MU puppeteers perform traditionally Japanese puppetry
Students are only group to perform Bunraku puppetry outside of Japan.
Published May 4, 2007
A group of MU students pulled strings to go to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., last weekend to display a talent normally seen only in Japan.
The Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe, led by Japanese Studies Coordinator Martin Holman, is the only puppet troupe to perform the traditionally Japanese style of puppetry Bunraku outside of Japan.
Holman took seven MU students to perform, along with two students from the University of Massachusetts, where he used to teach.
Other special performances for Holman and his troupe include the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2005 and a trip to Florida in the fall to perform for Muppets creator Jim Henson.
He also takes students to Japan every summer to train with puppet troupes.
Last summer, his students trained with two troupes that have existed for more than 300 years.
"This was one of the best shows we've ever done," Holman said. "Everything came together, and the audience was really good."
Bunraku is a traditional form of Japanese puppetry that dates back to the 1500s. The performances involve puppets that are three-to-four feet tall, with three people to operate each puppet.
Holman said one person operates the head and the right hand, another person operates the left hand and the third operates the feet.
Holman said he knows people in Japan who carve the puppets for him and his troupe.
Holman spent 10 years in Japan but said he was interested in puppets long before he went abroad.
"I was interested in puppets since I was a kid," he said. "The first thing I remember asking Santa Claus to bring me was a marionette, and he did."
Holman, a zoology major, went to Japan after his junior year as a missionary. He took three years off before returning for his senior year, when he switched his major to Japanese.
Holman said he began spending time at the theater and doing research with the graduate program for Japanese.
He directed a study center and said he was asked by a troupe one night what interested him. He told the troupe he wanted to be a puppeteer and asked for training.
"They said, 'Sure, you start tomorrow,'" Holman said. "I was the first non-Japanese ever to train in the puppet theater."
Holman said his troupe benefits from being the only Bunraku puppet act outside of Japan.
"Since we're the only troupe that performs this, if anyone wants to see it in the U.S., they either have to fork out the money to get people from Japan or they can see us," he said.
