Sakamoto Kiyoe
Lecture from Dartmouth workshop, December 2021(Click "Watch on YouTube" if you'd like the video to play in a separate window)
Well then, everyone, let's welcome Professor Sakamoto.
I am Sakamoto. Thank you for the introduction and thank you for having me. I’ll share my screen.
00:50 - Great. Today I am going to speak about ningyō jōruri bunraku 人形浄瑠璃文楽 (traditional Japanese puppet theatre), a form of Japan’s traditional performing arts that has continued from the early modern period to the present day. Today I will discuss “embodiment,” such as how the puppets in theater are manipulated and to what extent the bodies of puppets can or cannot recreate the human form. This talk will focus on the puppet’s legs. 01:25
01:29 There may be people here today who do not know much about ningyō jōruri, so I want to explain a bit about what it is and about controlling puppets, such as the change from using one puppeteer to using three puppeteers, and what kind of form puppets have and the differences between male and female puppets. Then I’d like to explain the “embodiment” of the area below the knees, two terms known as the hagi 脛 (calves) and sune 脛・臑 (shins).
02:06 As for ningyō jōruri theater, it was registered in 2009 as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage–the three performing arts: noh, ningyō jōruri, and kabuki are all registered–but almost all puppet theater around the world is performed for children. Japan’s ningyō jōruri is a performance art intended for adults and this is one of its distinct characteristics.
02:39 Furthermore, since it’s an art that emerged in Osaka it’s still mainly performed there today, though it’s also performed in national theaters in Tokyo. Still, it’s fundamentally an art rooted in Osaka.
03:00 This image is of ningyō jōruri. In the present day typically three people manipulate one puppet’s body. Here, to the side of the person behind the puppet—this person, whose face is showing next to the head of the puppet, is known as the omozukai 主遣い (head puppeteer). They control the head and the right hand. They wear tall geta and the stage comes to about here, but the puppet can still be seen.
The other two people cover their faces and serve as kuroko 黒子 (stage assistants). This person on the right side, who controls the left hand, is called the hidari-zukai 左遣い (left puppeteer) and the person whose legs are all you see here is the ashi-zukai 足遣い (leg puppeteer) who controls the legs. The entire body of the puppet is moved through these three people. 03:51
In this photo, only the omozukai is showing his face and this kind of puppeteering is called dezukai 出遣い (unhooded performance). But there is also the sannin dezukai 三人出遣い (three-person unhooded performance) way of performing, where all three of the puppeteers have their faces showing. There are also instances when the omozukai becomes a kuroko, covering his face on stage. 04:10
04:12 This is how a large puppet is managed with three people. As for what jōruri itself is, today jōruri is seen as a general term for advancing a story through a melody. The one who narrates the jōruri tale is the chanter, known as the tayū, who typically narrates the voices of all of the characters by himself. 04:45
04:46 There is also shamisen music incorporated but the shamisen is not simply accompaniment. Rather, it serves to set the tone of the scene together with the story being performed by the chanter.
05:04 Together these are called the sangyō 三業 (three professions), divided into the three roles of the puppeteers, the chanter, and the shamisen. This is how ningyō jōruri bunraku is performed. 05:16
05:18 I mentioned that this puppet is very large and through moving the puppet it’s possible to convey a variety of very particular emotions.
05:30 This facial area is known as the kashira 首 (head). There are some eighty types of puppet heads, but I won’t be talking about those today, focusing instead on the puppet’s legs.
05:45 Of the jōruri that are performed there is a type known as jidai-mono 時代物 (historical plays). This is the main type of ningyō jōruri bunraku drama. It typically features historical subjects or legendary figures such those from The Tale of Genji or The Tale of the Heike that everyone in the audience would know even if the characters were in a brand-new story. Usually, historical plays are five acts. This is the principal kind of performance.
06:25 In contrast, there’s also sewa-mono 世話物 (domestic plays) genre on current events for the audiences in the Edo period.
06:35 For example, the boy next door committed a murder, or came into money, or there’s been an affair. These are the subjects of domestic plays that were a newly added genre to jōruri and these two genres of historical and domestic plays are said to be the two pillars of early modern drama.
06:58 In addition to these two types, there are also programs focused on the dance and michiyuki 道行 (journey) performances, known as keigoto or keiji 景事 (spectacle plays) that emphasize musical and dance elements.
07:13 Broadly speaking, ningyō jōruri bunraku is divided into these three themes.
