Chiryu Karakuri Ningyo Company and an Action-Packed Marvel

Hundreds of strings stretch across the puppet stage, criss-crossing over wooden beams, in and out of eye hooks, and through the anticipatory fingers of the puppeteers. There are fifteen members of Chiryu Karakuri Ningyo Company, ten of which are crammed inside the stage surrounded by puppets, sashigane, and scripts marked with hand-inked illustrations. During their bi-annual performances, the troupe usually performs on the top of an 18 foot festival float; however, for this week’s rehearsals they use the portable stage, a 100 square foot wooden frame that fills the entirety of Chiryu City's cozy community center.

As I move from one side of the room to the other, I push my back against the wall and delicately slide, careful not to disturb the concentration of the performers.  The team of puppeteers are like a crew of rowers, pulling strings, skillfully twisting sashigane, and quick-changing puppet costumes in harmonious collaboration.  

Two long wooden beams, the toi, organize the numerous strings, passing each thread through carefully marked holes. These are the same toi used on the top of the dashi and, along with the puppets, are invaluable components. After every rehearsal the puppeteers wax the internal strings with resin and then carefully pack the tracks for safekeeping.

Although it's considered an amateur troupe, Chiryu Karakuri Company is one of the most skilled and elaborate groups I’ve come across during my fellowship. In 1992, they represented Japan at UNIMA’s World Conference in Slovenia and have performed internationally in Italy and Australia. Led by my mentor and teacher Yasuko Senda, this September they will make their French debut at Festival Mondial Des Theatre de Marionnettes in Charleville-Méziéres. Like other karakuri ningyo companies, such as in Takayama's Hoteitai troupe, the group only performs one program, The Battle of Ichi-no-Tani. In the world of Japanese mechanical puppet theatre, the show is an action-packed blockbuster. The 15 minute spectacle is filled with dramatic Edo era ingenuity: puppets skillfully shooting bow and arrows, a samurai showdown, and a gleeful warrior twirling a skewered corpse on the end of a spear.

With the unique assistance of a tayu, which I have not seen in any other karakuri ningyo performances, it’s one of the few companies that weaves their audience through a narrative, recreating a legend from the 12th century’s Genji and Heike feud. Like joruri ningyo, karakuri ningyo began as a shinto ritual performed during festivals to offer gratitude to the gods. However, during the Edo era, as ningyo joruri diversified into itinerant performance, comical entertainment, and historical dramatization, karakuri ningyo held fast to its shinto roots. Today, the majority of performances are brimming with the same rhythmic movements, symbolic transformations, and spectacular gestures of the original ritualistic shows. The Battle of Ichi-no-Tani, with a cast of historical characters, live narration, and a fifteen minute runtime, offers something totally different.

The development of karakuri ningyo into historical drama might be due to another unique feature of Chiryu's company. On the first floor of the dashi, a platform extends specifically for ningyo joruri performances. These shows, which occur before the robotic puppets take the stage, date back to the matsuri’s Edo era origins.

It’s likely that this integration with local joururi ningyo troupes influenced the karakuri company to try its hand at historical storytelling and incorporate the bunraku trifecta: tayu, shamisen, and puppeteer. The dashi reflects this synthesis, with a center tier that is dedicated to the narrator and shamisen player, forming a towering theater with three different stages.

While Chiryu Karakuri Ningyo Company usually only performs every other spring, this year they are busier than ever as I follow them to indoor shows at cultural centers, rehearsals for Charleville-Méziéres, and celebratory events that mark their introduction into UNESCO's Cultural Heritage list. It’s an exciting and fruitful time for a puppet company that almost didn’t survive the 20th century. 

Like most puppet troupes in Japan during World War II, Chiryu’s karakuri ningyo performances completely ceased. It took some companies decades to recuperate after wartime due to the destruction of puppets, lack of national pride, and economic strain. Luckily, Chiryu City found the funds and spirit to rejuvenate the dormant tradition. In 1950 The Chiryu Karakuri Ningyo Company was founded by Mr. Shinji Sakata. Today, the company is directed by his son, Morohiko Sakata, and has almost twenty members. It’s a diverse group of insurance salesmen, farmers, students, an architect, and a few city officials. 

