leading to the stage. We also attended a lecture Onozaki gave in Nagoya on the local karakuri ningyō dashi tradition and were able to see and try manipulating the karakuri figure, complete with strings, that was set up in the lecture hall to demonstrate how it is operated from inside the cart on which it travels. The lecture, like many other events I attend, substituted for canceled performances, providing alternate means for people to engage with traditional arts.Later In November, I also traveled to Tokushima and reconnected there with the hakomawashi. Tsujimoto invited me to appear as a guest on his monthly local television show devoted to Tokushima puppetry. I also met up with Holman, and he brought me to Katsuura Puppet Theatre’s ningyō jōruri performance at Inukai, a noson butai. The troupe also did an amazing dogugaeshi or fusuma performance at Inukai’s outdoor theatre, which is specially equipped for this kind of event. I had never seen a traditional fusuma spectacle in person, and it is quite mesmerizing. We were among a small group allowed to watch the show live since COVID restrictions kept general audiences from attending; most viewers enjoyed the show as a television broadcast instead. This performance, surprisingly, turned out to be part of an annual harvest ritual, and we arrived just in time to catch the puppet blessings with Okina, Senzai, and Sanbasō taking place within the shrine before the joruri plays began on the large adjacent stage.Holman and I subsequently traveled together to Fukuoka hoping to catch a glimpse of the 1300 year-old Kugutsu Dance and Sumo tradition housed at Hachiman Kohyo Jinjya in Yoshitomi and Koyo Jinja in Nakatsu. We knew there would be no performance; even in non-pandemic times these take place only once every 3 or 4 years. The two shrines are a study in contrasts. The one in Yoshitomi is large, lavish, and close to the sea, with a display of older puppets in one of the halls. The many small puppet outfits that people give as offerings are also hung up there for viewing. This shrine’s performance, we were told, is done by members of the City Hall staff and takes place both on a boat in the sea and at the shrine. The shrine in Nakatsu is small, up in the mountains, and all their puppets were safely tucked away in a storage unit that those who preserve the form were not interested in disturbing during our off season visit. Here it is children from the local middle school, trained by their elders, who perform the show behind a curtain set up on the steps of a small shrine house; - 68 -
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