07:24 This is an image published in the Edo period of the stage of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s Sonezaki shinjū 曽根崎心中 (Love Suicides at Sonezaki). This was the very first of the early modern domestic plays that emerged. You probably know of Love Suicides at Sonezaki, but it’s the story of the double suicide of the lovers Ohatsu and Tokubei.
7:47 Over here Ohatsu is on pilgrimage to Kannon sites. We can see that a puppeteer named Tatsumatsu Hachirōbei is maneuvering Ohatsu with his hand under the hem and inside the puppet.
8:06 On the right side, the shamisen player and the chanter are seated in a line and here we can see that Chikugo no jō of Takemoto Gidayū’s house is the one who is the main narrator. Next to him there is someone named Takemoto Tanomo. They are narrating the michiyuki portion together.
08:28 As for whether there are single-person puppets anymore like the one seen here, today there are no longer protagonists controlled by one puppeteer, but among early puppets there were those called tsume ningyō ツメ人形 (side puppets) controlled with only one person’s hand beneath the robe.
8:45 On this puppet of Ohatsu there are no legs, but not because she’s a female puppet. Rather, it’s because she’s a tsume ningyō, which is handled by one person.
08:57 From the early days, puppeteers worked with single-person puppets, but puppets of men, called tachi-yaku, had legs early on and the style was that two people (an omozukai and someone handling the legs) would control the puppet.
09:17 Female puppets were done with no legs.
09:25 There are many theories as to why three puppeteers came to be used, but typically it’s said to be linked to the play Ashiya Dōman ōuchi kagami 芦屋道満大内鑑 (A Courtly Mirror of Ashiya Dōman).
09:41 This story incorporates the mysterious birth of the diviner Abe no Seimei. A fox turns into the Princess Kuzunoha and saves Abe no Yasuna, who takes her as a wife, and Abe no Seimei is born. But when the real Kuzunoha appears, the fox entrusts Seimei to Kuzunoha and Yasuna, returning to Shinoda forest. In the fourth act of this play, this woman in the palanquin is the real Princess Kuzunoha and the one sitting next to her is Abe no Seimei.
10:20 He’s called Abe no Dōji at the time. In this image, Kuzunoha and the young Seimei are being saved by the lowly attendants called yakko 奴.
10:33 This yakko’s name is Yokanbei and the other palanquin-bearer is a fox who shapeshifted into a yakko. Here, the one on the left, the burly servant, is actually the fox that copied the appearance of Yokanbei and he’s called himself Yakanbei, punning on the word yakan, meaning “fox.”
11:15 This figure in the background is the female fox, disguised as Kuzunoha. She has the other fox, Yakanbei, save Kuzunoha and the young Seimei when they were being attacked by a group of bad guys.
11:40 Since the two men face the audience and they need to form a mirror image, with Yakanbei bearing the palanquin with his left arm while Yokanbei does the same with his right arm, this is said to be the origin of the puppet being manipulated by three puppeteers. So the explanation is that there needs to be someone to handle Yakanbei’s left arm, that is, the third puppeteer.
12:01 In this scene the servants are also revealing very large legs. This is the first play where three-person puppets were used and they also bare these vigorous, manly legs.
Now, let us spend a few minutes watching how puppets are actually manipulated by three people.
12:44 Today puppets are categorized into tachi-yaku 立役, onna-gata 女方, and kokata 子役. Tachi-yaku is a general term for the roles of men, roles other than that of female onna-gata puppets or child kokata puppets. Onna-gata are, as the name suggests, the female puppets, and as you can see, the difference is that the onna-gata has no legs, whereas the tachi-yaku does have legs.
13:18 All male role puppets come with legs, unless they are the tsume ningyō.
13:25 First, in order to demonstrate that the male protagonist tachi-yaku is an important figure, he is handled in such a way as to make the movement of the legs clear by opening the legs widely and striking poses.
13:37 Whether they are a warrior or a townsperson, a performance gains a lively feeling from decisively handling the puppet’s legs.
13:44 On the other hand, the puppets of women do not have legs, so you can see that the scale–this combined area–bulges out and expands a little, and this area is called the fuki ふき (turned back hem). Through the skillful movement of the fuki one is able to convey a feminine refinement.
14:12 Also even though female puppets don’t have legs they often do poses like kneeling.
14:17 For this the ashi-zukai makes a fist inside the kimono and makes it look as if there are knees. Thus, the puppeteer conveys femininity by creating an impression of legs under the kimono.
14:35 I’d like to take a moment to look at the puppet here. I’m going to change screens to please wait a moment.
