Some images I’ve collated over the past couple of months with the joruri crew.  Unfortunately, I don’t have many performance ones since we’ve been practicing quite intesively;  there is really not much time to hang around and take photographs.

The other day Yamada sensei gave us a pep talk, and in not so many words he said we need more practice.  Personally, I am still recovering from my last performance as Chin the dog that was going well until I lost my balance and Chin disappeared suddenly.  I scrambled to regain composure but unfortunately I had hold of Chin’s face (instead of his leg) and in retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best way to salvage the situation.   To make things worse, I had just been interviewed back-stage and pre-performance the announcer introduced my part as a special ‘highlight’, painful.  Damn these legs of mine, I need/want detachable screw-on legs.

This is one of those demon-women dolls.  A snap of the fingers and a little tug on a piece of string and the eyes roll back, the chin expands and there are blood-shot eyes and sharp yellow teeth everywhere.   The effect is quite sinister.  The cut of the eyes is fascinating; the jagged edge must exaggerate the ghastly impression.  I’ve never seen this head used in a play.  I imagine it does get used, since it belongs to the Yorii Theatre group, I wait for that day.

A ferocious man head.  A fiery character.  The eyebrows move, the eyes move, the mouth moves.  The hair is probably human hair.  Look at those knotted eyebrows.

A beautiful female head.  It is just the eyes that move.   See the small section of painted hair on the forehead.

Above, these two masks are worn by the dolls for the 式三番 play.  式三番 is originally a performance/ritual for bestowing a healthy and fruitful agricultural year.  The masks are very sacred and following the performance we clean them carfeully with sake.  After that they are kept safe in a box or displayed high up on the wall.

Preparation is important, both mentally and physically.

Above, a performance by another group featuring foxes, or wolves or dogs and hair.  It looked fantastic.

The character above is blind.  It is perhaps one of the most technical dolls I’ve seen.  He plays the shamisen and the left hand features two moveable fingers.  After the shamisen scene is over, both arms have to be swapped for the more traditional knuckle-jointed hands.  It’s a tricky maneuver.

The head is as, if not more, complicated than the hands/arms:

The head features moveable eyes, eyebrows, and mouth.  The extra feature for this doll is that later in the story the man’s eyesight is restored and so his eyes must be rolled back.  The restored eyes can then pan left and right.  Amazing.