For this post, I would like to discuss an art that is a combination of the different forms of art, Bunraku. This art originates in Japan and is a combination of dance, drama, music and sometimes painting. Bunraku is a puppet play, where puppets are controlled by people to perform a play, usually a story from the Edo period of Japan. There is a chanter (tayu) that tells the story and there is also music played on the shamisen that both accompany the puppet play. The dolls used as puppets are artifacts in themselves because beauty can be found within their appearance. The dolls appear very life-like in the performances. The puppets are controlled by more than one person; each person only controls a particular part of the doll’s body. This means that the people controlling the doll have to be in complete harmony to pull off the performance or dance correctly. The puppets usually perform dances, with the help of the people controlling them. Some of the dances could be seen as religious because they are used to communicate with a deity of some kind. A good example of this is the Lion Dance where the puppet wears the decorative head of a lion. The head itself could be seen as a religious artifact because it represents that head of particular deity.
There are many reasons why someone would want to call upon this deity. This deity can ward off evil presences, or many people will pray to it to help with agriculture or rain. This deity has also been communicated with for harvest celebrations and funeral services for wild animals. It is also believed that a bite on the head from the lion deity “will confer intelligence for children and good health for the coming year.” (From Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe’s website: http://www.bunraku.org/bbpagemar2009repertoire.html) By putting on the ceremonial head of the lion deity, one is harmonizing with the deity. One gives up one’s own body to the stronger power in order to become one with the lion deity.
The concealment of the actor’s identity goes even further in modern Bunraku plays like Lion Dance than it did in the painting. This is because the actors cover their entire bodies in black garments, including their faces. This is to not give any one of the three actors individuality because the actors are supposed to act as one character. In this play, the character wears the mask of the lion god. According to Van der Leeuw, “The god is a mask; the mask, a god” (Leeuw 84). The actor must become one with the god in order for the mask to be the god. When the three actors feel everything that the lion god feels and their personality loses itself in the playful and innocent nature of the lion god, then they have experience religious drama.
Much of drama today is about entertainment instead of this harmony between actor and character. The audience usually sees the drama as entertainment instead of a religious experience. This appears to be different with Bunraku plays though. It is true that the actors are entertaining an audience, but the dolls move in such a manner that represents life. The dolls appear to be alive because of the unity between the actors and their characters. Even if the audience does not realize the religious aspect of this experience, they can still realize that the movement of the dolls in these plays is not normal. Dolls do not normally move in such a life-like manner.
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