15:02 Okay. This is a female puppet. The puppet is moving gracefully and the hem area is manipulated like legs so you understand that they’re moving.
15:27 If you remove the kimono, they’re moving the doll like this. Using their fingertips the ashi-zukai conveys the image of walking using the legs–well, the hem.
15:38 Moving the “legs” is done by moving one’s fingers this way.
16:03 Okay. I’d like to show one more female puppet standing knee position. Please wait a moment.
16:22 It looks as if the leg is inside the kimono but under this is the puppeteer’s clenched fist.
16:36 With this he’s made a standing knee form.
16:42 Now I’d like to compare it to the tachi-yaku puppets.
17:08 He’s striking a pose. The ashi-zukai also makes the noises of the feet.
17:32 I think the puppet’s gestures are expressed very skillfully here.
17:38 Okay, well, I will go back to my slides.
17:54 Okay. Do female puppets never have legs? Here I’ll talk a bit about how occasionally some of them do. This is the Tenmaya Tea House scene from Love Suicides at Sonezaki. Tokubei is hidden under the floorboard and it’s the scene where he conveys to Ohatsu that they’ll kill themselves, performing love suicides (shinjū) together.
18:21 And over here actually Ohatsu has a leg. If you look at this part, you can see just a bit of Ohatsu’s ankle.
18:31 The ankle is attached only for this scene, where Tokubei brings her ankle to his throat and gestures to his lover that he is prepared to die.
18:50 Ohatsu’s puppet appears without legs for all the other scenes.
18:56 Furthermore, this is a spectacle play called Ninin kamuro 二人禿 (Two Girl Attendants to a Courtesan) and it has two cute girls who are employed by a courtesan. These young attendants, called kamuro 禿, will become courtesans in the future. These two kamuro come out and play hane-tsuki (Japanese badminton) and enjoy themselves. Their puppets do come with legs.
19:22 They also have tall clogs known as pokkuri 木履. These pokkuri have a very tall platform and they come out wearing them.
19:30 Having these legs makes them appear very lovely and in order to convey this they come out wearing pokkuri. So the kamuro puppets, too, have legs attached.
19:44 There is also a character known as Otsuru who appears in the work Keisei Awa no Naruto 傾城阿波鳴門 (The Infant Pilgrim) as a girl who is going on a pilgrimage. This image on the right is not from the Bunraku Theater’s website. But similar to the kamuro, the girl on a pilgrimage also comes with legs to indicate her youthful charm and vibrancy.
20:15 That said, not all female puppets on a pilgrimage appear with legs attached. This is from Act 8 of Kanadehon chūshingura 仮名手本忠臣蔵 (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers) at the “Bridal Journey” act. Kakogawa Honzō’s wife Tonami and daughter Konami are heading to a place near where Konami’s fiancé lives and they see Mt. Fuji as they’re traveling. But even though they are outdoors in this scene they still have no legs because they are of elite samurai class, while Otsuru is a commoner.
20:46 So although the girl on a pilgrimage had legs attached to her puppet while traveling, there are none on these elite women.
20:57 Additionally, the well-known character from the Tales of the Heike, the shirabyōshi dancer Shizuka, does not have legs, even though she is not a highborn figure (Note: this is probably because Shizuka is an archetype of mature feminine ideal, as Yoshitsune’s favorite concubine).
21:02 Non-elite women can have legs even if they are adults. There is the Chikamatsu Monzaemon play Heike Nyogo-no-shima 平家女護島 (The Heike and the Island of Women). In the “Kikai-ga-shima 鬼界ヶ島” (Island of the Devil’s Realm) act there is a female diver named Chidori and she has legs.
21:21 The Heike and the Island of Women is also based in the Tale of the Heike’s episodes on Shunkan’s exile, which was adapted into the noh play Shunkan 俊寛, among others. The noh play is based on the “Kikai-ga-shima” act of this puppet play.
21:34 Chidori, who is not a character that appears in the Heike, is a fisherwoman/diver who catches shellfish and such from the sea to make a living.
21:48 In this play, Chidori became the wife of the courtier Naritsune, who had been exiled to the island of Kikai-ga-shima along with Shunkan. When Naritsune talks about his wife Chidori and tells Shunkan how she dives into the ocean to catch shellfish, he does so in an explicit and erotic way.
22:10 Her legs also come up, saying that she “catches red clams and holds them between her thighs.” This emphasizes that she’s a diver—a woman with alterity—and as the name of the Kikai-ga-shima act is also known as “The Diver’s Dialect” and “The Diver’s Farewell” act, Chidori is the central figure.