Some of the men have been performing together for almost 30 years, but there are still plenty of new members. In order to survive, there has to be. While the masters of other Japanese traditional arts, such as noh, bunraku, and kabuki, are often in their 70s and 80s, karakuri ningyo takes a lot of unexpected endurance and dexterity. 

In order to reach the top tier of a dashi, you must pull yourself upwards through tiny compartments, your hands gripping the floor as puppeteers navigate around you. Once at the peak, you balance in-between wooden cross beams as you stretch your neck upward to manipulate the puppets, trying to avoid the glare of the sun.  

My original expectation was karakuri ningyo would be similar to handling a marionette, requiring a sense of elegance and specificity. While the puppet’s movements can be crisp and expressive, there’s nothing graceful about the manipulation. As I jostle rods and tug at string, it feels like operating heavy machinery. I often struggle to garner enough strength. The puppets, fabricated from Hinoki wood, are heavy and difficult to command. Not to mention they’re filled with interior mechanisms, additional costumes, and hidden characters.

For example, the onerous puppet of Okabe includes a collapsed miniature Shinto shrine and an additional puppet head. He also wields a spear that swings another karakuri ningyo around on its end. To manipulate Okabe, it doesn't just take practice, but serious muscle-power. 

Now, I see karakuri ningyo's manipulation more similar to the powerful puppet machines from Walking with Dinosaurs than marionettes or rod puppets. I’m awed by the troupe’s greatest trick of all - they make it look easy. 

After rehearsals, as the group gathers around the small television set with beer and kameda crisps to watch footage of past performances, the youngest members hang by the stage. 

                

They’re trying to get a grasp on the puppet, Kojiro, a boy warrior who must draw a bow and strike his arrow at the center of a target. There’s no illusion. The puppet must really pull-off the coup. Manipulating only Kojiro’s arms and hands through a series of strings and rods, it’s even more difficult than shooting the real thing. 

The young men practice over and over, most of the time unable to get Kojiro to successfully string the bow. One of the old-timers approaches, beer in hand, and takes a stab at it. He tugs on the strings. Kojiro draws. Bullseye. 

From Takayama's Spring Festival to an Extraterrestrial Ritual: The Shared Awe of the Crowd

Last November, I made my first visit to Hida Takayama to witness the god of luck, Hotei, balance two tiny acrobats on his shoulders and dance above an audience of expectant tourists. Many of us waited for hours, fiddling with digital cameras, snacking on onigiri, and gazing up at the empty stage anticipating the entrance of one of the world's most famous Edo era robots.

Accommodating over a thousand visitors into the shrine took some serious maneuvering, highlighted by the fall out between an enraged elderly man swinging a tripod and the tripod's owner, a photographer who arrived late and jockeyed through the crowd to set-up front row center.

After police officers removed the suspect from the shrine accompanied by the gentle applause from the grandmother to my right, things settled down as we stood shoulder on top of shoulder, heads tilted skyward, waiting patiently in puppet idolization.

After Hotei's performance, the small city of Takayama, filled with Sake factories, robotic puppets, and one of the best hamburger shops in Japan, had me hooked.

Just a few months later, I hopped on a JR Expressway bus and headed back. As the driver travelled through the winding Hida mountains during a small snow storm I was excited to return without the throngs of festival goers and packed itinerary. During my second trip, I found a quiet town in the grip of winter as I carefully balanced across ice-covered sidewalks to cozy-up in the karakuri ningyo cultural archives belly full of Hida beef.

My third visit to Takayama was three months later in April during Sanno Matsuri. Takayama's fall and spring festivals are both enormous celebrations, each with their own ensemble of elaborate floats, or yatai. They each attract thousands of visitors from across the world, filling the streets with 18 foot floats adorned in glowing lanterns, dancing teenagers manipulating wooden lion heads, and a contagious chaotic euphoria.

