Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo: Traditional Japanese puppet theatre
The Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo Company from Japan performed at UVic on May 2 to a capacity audience in Hickman 105. Kuruma ningyo is a rare form of puppetry in which the puppeteer sits on a small seat on rollers and manipulates a life-sized puppet to the accompaniment of a narrator, called a gidayu, and a musician playing a shamisen, a three-stringed instrument sounding rather like a banjo.
This unique style of puppetry originated in Japan in the mid-19th century and was derived from the famous bunraku theatre, in which three manipulators control each puppet.
Nishikawa Koyru V, the fifth headmaster of the Kuruma Ningyo Troupe, was accompanied by female performers Takemoto Koshiko, as gidayu, and Tsuruzawa Sensuzu on shamisen, on this visit to Victoria, part of a larger tour of Canada and South America.
The troupe has been classified as an Intangible Folk Cultural Properties by the Government of Japan.
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