, Japan  (Photo: Britannica)

The ancient Japanese art of Bunraku puppet theatre, 'Ningyō Jōruri', began in Osaka more than three hundred years ago. Bunraku's history goes as far back to the turn of the 18th century when Uemura Bunrakuken came to Osaka from Awaji and began his own theatre.

The National Bunraku Theatre Troupe offers five or more seasons every year, each running for two to three weeks in Osaka before moving to Tokyo for a run at the National Theatre. The troupe also tours within Japan and occasionally abroad. Until the late 1800s there were also hundreds of other professional, semi-professional, and amateur troupes across Japan that performed traditional puppet drama. Nowadays, like many other forms of traditional theatre, it has become a dying art. But let's not give up hope quite yet. Bunraku is going through a rejuvenation program in Japan and is trying to re-invent itself for the younger generation. I discovered this short documentary (here) that shows what is being done to keep the form alive. Of course it has evolved and changed and is used nowadays by puppeteers throughout the world and adapted to different styles and texts, but what about the 'original' theatre of Bunraku?

The increase in interest in Bunraku puppetry contributed to the establishment of the first traditional Japanese puppet troupe in North America. Since 2003, Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe, currently based at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, has performed at venues around the United States, including the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as in Japan.

Did you ever think you would see traditional Bunraku theatre perform at the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro?  You can view a wonderful short report on the modernisation of Bunraku theatre here!

New Website launched on 'World Puppetry Day'

Puppet creator for Les Guignols de L'info, Alain Duverne, in his Paris studio

After a really busy year, I am pleased to announce the launch of our new website, www.garyfriedmanproductions.com for 'World Puppetry Day' on Saturday.
This new site incorporates our previous site 'Puppetry News' and the Puppetry News Blog, which has been out of action for a while, but will finally get moving again with current news, events and interviews.

The new website incorporates much of the old Puppetry News site, but has plenty of new projects and updates and is easier to access information and navigate. You can find out and view short clips from many of the international workshops carried out in the past year in Europe and Asia. There is a short film clip of a Paper Playback Workshop in Oslo, Norway made in November 2014. There is a vast puppet video and audio archive which you can access here. You can also
locate international puppet festivals and events taking place over the upcoming year here.

As many of you know, for the past year, I have been travelling around the globe working on a new documentary film, 'The Puppet and The Power'.

A few of the wonderful puppeteers and activists interviewed for the documentary include names like Ronnie Burkett (Canada); Adrian Kohler & Basil Jones (Handspring Puppet Company, South Africa); Roger Law (Spitting Image, UK); Paul Zaloom (USA); Tony Mboyo (XYZ Show, Kenya); Ariel Doron (Israel); Mohammad Halayka (Palestinian National Theatre, Jerusalem); Penny Francis, (Puppet Centre, UK); Glyn Edwards (Punch & Judy Prof, UK); Toni Rumbau (Puppeteer & author, Spain); Joan Baixas (Puppeteer & theatre director, Spain); Pavla Dombrovska (Director of Divadlo Lisen, Czech Republic); Deepak Chopra (Spiritual guru, USA); Peter Schumann (Bread & Puppet Theatre, USA); John Bell (University of Connecticut, USA); Karim Dakroub (University of Beirut, Lebanon); Dominique Houdart (Cie Houdart-Heuclin, France) and the list goes on. You can view the pilot here!

Do enjoy the new website and you are welcome to send feedback through our comments page here!

Looking back on 'World Puppetry Day' 2015

Czech theatre director and professor, Josef Krofta

This years 'World Puppetry Day' fell on Saturday 21 March. It was a day of mixed emotions, as we had just lost one of our world's true puppet legacies, Josef Krofta and heard the news, last week, of a devastating fire at the Battersea Arts Centre, home to the 'British Puppet Centre' in London.

Krofta was probably best known for his years of innovative work as artistic director of the Drak Theatre in Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic. I personally had the incredible opportunity of studying with him at the Battersea Arts Centre in London in 1987, where together with Penny Francis and Henryk Jurkowski, he lead a course in puppetry and storytelling, which was the great inspirational period of my life. It was there, that I was first exposed to the work of Bruno Bettelheim's 'The Uses of Enchantment - The meaning and importance of fairy tales'. This is life changing literature for any aspiring puppeteer.

Krofta taught us the power of the object and it's role in bring a story to life. We saw the film of his most powerful theatre piece 'The Dragon' by Russian playwright, Evgeny Shvarts in 1944. This remarkable work was first seen as subversive production in the political climate of post-war Russia. Krofta depicted the power as radiating 'follow-spots' the feeling that the performance was taking place in a concentration camp, with even the actors dressed in the typical black uniform of the Gestapo.

Besides this most memorable work, we also remember Krofta for his other work with Drak including Circus Unikum, Petruška, Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio. May he rest in peace.