SUGIMOTO BUNRAKU / SONEZAKI SHINJU

Production Commemorating the Opening of the Kanagawa Arts Theatre (KAAT)

Ningyo Joruri Bunraku Puppet Play
Sugimoto bunraku: Dekunobo irinasake Sonezaki shinju tsuketari Kannon meguri

("Kannon Pilgrimage" from The Love Suicide at Sonezaki)

Outline of Production

Production Title: Sugimoto bunraku: Sonezaki shinju
Original work: Sonezaki shinju tsuketari Kannon meguri written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon
(from Shin-Nihon koten bungaku taikei, Iwanami Shoten Publishers)
Producer / (Artistic) Director: Hiroshi Sugimoto
Composer / Director: Tsurusawa Seiji
Choreography: Waka Yamamura
Film: Yasushi Kishimoto
Promotional designer: Rie Shimoda
Promotion art: Akira Yamaguchi
Sound designer: Shinichiro Ogata
Script Supervisor: Takeo Kozu
Special support: Shihoko Fukumoto
Main cast: Toyotake Shimatayu (Tayu narrator)
Tsurusawa Seiji (Shamisen/ Living National Treasure)
Yoshida Minosuke (Puppeteer/ Living National Treasure)
Kiritake Kanjuro (Puppeteer)

Performance period: August 14 (Sun) to August 16 (Tue), 2011
Performance times: (Total of 5 performances)
August 14 (Sun) 16:00
August 15 (Mon) 13:00 / 17:00
August 16 (Tue) 13:00 / 17:00
Venue: Kanagawa Arts Theatre Hall
Presented by: The Odawara Art Foundation
Planned and organized by: The Odawara Art Foundation
Tie-up with: Kanagawa Arts Theatre Hall
Assisted by: Bunraku Kyokai
National Bunraku Theatre
The National Theatre
Hermes
Supported by: Yokohama Triennale 2011

Ticket Information

Ticket sales begins

June 12, 2011(Sun) for internet pre-sale at KAme (http://www.kaat.jp/)
June 13, 2011 (Mon) for general sale (ph: 045-662-8866/ http://www.kaat.jp/)

Ticket prices

SS seats	12,000 Yen
S seats	9,000 Yen
A seats	6,000 Yen
B seats	3,000 Yen
Standing area with seat	2,000 Yen

Contact Information

Information regarding tickets: Ticket Kanagawa: TEL.045-662-8866 (10:00-18:00)

The Objective

The Odawara Art Foundation is proud to present Sugimoto bunraku : Dekunobo irinasake Sonezaki shinju tsuketari Kannon meguri. Five stages in total will be presented over a three day period between August 14 and 16, 2011 at Kanagawa Arts Theater, which was newly opened in January, 2011.
This bunraku performance was originally scheduled in March. However, all the ten performances were cancelled due to the devastating East Japan earthquake. Thus, it became phantom.
In response to those who ache for witnessing Sugimoto bunraku, we are making it happen as special performance, exclusively for three days.
Hiroshi Sugimoto is a contemporary artist, antique collector, and architect based in New York. For this monumental project, Sugimoto will be in charge of the arrangement, direction, and stage design of the traditional Japanese bunraku play Sonezaki shinju (The Love Suicide at Sonezaki), one of the most important works of Chikamatsu.
Sugimoto, who has a profound knowledge of the traditional Japanese arts, incorporates specially-constructed noh stages in his art exhibitions. This production is based on Chikamatsu's original script from its first production in the 18th century, combined with Sugimoto’s unique take on the story.
Sugimoto will take bunraku to a whole new level with his experimental Sonezaki shinju in the new Kanagawa Arts Theatre.

Sugimoto Bunraku
Dekunobo irinasake Sonezaki Shinju tsuketari Kannon Meguri
“The Kannon Pilgrimage from the Sonezaki Love Suicides as evinced by wooden figures”

Although a subject for poetry, the evocation of eros, that is, the portrayal of amorous love was never a religious concern in Japan until the playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon first presented on the ningyo joruri puppet stage the revolutionary notion that by consummating their passion through double suicide (shinju) two lovers’ souls might be united in Amida’s Pure Land paradise.

The first act of Chikamatsu’s Sonezaki Shinju (Love Suicides at Sonezaki) finds the courtesan Ohatsu on a pilgrimage to various Kannon temples (Kannon meguri) saying “Let our love be a bridge to the Buddha realm,” foreshadowing her ultimate resolve toward faith in the Bodhisattva of Mercy. When the play first premiered in the mid-Edo period, so powerful was its message that the “impossible loves” of this world might be realized in the next, it set off an explosion of suicides among young lovers constrained by feudal morality. As a result, in 1723 (Kyoho 8) the Tokugawa shogunate banned not only all performances of Sonezaki Shinju, but also funeral services for all love suicides, the idea being to deny them the promise of Buddhist salvation. It wasn’t until 1955, some 232 years later, the play was finally revived, although in the intervening centuries we nearly lost all sense of how the lines were intoned or puppets handled in Chikamatsu’s time. All that remain are Chikamatsu’s yukahon narrator’s script and puppet master Tatsumatsu Hachirobei’s movement diagrams.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

< Hiroshi Sugimoto >
Born in Tokyo in 1948. After graduating from Saint Paul's University, he moved to the United States in 1970, and in 1974 he started his career with photography in New York. He has received international reputation as a photographic artist through his solid technique and clear concept seen in the series such as Seascapes and Theaters. His works are collected by major art museums throughout the world. In 2008 he held a solo exhibition at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, entitled History of History, which consisted of both his own works and works from his collection of antiquities. In recent years he has been expanding his field of activity to literary and architectural work, and in 2008 he published his second title of essays, Utsutsu-na-zo (Shinchosha). The same year, he founded New Material Research Laboratory, and he was involved in the interior design and landscaping of the Izu Photo Museum, which opened in 2009. In 1988 he was awarded the Mainichi Art Prize, and in 2001 the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. In 2009 he was awarded the 21st Praemium Imperiale.