This year, for the first time in Takayama's history, an additional festival is scheduled in May to celebrate the designation of the yatai as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Treasure. The ten yatai from the fall festival, Hachiman Matsuri, will wake from their hibernation, decamp from their garages, and roam the streets of Takayama at the same time as the thirteen yatai of Sanno Matsuri. It's hard to believe, but this event will attract even more people than the annual festivals, which already feel beyond capacity.

To navigate through Takayama's main street during a matsuri means relinquishing all autonomy and giving-in to the dense tussle of the crowd. As someone who tends to avoid any event with more people than a weekly book-club meeting, I am bewildered by those who willingly attend overcrowded events, from pop-star studded concerts to professional sports games.

The next morning the three yatai with karakuri ningyo travelled over Takayama's famous Nakabashi bridge and met at the city center.

Caked in sunscreen, I spent hours scoping out a spot near a roasted rice ball vendor, Jinya Dango. It was just as crowded as the previous evening, but as the yatai arrived and the puppets emerged, we relaxed into a pleasant anticipation.

Photograph by William F. Condee

As the February snow thaws from Gifu Prefecture, Sanno Matsuri brings forth three puppets that embody the essence of spring's arrival - transformation. With the opening of a mysterious box, a young boy transformed into an old man, an angry dragon burst from a cage, and a fan-dancing woman mutated into a wild lion. With each transformation, the crowd gasped in unison. Similar to my experience in the fall, the karakuri ningyo are some of the best in Japan.

On the second day of Sanno Matsuri, the procession of yatai was cancelled due to rain. However, the karakuri ningyo puppeteers agreed to perform inside the yatai garages. I made my way through the historic streets of the east district to watch one of the performances.

In a narrow alley, surrounded by only a hundred or so spectators, I watched the same performance as the previous afternoon. The show is based on a Japanese tale about a young boy who welcomes a drunk old man into his home, suspects him of being a dragon, locks him inside of a box, and drops him off near the Japanese sea. Filled with vengeful rage, the old man transforms into a dragon and breaks from the boy's makeshift cage. The two puppets are skillfully operated by 32 strings running through the the extended stage, or toi track, by six puppeteers hidden underneath. 

Even though I knew what to expect, I couldn't help but join in with the collective gasp as the dragon burst forth and launched confetti into the air. Afterwards, I thought about the previous morning when this same moment of wonder was shared amongst thousands. Despite having spent the last twenty-four hours begrudging my fight through the crowds, I missed sharing this show with the enormous mass of visitors. Even though these performances are for the gods, there's something about reacting to transformations with thousands that makes them feel like a mystical event.

Takayama's karakuri ningyo performs the impossible - it unites crowds of strangers into one shared moment of awe. I left the garage with a newfound empathy for those who enjoy the thrill of attending a World Series.

A few weeks later I'm in the hometown of Mt. Fuji, where the theater director Kuro Tanino premiered a new work, Moon, at the Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Last year I wrote about Tanino's production Avidya: No Lights Inn, and I spent the winter months of 2017 interning with his company, Niwa Gekidan Penino, as they remounted the production Darkmaster at Komaba Agora Theater in Tokyo. Now in Shizuoka, I found Tanino skipping the conventional stage for an environmental experience that transformed the city's famous open air theater into an extrasolar planet complete with a cast of five little people in spacesuits and a make-shift moon-landing set reminiscent of Tom Sach's Space Program.

Photograph by Chiye NAMEGAI.
Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Kuro Tanino's Moon. 2017. 

Each show welcomed a substantial audience of about four hundred as they made their way through the performing arts park towards a massive collection of astronaut helmets. Adorned in these stellar costumes, the enormous crowd followed the cast through the woods, collected geometric sculptures, and assisted in the creation of a celestial monument at the peak of the massive outdoor theater.

