Gaito-Kamishibai!
 街頭紙芝居

“Come visit me, I live a two-hour walk from Kyoto, on the other side of the mountains.”
Eimei Katami

The ancestor of manga and anime, Gaito-kamishibai (literally “street corner paper theater”) is a traveling theater that is emblematic of Japanese popular culture. Before the advent of television, storytellers carried small wooden theaters called butai on the back of their bicycles. As they told their stories, they would show the audience illustrations that were originally hand-painted.
The Gaito-Kamishibai! exhibition offers a unique overview of this popular art form, which is still little known in France. The first of its kind in Europe, the exhibition brings together treasures from the collections of Eimei Katami (Torokko Puppetry Library, Japan) and Pierre-Stéphane Proust (France), on the initiative of Barbara Mélois, a puppeteer and graduate of ESNAM who is also the exhibition’s curator.
Puppeteers bring the theaters on display back to life during a “journey in Kamishibai”.

A collection from the Torokko puppetry library – Emei and Fumiko Katami.
Contributions by Pierre-Stéphane Proust.

Exhibition curator: Barbara Mélois for the World Puppetry Festival.
Layout: Barbara Mélois, based on an original scenography by Jean Luc Félix.
Construction and layout: Gilbert Meyer and Barbara Mélois.
Signage design: Mathilde Mélois.

Translation and interpretation: Shiba Yuko and Tomoe Kobayashi.

Production: Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes de Charleville-Mézières.
Special thanks to the Torokko puppetry library, René Sostelly, Tara McGowan, The Center for Japanese Studies, University of Hawaii, and Pierre-Stéphane Proust.