22:36 Chidori is depicted as an exotic being who speaks “the diver’s dialect.” The jōruri audience watching this play would speak the Osaka dialect with the Kansai pitch-accent, given that it’s an Osaka stage. But Chidori’s is different; her utterances are narrated with the slightly exotic Kyushu pitch-accent.
23:04 There is a scene where the pardon ship has arrived and Naritsune is to return to Kyoto, the capital. Because she cannot join him, she stamps the ground and laments. This gesture to express extreme frustration is called ashi-zuri. It’s this scene on the right. I am not sure if we can say that Chidori has legs so she can do the ashi-zuri per se. It’s more significant that her legs entail Chidori’s exotic alterity.
23:30 Given that Chidori is a barefoot diver and performs ashi-zuri, she’s different from the aforementioned kamuro.
23:48 This is the dancing number from a spectacle play called Dango-uri 団子売り (The Dumpling Sellers). In this there’s the wife O-usu and the husband Kinezō and they are pounding mochi together.
24:07 O-usu has legs attached because she is a dumpling seller, a commoner, and also because she dances along with her husband. Evidently, it’s typical that the audience only see onna-gata’s ankles or below, as opposed to the male puppets, who reveal their legs up to the knees or higher.
24:37 In other words, for a female puppet, there is no showing the calves and there is absolutely no showing thighs.
24:48 Even when female puppets come with legs, including calves and thighs, they’re just sticks and not made to look like realistic parts of the legs. They are not effective in visually conveying women’s legs. Women’s calves are either expressed through words or suggested by shapes of the kimono (created by the ashi-zukai’s hands).
25:09 From here I’m going to talk about calves (hagi) and shins (sune). As I stated previously, these terms refer to the area below the knee. Though both words have existed since premodern times, today we no longer use hagi alone though it is used as part of the compound fukura-haki 脹脛 (lit. plump calves).
25:38 Generally, the calves are the fleshy, soft part of the back of the leg, while the shins are the front area with bone. Both are part of the lower leg but their roles are very different.
25:55 So the supple part is the calf and the hard part is the shin.
26:06 Looking at calves next, Tosa nikki 土佐日記 (Tosa Diary) provides an example from the classical period. Tosa Diary is a story of traveling by boat from Tosa in Shikoku to return to the capital of Kyoto.
26:21 Occasionally the passengers lodge at a port and rest, and when they arrive at a place called Murotsu there’s a scene where the women bathe with their clothes on.
26:36 They show their entire calves as they’re bathing and it depicts calves as a suggestive spectacle.
26:45 In the Kokin wakashū 古今和歌集 (Collection of Japanese Poems of Ancient and Modern Times), too, there is a poem where it’s written that the poet shows his calves to cross the heavenly stream.
26:53 The term tsuru-hagi 鶴脛 (crane legs) appears. This refers to showing legs by hiking one’s kimono up, which makes legs look graceful like the legs of a crane.
27:10 There’s also the kohagi form of the kimono, which is a little shorter than tsuru-hagi but also suggests making one’s calves look elegant.
27:25 It’s actually the story of Kume the Hermit from Konjaku monogatari-shū 今昔物語集 (A Collection of Tales from Times now Past) that created a kind of iconic image of calves. This episode is also mentioned in Tsurezuregusa 徒然草 (Essays in Idleness).
27:40 The hermit sees a woman doing laundry with her calves entirely exposed—that’s this scene here. It depicts Kume the Hermit seeing the whiteness of the woman’s calves, losing his ability to fly, and then crashing.
28:00 Since the medieval period, hagi therefore implied women’s white calves and, as with the depiction of the hermit’s loss of his powers, they came to be seen as alluring.
28:15 Well then, what about ningyō jōruri? Here I’m discussing Komochi yamanba 嫗山姥 (The Mountain Hag with Child), a puppet play by Chikamatsu.
A former courtesan known as Yaegiri describes a fellow courtesan as wearing a white kimono and also having her calves exposed. So her calves are described in words, with the woman turning and revealing her bare calves.
28:50 In actuality, her calves never appear on stage. In the play Honchō Nijūshi-kō 本朝廿四孝 (Japan's Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety), too, to describe the psyche of a traveling woman, the narrator uses the imagery of “calves of snow.”
