A master puppeteer brings author Akutagawa’s story to the stage.
Blacksburg’s Moss Arts Center will host a next-gen spin on a 170-year-old form of Japanese puppetry with Akutagawa. Using advanced video projection and original live music, the show brings master puppeteer Koryū Nishikawa V and puppet artist Tom Lee together to animate the show’s oversized Japanese bunraku puppets, which take two to three people to manipulate.
“It’s a gem of a performance,” says Margaret Lawrence, the center’s director of programming. The show explores the creative process of one of Japan’s best-known 20th-century writers. “I wanted to bring his story to the Moss Arts Center to celebrate great writing and great theatre, and to invite audiences on a journey that will resonate long after it’s over,” Lawrence says.
A fifth-generation puppeteer, Nishikawa learned this folk art from his father, starting at age three. Through puppetry and classic storytelling, he brings the celebrated writer’s complicated life to the stage, transforming the unfamiliar into a captivating multi-media experience. Showing Feb. 17 & 18, 2023. ArtsCenter.VT.edu
