Apr. 9, 2014:  Hizakurige, or The Shank's Mare, an original puppet theater production, will premiere on April 10 at 7:00 pm in the Suzanne Werner Wright Theatre on the campus of Sarah Lawrence College. Additional performances will be presented on April 11 at 7:00 pm and April 12 at 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm.

The production is the result of an international collaboration among fifth-generation Japanese puppet master Koryu Nishikawa V, American puppet artist and Sarah Lawrence College faculty member Tom Lee, and students from Sarah Lawrence College.

The piece, which is collaborative in both content and technique, combines traditional Japanese puppetry forms sanninzukkai (three-person puppetry) and Kuruma Ningyo (cart puppetry) with live-feed video projection techniques developed by Tom Lee.

Graduate student and assistant director Josh Rice describes the experience as a chance to learn from and perform with two masters of puppetry. "It's exciting to be able to blend a traditional Japanese form with contemporary technology like the live feed. We project the [set] miniatures in real time and are able to manipulate the environment in front of the audience."

The Shank’s Mare takes its name from a traditional theater piece that follows two mischievous merchants as they travel from Edo to Osaka. Lee describes the piece: "It's derived from older stories, but [it's] our own creation. We want to explore the time it takes to journey by foot." 

The plot of The Shank's Mare is in the process of being developed through conversations between Tom Lee and Nishikawa and will also be formed in part by what the students learn are the limits of what each puppet is capable of doing. The crux of the story, however, will follow an amateur astronomer and his apprentice on a journey through the countryside. "For me, what's so exciting is that it tries to answer the question of where things come from--artistically, in your life . . . there's an unbroken line of tradition in Japan that's so incredible. In America, we have no tradition--we have a freedom that traditional Japanese puppetry doesn't have," said Lee.

Tickets are free of charge but are required. Please visit www.shanksmareslc.eventbrite.com to place a request.

Pictured here:  A puppet and puppeteer in the Sarah Lawrence production of The Shank's Mare.

Photo courtesy Judith Schwartzstein, Director of Public Affairs, Sarah Lawrence College