Highlights of the Production

Contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto tries his hand at theatrical art

In the recent years, Sugimoto has been experimenting with the traditional arts, incorporating elements of noh theatre into his artwork. This time, he will be working with a bunraku puppet play, Sonezaki shinju. Sugimoto, with his unique interpretation of the play, is in charge of the arrangement, direction, and stage design of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s masterpiece.
The original Sonezaki shinju script brought back to life

In the current production of Sonezaki shinju presented at the Ningyo Joruri Bunrakuza, parts of the original work have been omitted due to issues with staging. In order to achieve a production that is faithful to the original script, the “Kannon Meguri” (Kannon Pilgrimage) overture has been reintroduced in this performance. The premiere production of 1703 will be recreated in the present, in 2011.
An extraordinary collaboration between Toyotake Shimatayu (tayu), Tsurusawa Seiji (shamisen), Yoshida Minosuke (puppeteer), and contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Toyotake Shimatayu (senior narrator), Tsurusawa Seiji (Living National Treasure), and Yoshida Minosuke (puppeteer), who share Sugimoto’s vision of the play, come together to create a new genre of bunraku through Sugimoto bunraku: Sonezaki shinju, the definitive production of Chikamatsu's original work.
Kiritake Kanjuro's One-Man “Kannon Meguri”

Unlike the three-man puppets found in bunraku today, puppets used in the premiere production of Sonezaki shinju in the Edo period (Genroku era) were each operated by a single person. In this present reproduction of the “Kannon Meguri” act, Kiritake Kanjuro will attempt at one-man puppeteering with an Ohatsu puppet specially created for this occasion. One of France's top fashion brands Hermes will also be assisting in the puppet making, using scarves and adding a modern touch to the costume design.

< Profile of Tsurusawa Seiji >
Seiji Tsurusawa was born in Osaka on October 15, 1945. In September 1953 at the age of seven, he entered the world of bunraku under the fourth master, Seiroku Tsurusawa. For 13 years starting in his early 30s, he was the shamisen player for the Living National Treasure, Takemoto Koshijidayu IV. In 2004 he was awarded the Imperial Award by the Japan Art Academy. In 2006 he was presented the Medal with Purple Ribbon. In July 2007 he was recognized by the government as a Preserver of Important Intangible Cultural Properties (Living National Treasure).

The Background of Sonezaki shinju tsuketari Kannon meguri

Author: Chikamatsu Monzaemon

On April 7, 1703 (Genroku 16), Tokubei, a clerk to the soy sauce merchant Hirano-ya, and his lover O-Hatsu, a courtesan from Dojima Shinchi, committed suicide together in the forest of Tenjin at the cape of Sone in Umeda. A month later, on May 7, 1703, this actual event was turned into a play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon entitled Sonezaki shinju tsuketari Kannon meguri, which premiered at the Takemotoza theater in Osaka. The play was so successful that Takemotoza was able to repay all the debts it had at the time. Furthermore, Sonezaki shinju was the forerunner of the sewamono genre, which dramatized current events.

Outline of the Kanagawa Arts Theatre

Theatre name: Kanagawa Arts Theatre
Designated administrator: Kanagawa Arts Foundation
(3-1 Yamashita-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama)
Number of seats: Hall: approximately 1,300 (standard gradient, maximum capacity)
Large studio: approximately 220
Location: 281 Yamashita-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama, 231-0023 Japan
(Nearest station: 5-minute walk from Nihon Odori station on the Minato Mirai Line; 8-minute walk from Motomachi Chukagai station)
Opening: Scheduled for January 2011

Outline of the Odawara Art Foundation

The Odawara Art Foundation was established on December 22, 2009 by Hiroshi Sugimoto and authorized as a Public Interest Incorporated Foundation on 1st April 2011.

Purpose of establishment: The Odawara Art Foundation was established to promote Japanese traditions and culture from a global perspective through researching, popularizing, and passing down classical to contemporary visual and performing arts and promoting an artistic culture that transcends time and genre.
Major activities: The Odawara Art Foundation reexamines traditional Japanese arts from a new perspective and plans, produces, and puts on productions of classical to contemporary theater. The foundation also is involved in the preservation and exhibition of the Sugimoto collection. Through these activities, the foundation hopes to pass on Japanese culture to the next generation in a wider perspective. As a base for its activities, the foundation plans to construct a cultural and artistic center equipped with facilities such as stages, exhibition halls, and tea ceremony rooms in Enoura in the city of Odawara.
Planned site: 362 Enoura, Odawara-shi, Kanagawa-ken
Tokyo office: 3-1-15 Shirokane, Minato-ku, Tokyo
TEL.03-3473-5235
Executive Director: Seizo Sugimoto
Producer: Yutaka Adachi