ABSTRACTSAND
BIOGRAPHIES

12 MAY 2018

SECTION III: KAMISHIBAI AS COMMUNICATION AND ITS APPLICATIONSSECTION IV: KAMISHIBAI AS CROSS-CULTURAL ENCOUNTER
EXTERNAL PARTICIPATIONSECTION III:KAMISHIBAI AS COMMUNICATION AND ITS APPLICATIONS

Umberto Giovannini
Merging languages: illustration and kamishibai
What happens when the language of illustration meets the performing soul of kamishibai?
Umberto Giovannini has investigated a wide range of possibilities through an experimental
project designed for a group of artists and students in residency at the International
Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa in Italy.
In this talk, he elaborates on three key experiences.
The first collaboration took place in 2015, when he cooperated with puppeteer and director
Luca Ronga to work with a group of ten visual artists and puppeteers for five to ten days,
creating kamishibai theatres with the techniques of “basic printmaking”.
The following year, a similar experience was translated into five to ten work days with ten
students of printmaking and graphic design from Central Saint Martins – University of theArts London – and RUFA, Rome University of Fine Arts in collaboration with tutor andprintmaker Maria Pina Bentivenga.
The third experience is a project designed in collaboration with tutor and illustrator Ignacia
Ruiz for the Printmaking and Illustration pathway of Central Saint Martins’ Foundation
Course in Graphic Communication Design. The project was realized in January and February
2018. Thirty international students worked on folk stories collected from the tradition of
their home countries. Those stories were translated in illustrations through the techniquesof basic printmaking. The final outcome were both sequences of illustrations for kamishibai
and a series of short videos.
Several parallel languages coexist in a kamishibai performance: text, illustration, voice andbody language.
Starting from those experiences this talk displays the possibilities, codex, pathways,
approaches and outcomes that the groups have found and all the different ways the richnessof the illustration language could be used to create new possibilities.
In those experiences the dynamic language of kamishibai was the starting point for a different
approach to the world of illustration.
Umberto Giovannini was born in Morciano di Romagna, Italy, in 1969. He is a printmakerand an Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
After his degree in Graphic Communication Design, he completed an MA in Art History(DAMS, Bologna) and started to work as a graphic designer and printmaker. His prints andartists’ books can be found in international collections.
As a printmaking historian, he has been called upon to organize various exhibitions and has
designed a collection of books dedicated to printmaking and illustration, edited by VACA,
the artistic group and publisher of which Umberto was a founding member (vaca.it)
He is a promoter of the printmaking culture and artists’ books.
In 2009 Umberto founded the low environmental impact printmaking centre Opificio dellaRosa, which hosts international artists every year (opificiodellarosa.org). He is president of
the Renate Herold Czaschka Foundation dedicated to printmaking (fondazioneczaschka.org).
He complements his practise by teaching BA courses. He is currently an Associate Lecturer
at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and a Visiting Professor at the Rome
University of Fine Arts.

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Fulvia Grbac
How to use and present Glasser’s Choice Theory and its application in schools withthe aid of kamishibai (Chicken By Choice: Glasser Theory in Kamishibai
In my dealings with kamishibai, it seemed natural to introduce it into the teaching
programme in schools, as many teachers have already done. As an art teacher I started toapply this form of figurative creativity and dramatisation to the art education process. In
addition to presenting my own kamishibai stories to students, I guide them to realize theirown kamishibai, to make their own illustrations and stories. We put a lot of effort in thequality of the illustrations in order to link them to the story and its dramatisation. We alsocollaborate with fellow literature teachers to advance this process. This method is suitable
for a great number of disciplines and brings great satisfaction to me as a teacher, but most of
all to my students. I also teach future preschool educators and I prepare them to use thekamishibai method in their future work.
I wondered if the kamishibai method could also be applied to psychological issues. We could,
for instance, help children overcome their difficulties through storytelling. The story “Sudden
Darkness,” for example, is about a child who fears the dark, but overcomes his fear by taking
control of it and becoming responsible. This tale has been inspired by Glasser’s Choice
Theory, a theory that has been helping me as a teacher for several years to form higherquality relationships with my students. It has helped me stay more active in my workplaceand more efficient in my teaching duties. This theory has obviously been applied to many
aspects of my life, but especially in my teaching work. The process, however, has not always
been straightforward and easy, as it has still been under study. The entire process waspresented through the creation of the simple, humorous illustrated book Chicken By
Choice.