29:00 In another play, Hidaka-gawa iriai zakura 日高川入相花王 (Sunset Cherry Blossoms on the Hidaka River), Anchin and Kiyohime—Anchin is a monk and Kiyohime is the daughter of a government official—after she realizes that Anchin does not lover her, she chases after him to the Hidaka River. The narrator remarks, “as she pursued him with a single-minded woman’s heart, she even gradually exposed her calves.” Because she cannot cross the river as a woman, she turns into a serpent to pursue Anchin in her infatuation.
29:23 Here the calves are narrated using this phrase of “gradually exposing her calves,” though this does not mean that we can see the calves of the distraught Kiyohime and in fact she appears in the play as a woman without legs.
29:45 Her hair is disheveled but we can’t see her legs and they’re only suggested in words.
29:52 As with the term tsuru-hagi, women’s calves (hagi) are associated with those of a crane, but in ningyō jōruri, this idea is not represented visually, with the lower part of the legs from below the knee being absent for female puppets.
30:11 In contrast, for sune (shins), they appear in phrases like doro-zune 泥臑 (muddy shins) or sune o itameru 臑を痛める (to walk laboriously [until one’s shins ache]).”
In the Tanshū tete-uchiguri 丹州爺打栗 (Great Chestnut of Tanba) play, Kinpira, the son of Sakata no Kintoki, drinks his father’s lifeblood and, as a result, Kinpira is reborn as a man with shins 100 times stronger than before.
30:40 Here the term “shins” appears used in relation to men. When it’s used for women it’s usually for elderly women.
31:05 Finally, looking at the play Natsu-matsuri Naniwa kagami 夏祭浪花鑑 (The Summer Festival in Naniwa), it says “I want to break the arms and shins of that shop manager!”, showing that the shins are the hard, bony area of the leg and become the direct object of verbs like “to smash” or “to break.” Again, sune normally refers to the shins of men.
31:27 Sune also often refers to the shins of men when they’re bared.
31:35 These are gauntlets and shin guards, armor attached to protect the body during a battle.
31:45 The sune-ate 脛当て, or shin guards, are armor for the area below the knee but only for the front side.
31:56 Among male characters otoko-date 男伊達 are particularly masculine. A typical otoko-date is Danshichi Kurōbee from Natsu-matsuri Naniwa kagami and he often shows off his shins, which are bared in order to demonstrate how very manly he is. He is depicted as that kind of character.
32:17 The otoko-date is cast as a heroic figure who saves the weak. Even though it represents a commoner, the otoko-date embodies a powerful man who would be an ally and his shins are shown to imply his masculinity.
32:34 In this scene, Danshichi is washing off the blood of the villain he has just slayed and his entire legs are being shown.
32:42 For men the legs are shown more often than not. But it’s men of the commoner class who tend to expose their entire sune. Albeit not warriors, such masculine men are very chivalrous people and routinely and firmly show off their legs to the audience.
33:03 Would there be any men of the warrior class who expose their sune? This is a comedic character named Sagisaka Ban’nai. A retainer of Kira Kōzuke-no-suke, Sagisaka appears in The Treasury of Loyal Retainers. He is a bit of a goof and plays a comic relief role.
33:34 The character comes out like this, exposing his shins. At the knee area he has these thin pieces of cloth attached known as sanri-ate 三里当て, an accessory that in and of itself suggests this is an absurd character.
33:58 So this indicates that, in the case of a man of the warrior class, the shins are shown on a comedic character.
34:08 Now, I would like to recap what I have explained in this lecture, which centers on the legs of jōruri puppets. In the history of the Japanese language, the term hagi, as seen in its traces in the word fukura-hagi, denotes only the supple area of the leg with muscle, and sune refers to the bony front side of the leg that, like an arm, can be subject to breaking.
34:36 In ningyō jōruri, hagi are associated with the white and supple part of a woman’s legs. They are not shown on stage but are always hidden under kimono, being only described with words.
35:01 In contrast, sune are the actual body parts revealed on stage, as men of the commoner class often expose them. Depending on the role, there are differences in whether male puppets show their sune or not.
35:12 If a heroic otoko-date character shows his shins to the audience, it is a sign of his mightiness, whereas if it’s a warrior that does that, he is likely a humorous character.
35:30 I also spoke of how female puppets typically do not have legs. The exceptions I introduced are the kamuro girls, the young commoner-class woman on a pilgrimage, and the diver-woman Chidori.
35:48 When legs are used, depending on the part of the leg as well as the status and gender of the character, the meanings of the legs can change.
36:08 With this I’ll end my talk. Thank you very much.