We really enjoyed the Mammoth Follies theater today. Jenna especially enjoyed the "Mommy & "Daddy" Triceratops and the very large red T-Rex. We went with our Albuquerque Homeschool co-op friends and we stayed afterwards to visit with the actors and ask questions. Jackson was fascinated about the mechanics used to manipulate the huge dinosaur puppets.
We also learned that the style of puppetry the Mammoth Follies used is called Bunraku, which is a Japanese style of puppetry. Outside of Japan, the word "Bunraku" is used loosely to refer to any style of puppetry where a full-bodied puppet is manipulated by any number of visible puppeteers who may or may not be dressed in black. This is primarily to distinguish such manipulation from other puppetry styles (hand puppets, marionettes, shadow puppets, etc).
Bunraku is actually the name commonly used for ningyo joruri - ningyo meaning puppet and joruri being a kind of chanted narration. Puppet plays are believed to have their origins in the 10th or 11th century.
Itinerant entertainers, many from Awaji Island in the Seto Inland Sea, presented plays in the nearby cities of Osaka and Kyoto. To see some pictures of traditional Bunraku click here
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