My idea is to present my experience through kamishibai. Since there are a lot of scenes inthe book, it could be easily dramatised in front of an audience, perhaps an audience ofteachers or future teachers who are facing the complex, challenging and wonderful world of
school. This could be an interesting experience for teachers who are looking for alternative
methodologies of how to be more efficient as well as serene in the school environment.
The kamishibai presentation of the story ”Chicken By Choice” would help teachers explain
the children’s and their own behaviour, and would assist them in choosing appropriate
behaviour and building relationships with their students. The remaining part of the work andthe responsibility are left to the audience who will decide to look for help in William
Glasser’s Choice Theory.
The story “Chicken By Choice” explains, in very simple terms, human behaviour through
Choice Theory psychology. We can see how a teacher who understands it and knows what
is in his power can find it easier to guide students through the learning process and take careof the students’ as well as his own well-being.
Fulvio Grbac was born in Capodistria in 1968 and graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts
in Venice in 1991. Since then she has taught art subjects in elementary and high schools on
the Slovenian coast. She has attended numerous seminars and workshops in Italy, GreatBritain and Slovenia to improve her work as a teacher and as an artist. She has exhibited her
printmaking art in Slovenia, Italy, Austria and Croatia. She published several illustrations andart works.
The book “Chicken By Choice”, written and illustrated by her, was published in 2001. It
explains William Glasser's Choice Theory in a basic way and presents how it can be appliedin schools. Fulvia Grbac has been accredited with the “Choice Theory/Reality Therapy andLeading Management Certification” by the William Glasser Institute in Slovenia.
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In addition to teaching in schools, she devotes much of her time to art workshops for adults,
students and children. Over the past two years, she has also been involved in kamishibai. For
her story “Sudden Darkness”, which she wrote, illustrated, and acted out by herself, she wasawarded a prize at the 4th Festival of Kamishibai in Piran, Slovenia. The same work has also
recently secured her the first prize at the Art and Culture Competition Istria Nobilissima.
Her favorite branch of art is printmaking. At the atelier of the Folart Art Club in Isola, sheprints and exhibits her prints. She works with printing through various perspectives: ateliers,
exhibitions, workshops, and artist residencies.
Igor Likar
Kamishibai Picture-Tales – A Narration that Sees and an Image that Hears
Imagination (of an Another) - How Sensuary Impressions Coplay on the Stage ofImagination
The traditional writing on this interesting form that is seemingly set on stage says thatkamishibai is a technique of “storytelling through voice and images.” That it is characterisedby its images and the narrator’s special vocality. That it is a way of narrating a story throughvoice (along with other sounds and music) and images, that it is a paper theatre usingdrawings mostly for the transitions between the events of the story. All this is true, but
kamishibai is certainly something else. Something more… This is what stirs our amazement
at the simplicity and the incredible suggestive power of this technique of miniature stories. It
is a form of storytelling through the “inner axis” of imagination. The storytelling combines
watching and seeing. What does this really mean? “Watching and listening happen as
synaesthesia… Visual perception spontaneously connects to the acoustic experience,” says
Michel Dufrenne in his study on synaesthesia. He claims that this phenomenon enables theco-performances to merge into a co-play of experience for all the senses (M. Dufrenne,“The Eye and the Ear”). Even with artistic performative practices, which are given through orfrom the stage, we must never think or speak only of what we’ve seen, of what we’re
watching, of what is given to us as visual content. We must always be conscious that we
primarily “saw” with our “inner eye”, where the sensory experiences of all the senses meetand form a common virtual image of what we experienced. We must first and foremost
understand that the notion of perception is only offered to us as an invitation into the spaceof an emphatic meeting of all sensory experience, that after seeing and hearing, imaginary
worlds open up on the axis of all senses combined. We experience this on the basis of innerrealizations, where senses and perceptions function together. Everything is based on “innerseeing” because it induces the images in our spirit. The voice that narrates through images
offers “images from the other side of physiological sight” to the audience, evoking the visible(as images of the spirit and imagination). We can thus say that kamishibai theatre surpasses
the simple concept of a drawing theatre. It is a technique that makes use of the incorporeal
corporeality of speech, which works as co-conception of the symbolic quality of language as
speech, performing stories in the function of “meta-language”. In the kamishibai technique all
senses lead to the cheerful play on the axis of imagination and the encouraged “inner” vision.