Photograph by Chiye NAMEGAI. 
Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Kuro Tanino's Moon. 2017. 

Mame Yamada, who also played the lead in Avidya: No Lights Inn, sat at the monument's apex as hundreds of spectators stared up at his tiny figure with anticipation. Towering above, with his long hair, short stature, and hypnotizing movements, Mame-san felt like a space-age deity or a living version of Takayama's mystical puppets.

Photograph by Chiye NAMEGAI. 
Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Kuro Tanino's Moon. 2017. 

The enormous mass of space helmets, continually intensified the stage images. By interacting with other audience members, transforming the environment, and staring reverently skyward at a three foot astronaut standing on a geometric shrine, Moon felt more more like a extraterrestrial matsuri than experimental theater. 

There are many moments of awe-inspiring spectacle in the performance, including a dance scene with music played solely from a collection of amplified Gamboys. With an enormous float designed by German theatre artist Caspar Pichner, the event culminated with the transformation of the outdoor theater into a grand celestial view. As if watching Earth rise from the surface of the moon, the entire audience of space-helmet clad visitors quietly took in the stage.

Photograph by Chiye NAMEGAI. 
Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Kuro Tanino's Moon. 2017. 

Takayama matsuri and Tanino's Moon are two rituals developed centuries apart. They don't ask us to identify with their characters, but create an environment where we identify with each other. During both experiences, I recognized my shared impulses with other audience members, and entered into a sort of group consciousness often overlooked in the darkness of a conventional theater seat.

In the performance of Moon I attended in Shizuoka, the experience ended with an awesome but somber image - the Earth is an unsettling foggy tint, no longer inhabitable, void of its natural green and blue wonder. Yet, it's still an uplifting conclusion. The audience emerged from the other side, together, looking down at the Earth's surface in a shared silent stupor. We've learned how to be with each other.

For more information regarding Kuro Tanino and Niwa Gekidan Penino: http://niwagekidan.org/english

Yasuko Senda and Her Goodwill Mission

On August 8th of 2016, the entire island of Japan paused to watch Emperor Akihito address the nation from The Tokyo Imperial Palace and urge parliament to pass legislation that would allow him to abdicate. Fifty years earlier, the world watched on black and white newsreels as Emperor Akihito, then a prince, married Empress Michiko. It was a fairy tale wedding. Emperor Akihito met Michiko Shoda on a tennis court, and now she was the princess of the longest running monarchy in the world. To celebrate the wedding, Japan's prime minister, Shinsuke Kishi, established the first Japanese Youth Goodwill Mission and sent 79 Japanese youth across the Pacific to share Japan's rich culture and offer goodwill onto the world.

Yasuko has just returned from Turin, Italy, where she gave a lecture on Bunraku at the Incanti Puppet Festival. As I watch her sip her cold beer over books on Japanese Kagura and international puppet magazines, it's as though Yasuko is still on the Emperor's trans-pacific mission.

Today, she is a chancellor for UNIMA-Japan, directs an organization, Minerva Group, that hosts cultural events between foreigners and Nagoya residents, and is responsible for assembling the only international tours of karakuri ningyo. Her lifetime of cross-cultural exploration has shaped an insightful, valuable, and global perspective. In conversation, she moves from Edo period parade floats to Poland's experimental theater scene to recalling her time with Swedish theater-maker Michael Meschke.

In 1984, Meschke brought his adaptation of the Ramayana to Japan. The production combined musicians from Thailand, puppeteers from Japan, designers from Europe, and a classic epic from India to create a multicultural tour de force. Meschke's Ramayana illustrated the ability for puppetry to move beyond language, to preserve culture, and to celebrate our collective humanity. It also represented Yasuko Senda's pursuits as a cultural liaison. And in many ways, it was this show that changed Yasuko Senda's trajectory from enthusiast to champion.

