Tonda Traditional Bunraku Puppet Troupe
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Tonda Traditional Japanese Bunraku Puppet Troupe (Japanese: 冨田人形共遊団, Tonda ningyō kyōyūdan), founded in the 1830s, is one of the most active groups performing traditional ningyō jōruri or Bunraku puppetry in Japan, and has been officially designated an Intangible Cultural Treasure.
Based in the northern part of the city of Nagahama on the shore of Lake Biwa, in Shiga Prefecture, northeast of Kyoto, the Tonda Puppets have made international performance tours to Australia, New Zealand, and four times to the United States. In addition to their international travels, the Troupe instructs local middle and high school students in the art of bunraku puppetry. They also host educational sessions for local citizens at their training hall. The Tonda Troupe has also been active in training American college and university students in traditional Japanese puppetry in academic programs sponsored by such institutions as Berea College in Kentucky and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as the Japan Center for Michigan Universities, which is located in the nearby city of Hikone. The Troupe performs regularly at their own theater in Nagahama and on tour.
[edit] History
The Tonda troupe started around 1836, when an itinerant puppetry troupe got stuck in the Nagahama, due to a snowstorm. Unable to continue their journey home to Tokushima (they had been travelling home from Tōhoku, where they performed for the winter), they fell further and further into debt to the villagers, and ended up leaving the puppets as collateral for their loan. The itinerant troupe never returned to pay up the debt and repossess the puppets, and the villagers ended up forming into the Tonda puppet troupe, which continues to this day with the same puppets. This means that, for at least some of the puppets they use regularly, the handcarved wooden heads are over 170 years old; kimono and other parts of bunraku puppets are often replaced due to wear or age, or even changed to play different roles, and so the heads alone are generally considered to be the true heart of the puppet.
Beginning in the 1970s, the troupe opened up to welcome as members men from outside the traditional bunraku families, and women as well. In 1993, they became the first bunraku troupe to ever admit a non-Japanese member. A stage and theatre was built specifically for them in the 1990s by the prefectural government, and is currently headed by Hidehiko Abe, who traces his ancestry back seven generations to one of the founding members of the troupe.