The senses challenge our sensory experience and perceptions. How is this possible? It’squite simple. It is a “stage of imagination” inside the spectator/listener. The voice tunes the
expectation of images, which only appear after the storyteller/artist/narrator makes themvisible. The images skip from the expected perception inside us back into the drawings,
which are only the encouraging artistic recordings of what arises from the narrator’s voice,from the chosen, important twists or events of the story (also as hints of a different paththan what we would expect). It is always the issue of delivering the picture-stories for the4viewer/spectator’s encouraged, expected understanding, the inner seeing of what we
primarily hear as the story, and at the same time hearing what is suggested or told by theimages. These images create an excellent sequence whenever they are called upon by thenarrator/presenter.
THE PICTURESQUE/ THE ACOUSTIC/ THE IMAGINATIVE With the kamishibai theatretechnique, we can discuss the wonderful cooperation of senses and perceptions, and theirtransfer into our expectations. Why? Because the story unfolding in front of us counts on
the expected images that are prompted in our imagination by the narrator – mostly becauseof the expected and dramatically offered elements of the anticipated image, which is not yet
in front of us but is already forming inside our minds through the suggestive narration of thevoice that calls out the performance. We therefore watch and see the expected, almost inadvance. Each dénouement in the actual image of the next kamishibai drawing sets us into
the next sphere of the inner seeing of the story. But first and foremost – into ourimagination …
Igor Likar is a poet, writer, and a theatre, radio, TV and film director. He lives in
Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he is also known as a theatre and film dramaturge,
screenwriter and playwright. After studying of Directing and Dramaturgy at Academy of
Theatre, Radio, Film and Television, he obtained his MA with a masters thesis “THE
POETICS AND AESTHETICS OF SOUND IMAGE.”
He has published seven books of poetry and short stories and directed theatre works
by Beckett, Strindberg, Montherlant, Yerofeyev, Ghelderod, J. M. Barrie, Slovenian poets
Kocbek, Kovič, Kosovel, Boris A. Novak and others.
He has written and directed more than two hundred and fifty radio plays, documentary
dramas and experimental sound works, mostly for Radio Slovenia. With them he has
participated in numerous international festivals and won a number of awards: thenomination for the best play for ERASURE OF VERITY at the EBU radio play contest,
the Fedor Award in Belgrade 90, the Grand Prix Macrophon 94 and 96 in Wroclaw, theGrand Prix Ostankino award from Moscow, for the text “Apostles and Collectors of
Horror” and direction, the 1 st prize at the 9th International Festival of Iran 2008 for“Sleeping on a Holy Celtic Mountain”, Prix Ex Aequo for direction in Bratislava in 2008
etc.
His latest play is a stage radio performance called “Radio Tesla and the Story About theChild of Light” (2016).
His filmography includes 52 documentary and TV films. Among them are films about
Jemen and 39 films about Slovenian regions, entitled “The Views of Slovenian
Mountaintops”. In the field of filmmaking he also recieved several importantinternational awards, i.e. the Golden Butterfly of Trento, Italy, in 1993 and 1997, theValsella Prize 2000, the 1st prize at the IMAGINARY ACADEMY contest for feature film
screenplays for The Black Clown, in Zagreb in 2000.
He has been an active member of the Ars Acustica Expert Group of the European
Broadcasting Union from its foundation in Florence in 1989. He is also a member of the
Slovenian Writers’ Association, where he manages an intermedia project The Slovenian
Writers’ Trail; its aim is to revive the literary and cultural heritage of Slovenian regions.

