700 E. Grand Avenue
Navy Pier
This performance will be postponed to 2023 due to the COVID situation. Master puppeteer Basil Twist, recipient of the Rome Prize, hailed for his work on Broadway’s The Addams Family and The Joffrey Ballet’s Nutcracker, unfolds an intimate, abstract, contemporary journey of images and emotions in Dogugaeshi. The piece is influenced by the rarefied tradition of Japanese dogugaeshi stage mechanism technique and his own encounters with the remaining rural caretakers of this once popular art form. Winner of the 2005 Bessie Award and an UNIMA Award for Excellence in Puppetry, Dogugaeshi features original shamisen compositions created by authorized master musician Yumiko Tanaka and performed live by the highly accomplished, distinguished virtuoso of Japanese koto and shamisen in both traditional and contemporary music: Yoko Reikano Kimura.