Re. Photo Collection of Occupied Japan (CJS, UHM)

[Steve Cavrak]

On May 6, 2007, at 10:53 PM, Richard Chalfen wrote:

 > Or similar examples of a kamishibaiya-like business elsewhere in the 
world?

When I first heard of kamishibai (when I learned the kanji for kami), I 
immediately thought of the "cranky" we had in elementary school in the 
50's.

The cranky was a an open cardboard box fitted with a theater-like front 
with a hand made (student made) roll of pictures behind the front. In 
school during the 50's, this was some sort of group art assignment - we 
would illustrate scenes from a story, tape the scenes together in 
sequence, and then one or two of us would tell the story to the rest of 
the class. When we were politically active graduate students in the 
late 60's, we would make crankies for guerilla theater type productions 
- the cardboard box now being made up to look like a television set 
rather than a theater.

I had a chance to visit the Toyonaka International Foundation in 2001 
with a group of teachers, and one of the events the members held for us 
was a kamishibai. The Toyonaka group had restored a kamishibai set and 
had a fairly formal type presentation with two performers - a nice 
wooden stage, interscene "music", clackers, sound effects, dialogue. 
Fantastic! All of the teachers in our group recognized the genre, so I 
suspect it's still a part of at least Vermont culture too.

Steve