5Rok Glavan
Kamishibai and Antique Child’s Book
A used bookstore is a store that sells nostalgia. When we see a book from our childhood, amemory channel opens up, allowing us to sail the seas of time. A roundabout of memories
spins our thoughts when we turn the pages of an old book of fairy tales. Many of your paper
memories that would have made your father’s, mother’s, or grandparents’ voices sound inyour mind were lost in the tempest of life. You have long since given up hope that you
would ever hold them again, or maybe you are still searching for them through usedbookstores. What did books mean to children and youth in the time of slates, chalk, and nib
pens stored in wooden pencil cases, in the era without fast, flickering, noisy modern media?
It was the first window into the world of domestic, wild, or exotic animals, the world of
faraway lands with different stories. It was the sole treasury of folklore in images, narrative,and verse. Books educated readers on society and morals, encouraged thinking, andentertained during leisure time. They were perhaps more accessible to the bourgeois
society, but even the less affluent country folk found their way to reading though theircraving for Slovenian written word. The owners of rare children’s books who were once
children are now adults, but they read these rare literary treasures, often rich in old
vocabulary, with the eyes of aesthetes, book lovers, readers, connoisseurs, and collectors.
Old children’s books surpass the modern production of children’s books with their highaesthetic and literary standards. They are sadly too rare to be widely available to children
today. This is a gap that is easily bridged by kamishibai theatre. As a means of expression, it
enables an analogue presentation of images accompanied by the narrator’s voice. It is as if apicture book was being read out loud. Young viewers enjoy a new-found poetics and artistic
expression while older viewers travel in time. The project that Društvo Zapik, Hiša otrok inumetnosti, and Antikvariat Glavan carried out together proved that we were on the rightpath. The performance called “Pearls between pages” (“Biseri med platnicami”) was a uniqueexample through which we realized and proved the agreement between old children’s books
and kamishibai. The resulting performance was a treat for both children and adults. The fateof old children’s books is unknown, such as no almanac can predict, as Slovenian poet France
Prešeren would say. We will try to ensure – through kamishibai or otherwise – that theirold age will be noble, esteemed, and beautiful.
Rok Glavan holds a BA in Cultural Studies, is an antiquarian at Antiquariat Glavan in
Ljubljana, and the president of the Slovenian Kamishibai Association.
Although he was born in the year when man firs stepped onto the moon, he didn’t want tobe an astronaut but a sailor. Apart from safety and good education, his family gave him thelove of theatre, books and the spoken word.
When he was only seven years old, he began he was already involved in theatre, and at ten
years old he started learning puppetry. After he finished schooling, he started working as anantiquarian – a career he is still loyal to after 26 years. He is fascinated by the history of
Slovenian publishing and print. Because of the nature of his work, he frequently handles rare
and interesting children’s books. The problem he often encounters is how to present a single
copy of a rare and delicate book to a large audience. He first tried to solve this by organizing
a bibliophilistic exhibition “Paper carousel”. But this only offered the front book pages andno actual story content. Kamishibai came to the rescue. His first encounter with the form
happened in 2014, and only a year later he became the president of the newly founded
association. He now performs known and unknown stories from rare and old children’sbooks with the help of the original illustrations. In 2016 he devised, directed (with Jelena
Sitar Cvetko) and participated in the performance “Pearls between covers”. To him,
6kamishibai brings childlike playfulness, grown-up worldliness, and pleasant time spent withfriends.
Yosuke Miki
Kamishibai in Dialect: Aiming to inherit the Hachijojima dialect endangered byextinction
This paper aims to discuss the approach of applying an oral discourse database to thepreservation and succession activities of an endangered language. As an example of
documenting and visualizing a performance using a picture-story show by speakers ofHachijoan, we will focus on and discuss the style of storytelling.
In this paper, we will discuss the use of audio conversation materials in the effort topreserve and pass on a language in danger of extinction through documenting and videorecording picture-story shows as recounted by Hachijoan speakers.
The Hachijoan was designated as a “language in danger of extinction” by UNESCO in 2009.
Even now, only a few people can speak traditional Hachijoan, and the natural conversation
recordings collected to preserve the language are not sufficient to conserve the former
language system. For this reason, we created revised texts of the transcripts after consulting
and examining the natural conversation transcripts with native speakers. In the re-recordingof the revised texts, in order to eliminate unnaturalness as much as possible, folktales werechosen as the subject material, and the style of storytelling was adopted; thus, we were able
to preserve both the traditional Hachijoan texts and the voices on which these texts werebased. In addition, in order to facilitate the application in an effort to pass down the dialects,
we created picture-story shows by preparing texts for five regions.
