By Tim Jordan, '76

(Above) Jeremiah McDole, ’03, Jessica Smochek, ’03, and Angela Utley, ’03 at practice.

Japanese television and newspapers put 34 Berea College students in the spotlight for their work in the Bunraku Puppet Theatre.

NHK (the Japanese equivalent of PBS television in the U.S.) followed the Berea students during their short-term project as they learned and performed this traditional form of Japanese puppetry. The cross cultural experience was led by Shan Ayers, associate professor of English and theatre, and Martin Holman, assistant professor/director of the International Center. They began recruiting and training students during the fall semester before spending the month of January in the village of Tonda, in the township of Biwa-Cho in the Shiga prefecture east of Kyoto, Japan.

(Above) Berea students Ben Harris, '02, Allan Rwabutaza, '02, Jaime Breckenridge, '04, and Jeffrey Hodge, '02 play the musical accompaniment to the Bunraku puppet performance."

The students, who came from a wide variety of College majors, found time to participate in tours and other cultural activities in the region, but they spent most of the month training and rehearsing for their public performance of a noh play. Three students per puppet were required to manipulate the traditional characters. Students also learned tayu-joruri, (the chanting associated with the puppet performances) and how to play the shamisen (the traditional three-stringed instrument used to provide musical accompaniment).

(Above) McDole, Smochek and Utley during performance.

Because of the students’ adeptness in performing Bunraku puppetry and their widespread exposure by Japanese television and print media, the students were accorded celebrity status by the locals. The media noted that never before had non-Japanese people performed Bunraku puppetry as well as the Berea College students. And their hard work has been rewarded with an exclusive invitation to the annual international puppetry festival in Iida, Japan.