Yasuko Senda, then 22, was one of these fortunate citizens. She was selected to visit The United States and spend three months meeting American leaders and fellow young adults. She traveled to dozens of American cities stretching from Los Angeles to New York City. She remembers New Orleans the most vividly, especially because it felt the most exotic and exciting. She recalls this remarkable journey while sitting in her cozy apartment in Imaike, Nagoya, surrounded by books about Italian Opera, Punch and Judy, and Chikamatsu Monzaemon.

(Michael Meschke, Yasuko Senda, Elizabeth

and Daddy D. Pudumjee, 2013) 

While in Japan, Michael Meschke's curiosity led Yasuko Senda down a path that would change her life. The theater director was no stranger to Japanese puppet theater, mounting a Bunraku inspired production of Antigone in 1977. During his 1984 trip to Japan, Meschke's passion for international performance led him to seek out more marginalized forms of traditional Japanese theater. He came to Yasuko Senda for help. With her fiery generosity and passion for cultural exchange, there was no better person to ask. Yasuko recalled a conversation she had with a local TV producer regarding unusual robotic dolls performed at festivals. She decided to investigate further, scouring through the producer's documentary footage. To her amazement, these puppets were still being performed all over Japan. One of the main footholds of the traditions was Aichi Prefecture, her home province. This discovery brought thrills, but also shock and alarm. How had she spent her entire life so close to these mechanical puppets without knowing a thing about them? And why was there such a frightening lack of information about this art form?

The same year Yasuko Senda discovered karakuri ningyo, The Japan Arts Council and Ministry of Education reopened the National Bunraku Theater in Osaka. While Japan's government made a major commitment to sustaining and celebrating Japan's traditional puppet theater, karakuri ningyo was widely overlooked. Similar to the puppet rituals of Awaji island, karakuri ningyo was considered low art and less refined than Bunraku. Yet, as leadership curated its national art forms to include Kabuki, Noh, and Bunraku, Yasuko Senda was impelled to research and document the elusive karakuri ningyo.

For the next six years, Yasuko Senda visited Japanese festivals, compiled research and photographs, and eventually published one of the first books about karakuri ningyo in modern Japan. She also organized the first international tours of karakuri ningyo in 1984, bringing master Tamaya Shobei IX, Chiryu Karakuri Ningyo Theatre, and Hekinan's karakuri ningyo across the globe. Subsequently, she has organized tours to Slovenia (’92), Poland (’98 / ’12), Croatia (’02), Australia (’08), Sweden (’09), and Spain (’16). In 2013, she self-published an English text on karakuri ningyo, contributing to her role in preserving karakuri ningyo for both national and global communities.

Just last month, The United Nation's UNESCO inducted Central Japan's dashi and karakuri ningyo onto the Intangible Cultural Heritage list. It's a remarkable victory for the craft. Today, with growing support and interest, it joins the ranks also inhabited by Japanese Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku.

When I travel with Yasuko Senda through Japan's matsuri celebrations, I always have trouble keeping up. As I try to follow her swift saunter in and out of the crowds, it's easy to imagine 22 year-old Yasuko fueled by curiosity, criss-crossing the streets of the French Quarter under the spell of a foreign land. Fifty years later, Yasuko Senda's passion and her generosity has cast a spell of her own, turning back history, and preserving a piece of the Japanese spirit.

Yasuko Senda's 2013 English-translated text, Karakuri Ningyo. Japanese Automata, is a fantastic reference for puppet makers, historians, and automata enthusiasts. It includes mechanical drawings, historical background, and descriptions of many karakuri ningyo festivals in Japan. With maps and calendars you won't find online, Karakuri Ningyo. Japanese Automata is also a great reference for travelers seeking festivals off the beaten path.

To order Karakuri Ningyo. Japanese Automata (English / $30 / €28), please contact Ms. Senda directly at: senday@ams.odn.ne.jp

Yasuko Senda's Japanese texts include:
Treasurehouse of Karakuri Ningyo [ 1991 ]
Karakuri Ningyo Maker Shobei Tamaya IX [ 1998 ]
World of Karakuri Ningyo [ 2005 ]