Although there is a card game called “Hachijoan Karuta” by the Board of Education in
Hachijo (2014), the story in a picture-story show is superior in that it can listen to and learn
a longer unit of the Hachijoan language speech than that of the “Hachijoan Karuta.”
In addition to uploading a video on which the speaker played a picture-story show on theinternet, I created a PowerPoint picture-story show and made it available for downloading
and use. Not only can learners watch and learn from the video, but they can also perform a
picture-story show in the Hachijoan language on their own by downloading the PowerPoint
file.
The text in the picture-story show is authentic in the situations for which it is used and islinguistically accurate. For that reason, learners can speak and perform in the traditional
Hachijo language. When a new performer completes the story, the language is inherited,
although the inheritence is partial. By making use of a picture-story show, we can contributeto the preservation and progress of Hachijoan.
Yosuke Miki, PhD (Literature). Mejiro University, Faculty of Human Sciences, Junior
Associate Professor. Completed graduate school of literature at Kokugakuin University.
Part-time Lecturer at Kokugakuin University, Associate Professor at Chosun University in
Korea, Part-time Researcher at the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics,
as a Special Researcher PD of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. He went
through these positions and arrived at his current position.
He was born in Tokyo. His specialized fields are Japanese Linguistics, Dialectology, Phonetics(Accent theory). He does field work in various parts of Japan and describes dialects fromvarious aspects such as speech sound, accent, vocabulary and grammar.
The current research subject is Hachijoan (Hachijoshima dialect). Hachijoan is one of thedialects of Japanese, spoken in Hachijoshima – in remote islands belonging to Tokyo. The
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Hachijoan dialect was designated by UNESCO as being in danger of disappearing in 2009. For
that reason, Yosuke Miki is in charge of preserving the Hachijo language in collaboration withother researchers, local governments, the National Institute of Japanese Language and the
Agency for Cultural Affairs. He researches, records and saves Hachijoan, and also createsgrammar books, dictionaries, voice discourse materials, textbooks and so on.
Apart from this, he has been studying the accent of the dialect of the metropolitan area since
he was a student. He got a doctoral degree in accent research.
Julia Gerster“Beneath the invisible cloud”: Kamishibai after 3. 11. Between Disaster Risk
Reduction and Memorialization
The Japanese Paper theater kamishibai is usually divided into Gaito kamishibai, street corner
paper theater mainly told for entertainment, and Kyoiku kamishibai, educational paper
theater. Since Japan is a very disaster-prone country, it is not surprising that kamishibai has
recently been used within the field of Disaster Risk Education. It is often the survivors
themselves who turn their personal experiences into theater plays and read their story to
the audience while turning the hand painted pictures. In the case of kamishibai centeredaround the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, practical information, like the advice toimmediately evacuate to higher ground in case of a strong earthquake, reminds of the
tradition of educational kamishibai, while the stories themselves are often memories of thestory tellers. Therefore, tsunami kamishibai came to enclose the two genres. In the case of
the Fukushima nuclear disaster, however, I argue that the main purpose of kamishibai isdifferent. Without an official death toll resulting from the accident, or a clear visible threat
which leaves physical destruction like a tsunami, the victims of the nuclear disaster have nomemorials or official places to turn to for mourning practices. Thus, similar to the Nagasaki
and Hiroshima bombings, kamishibai becomes a sort of memorialization practice which helps
the victims to process their experiences and pass on the memories. Taking a kamishibaigroup from Namie Town in Fukushima prefecture and the kamishibai dealing with the 2011
tsunami as examples, I analyze how post 3.11. kamishibai is used to pass on lessons learned,
deal with trauma and fill a gap in memorialization practices. The conclusions are drawn fromfield work experience in Tohoku, Japan, interviews with Kamishibaya and analysis of paper
theater dealing with the tsunami and the nuclear accident.
