Sandrine GARBUGLIA
Discover the art of Rakugo with the author, producer, and art director: Sandrine GARBUGLIA!
Rakugo
This traditional storytelling art dates back to the 16th century. Rakugo is the art of "speech with a punch line." This punch line often takes the simple form of a pun. In a codified art, the storyteller kneels on a cushion and can only move his upper body. This formal constraint forces the performer to develop all his vocal and rhythmic abilities, sparing his effects to exacerbate the expected punch line better.
With his two accessories, the fan and the cloth napkin, the rakugoka can bring to life all the characters of the Edo period (1603-1868): a samurai, a wealthy merchant, a geisha, or the neighborhood idiot. The Rakugo's repertoire and teaching contain all the memories of the trades, gestures, and words of the "floating world." It's to see this living heritage that people come to the yose, the theaters dedicated to iro mono: the traditional arts of Japanese speech. At the end of medieval Japan, Anrakuan Sakuden (1554-1642), a great preacher, wrote the first collection of these stories, Seisuishô or "Laughter to chase away sleep." Thus, Rakugo also comes from Buddhism and Zen humor.
Today, these stories are still told by numerous storytellers who keep audiences laughing, both in theaters and on television: Katsura Koharudanji, San Yûtei Enraku, Shunpûtei Shôta, Hayashiya Taihei... All these storytellers bear the surname of the master who taught them the art of Rakugo, a name whose prestige sometimes goes back beyond the Meiji era (1868).
Born into a circus family, her passion for travel has taken her all over the world, including Japan, where she has found a home and regularly presents her creations.
Sandrine GARBUGLIA is an author and art director, and producer. Winner of the 2009 Kujoyama award, she met Japanese masters of the spoken word in Osaka and Tokyo and collected their stories, little-known to French-speaking audiences. Since then, she has been adapting texts from the Rakugo repertoire.
She is the author of six Japanese storytelling shows, including three for young audiences, performed in Europe, Canada, and Japan. She is also the author of Histoire tombées d'un éventail, in the collection Miroirs du Réel, published by Éditions l'Harmattan.
Follow Sandrine GARBUGLIA on: