Traditional Japanese puppet theatre
The traditional Japanese puppet theatre ‹BUNRAKU› rarely leaves the land of the rising sun. It is therefore a great honour for the CULTURESCAPES festival to kick off this year’s programme ‹Tokyo 2014› with an enthralling artistic Bunraku performance. To mark the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Japan and at the invitation of the Swiss-Japanese Society, the national Bunraku theatre will travel to Switzerland for the very first time this year.
Founded in 1648, the puppet theatre reached its artistic peak in the 18th century. Since then, Bunraku has been one of the foremost classical stage arts besides Nô and Kabuki. In 2005, it was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Three puppeteers manipulate the remarkable almost life-sized puppets with a complex mechanical design.
On this evening, several narrators will recite three stories performed with the puppets. The theatre play will be accompanied by the traditional Japanese lutes, the shamisen.