Julia Gerster is a PhD candidate in Japanese Studies and Cultural Anthropology at theGraduate School of East Asian Studies (GEAS), FU Berlin. The preliminary title of her
dissertation is “Kizuna: The dynamics of social ties in post-disaster Japan. Impacts of the2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and radiation.” Her research interests include
disaster studies, recovery, community and identity building, place-making, and cultural
aspects within coping strategies after disasters. Julia met several Kamishibai groups in thedisaster-stricken areas during her field research in 2017, which led her to the exploration of
the role of Kamishibai within disaster risk reduction and individual recovery.

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SECTIONIV:KAMISHIBAI AS CROSS-CULTURALSREČANJE KULTUR)

ENCOUNTER(KAMIŠIBAJ

KOT

Tara M. McGowan
Time Travels with Kamishibai: Exploring the Global Appeal of a Magical Moving
MediumOver the past several decades, kamishibai has travelled far beyond its country of origin andcontinues to spread around the globe in new and unexpected directions. Those in Japan who
thought that it had all but died out with the advent of television in the 1950s may bewondering what the international appeal of this unassuming, non-digital technology might be.
To begin to answer this question, this paper attempts to place the development ofkamishibai within a larger multimedia history that takes into account the cross-cultural
travels of other early cinematic media, such as magic lanterns and silent films. The inventors
of kamishibai took what simple materials they had to hand—paper, wood, paint, hand, voice,and eye—and created the magical illusion of the “big screen” in miniature. In fact, whentelevision first entered Japan, it was called denki kamishibai, “electric kamishibai,” because of
the outward similarity of a screen with moving images and audio, occurring within an
enclosed frame. 21st century technologies continue to rely heavily on sound, moving image,and screen and are often credited with enabling what have been called “new literacies,”
allowing users to create a mish-mash of media formats. This ability to communicate byremixing modes and media may seem new, but only if we look at history as a linear
progression. Kamishibai’s history, much like a Moebius strip, continuously folds back uponitself, offering scholars and practitioners opportunities for “time travel,” as forgotten aspectsof the past are rediscovered and old ideas are picked up and taken in new directions.
Examining kamishibai within a global, audio-visual history that extends from the magic lantern
to the internet enables a more complex understanding of innovation and an appreciation of
the non-linearity of lived events. Drawing upon examples of early kamishibai-related artefacts
in the Cotsen Children’s Library collection at Princeton University, this paper explores someof the routes kamishibai has recently travelled, as well as the myriad ways it has been
adapted and remixed in Japan since its humble beginnings. The non-digital audio-visual
aspects of kamishibai free it up from the constraints of technology and provide the versatility
and potential for play that have enabled and continue to inspire multiple adaptations of theform. These aspects appeal to artists, storytellers, and educators from around the world
because they offer multiple access points from which to enter into and elaborate themedium for different effects and purposes.
Tara M. McGowan is an artist, educator, storyteller, who has researched kamishibai fornearly two decades, both in the US and Japan. Her first book, The Kamishibai Classroom:
Engaging Multiple Literacies through the Art of Paper Theater (2010) was the culmination of
more than a decade of adapting what she had learned in Japan to American classrooms. Tara
received her PhD in 2012 from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2015, she published
Performing Kamishibai: An Emerging New Literacy for a Global Audience (Routledge). Tarahas performed and conducted workshops at notable museums in New York and in
Washington, DC. She has performed original kamishibai stories at the kamishibai festivals inJapan and in Mexico. In 2017, she received the Horio Seishi Award from the Center for
Research on Japanese Children’s Culture in Tokyo for her contributions to the field ofinternational kamishibai. She currently works as a research consultant for the CotsenChildren's Library collection at Princeton University and as Executive Director of NCC
Japan, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making Japanese information resources available
to scholars in North America.
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Education:
University of Pennsylvania, PhD, May 2012, Graduate School of Education (2006-2012)
Dissertation title: Loosening the Ligatures of Text: Kamishibai (Paper Theater) in the Modal
Ecologies of 21st Century Classrooms
Kyoto Sangyō University (Kyoto, Japan)
Visiting Scholar, Institute for World Affairs, November 2012
Princeton University, BA, East Asian Studies/Comparative Literature
Graduated Summa cum laude, June 1990
Completed Teachers Preparation Certification Program, January 2001
Kyoto University (Kyoto, Japan) Ito Foundation ScholarshipResearch Fellow in Comparative Folklore Studies, 1993-94
Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies (Yokohama, Japan), 1987-88
Employment:
Executive Director, The North American Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC
Japan) (2017-present)
Metadata Consultant for Japanese Collections in the Rare Books and Services Department at
Princeton University’s Cotsen Children’s Library (2015-present)
Curatorial and Exhibitions Research Associate at the American Philosophical Society
Museum (Philadelphia, PA) (2012-2015)
Curating special exhibitions at the gallery in Philosophical Hall:
 Jefferson, Science, and Exploration (April-December, 2015)
 Jefferson, Philadelphia, and the Founding of a Nation (April-December, 2014)
 Through the Looking Lens: Cornelius Varley’s Wondrous Images of Art and Science,
1800-1860 (April-December, 2013)
Assistant Editor of Children’s Literature in Education (peer-reviewed) (2006-2010)
Managed the online system connecting reviewers with appropriate manuscript submissions
and assisted in final editorial decisions
Honors and Awards:
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellowship (September 2013August 2015) American Philosophical Society Library and Museum
Friends of Princeton University Library Award (2011) for research conducted on the CotsenChildren’s Library’s collection of rare omocha-e (toy picture) prints
Ito Foundation Scholarship (1993-94) for study at Kyoto University
Japan Foundation Grant (1987-88) for study at the Inter-University Center for Japanese
Language Studies
Publications:
Books:
Performing Kamishibai: An Emerging New Literacy for a Global Audience (Routledge Press,
2015)
The Kamishibai Classroom: Engaging Multiple Literacies through the Art of “Paper Theater”(Linworth Libraries Unlimited, 2010)
Articles:“The Designs of Kawasaki Kyosen: Envisioning the Future of a Vanishing World through Toy
Pictures (Omocha-e),” Princeton University Library Chronicle, Volume 64, No. 3, Spring,2013
Kamishibai no ronbunde hakase gō shūtoku (On getting a PhD with a dissertation aboutkamishibai) Kodomo no bunka (Journal of Children’s Culture), Vol. 3, 2013
Tokushū: Hirogaru kamishibai no sekai (Special edition: The expanding world of kamishibai),
Kodomo no bunka (Journal of Children’s Culture), Vol. 12, 2005

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“Enlightened Conversation in the ‘Kennebec Kingdom’ of Sarah Manning (1753-1834) andBenjamin Vaughan (1751-1835),” APS Museum Online Collections
http://research.apsmuseum.org/exhibits/show/sarah-manning-vaughan“The Many Faces of Kamishibai (Japanese Paper Theater): Past, Present, and Future”
http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/the-many-faces-of-kamishibai
Languages and Technical Skills:
Japanese (fluent in speaking and reading); some Mandarin Chinese.
Microsoft Office Suite, Windows and Mac OSX, Adobe Creative Suite, iMovie, Omeka,
FilemakerPro, OCLC and Voyager
Igor Cvetko
Kamishibai in the Light of Cultural Anthropology
The presentation revolves around the phenomenon of growth and development ofkamishibai theatre in Slovenia since the spring of 2013, when kamishibai first made anappearance on Slovenian ground as a part of the storytelling festival “Stories Today”(“Pravljice danes”) in Ljubljana. I will try to illuminate the issue with the tools andmethodology of socio-cultural anthropology, which emphasizes the importance of fieldresearch (in vivo) of the culture or subculture of certain urban and/or non-urban groups ofpeople (societies), their language, social patterns, connections, organisations, and everyday
practices. The Slovenian example of the kamishibai movement (Igor Cvetko) clearly outgrew
the limits of a passing fancy and rather grew closer to the idea of kamishibai culture (Tara
McGowan). This realisation made me ask certain questions when considering the bloomingof the Slovenian kamishibai: What are the pillars of the Slovenian kamishibai movement?
How did this small, imported form of theatre gain its interesting “patriotic right” in a matterof years? How did kamishibai theatre gain popularity on the national level so quickly? Whatquality of kamishibai makes it “ours”? What were the (required and sufficient) inner reasonsand mechanisms that allowed such a movement to exist? I will attempt to analyse andilluminate the phenomenon of the Slovenian kamishibai through the prism of certain
interesting views of several insightful socio-cultural theoreticians from the last decades of the20th century to the present. B. Street made an important contribution when he definedcertain cultural movements as “active” (culture is a verb). M. Sahlins and S. Eisenstadt
developed the anthropological model of “multiple modernities” and pointed out that a
specific society moulds modernity in its own way. E. E. Hagen and Harrison addressed thevalues that are important for a certain cultural and social development of the society, while
McClelland emphasized that the main factor of every cultural development must be the socalled “motivation for achievement.” This is actually the basis and the driving force of
cultural events and movements, which is why I spend a large part of my presentation talking
about it. The common denominator of the above is the clear emphasis and importance of
local contexts, local ethnology and tradition. This dependence seems to be reason behind
the growth, the development and the popularity of kamishibai theatre in Slovenia. I
witnessed this phenomenon in a relatively limited geographical space (the ethnic territory of
Slovenia) and a comparatively short time span (five years). This study offered itself to me
through the blooming of kamishibai in my environment and perfectly follows the newest
findings of C. M. Hann on the importance and necessity of anthropological field micro studies
that outline the mosaic of the cultural development of a certain society.
Igor Cvetko, MA, is an ethnomusicologist and puppeteer. In his professional career heworked as a research fellow of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts for 15 years, as
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a lecturer of ethnomusicology at the University of Ljubljana, and as a curator of the Slovene
Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana.
In 2015 Igor Cvetko received the very prestigious Karel Štrekelj award “for his great
contributions in ethnology, especially for his extensive research and popularisation of thechildren’s tradition”.
His collected material of Slovenian children’s tradition has been published in several books:
Slovenske otroške prstne igre, Didakta, Radovljica 1996
Najmanjše igre na Slovenskem, Didakta, Radovljica 2000
Aja, tutaja: Slovenske ljudske uspavanke, DZS, Ljubljana 2005
Trara, pesem pelja, otroška ljudska glasbila na Slovenskem, MK, Ljubljana 2006
Veliko malo prstno gledališče, Didakta, Radovljica 2010
Slovenske otroške igre od A do Ž, Celjska mohorjeva, Celje 2017
He has also illustrated many books for children.
As a puppeteer, Igor Cvetko co-founded Zapik theatre with Jelena Sitar. Zapik has beenrecognized in Slovenia for its unique approach to the youngest public and its interesting
aesthetics. In Zapik’s performances, Igor Cvetko is signed as the author of music, a puppet
designer and a co-director. Since 2013, Igor Cvetko and Jelena Sitar and their Zapik theatre
have been promoters, researchers and the driving force of the kamishibai movement inSlovenia.
Yukio Tsuno
How is kamishibai accepted in French popular culture? – Cultural comparison of
French Kamishibai and Japanese Kamishibai
France is one of the first countries that imported kamishibai. Nowadays, the people inFrance develop kamishibai with their own culture: the storytelling, the marionettes, clown
performances...
I'm a Japanese artist who has been living in France, working and making kamishibai since2014. I will present what the situation of kamishibai is like in France, and consider how
kamishibai, which originated in Japanese popular culture, is accepted into French popular
culture.
Kamishibai was introduced in France in several ways. I listened to the members of theInternational Kamishibai Association of Japan (IKAJA) who visited France in 2002 on theinvitation of Geneviève Patte, who had tried to introduce kamishibai since the 1970s. One of
the most popular kamishibai books nowadays is Kamishibai, la boîte magique written byEdith Montel in 2007.
From 2014 I have met many people who performed kamishibai. I will present, through somephotos, how people can practice kamishibai: through publication, lectures in libraries,
performances, practices at school… We can see many differences between kamishibai in
France and kamishibai in Japan. The graphics, the position and the role of the storyteller, theappearance of the butai … In fact, these differences are so significant that they sometimes
surprise Japanese people. But kamishibai is becoming more and more popular in France intheir own way, and for them, this is also kamishibai.
Why has kamishibai been transformed in France, and how has it been absorbed into the
French culture? When we import a foreign culture, we try to understand it by comparing itwith our own well-known culture. I will cite some examples of the French culture:marionettes, storytelling, clowns and nouveau-cirque. By understanding the cultural context,
we can understand how kamishibai is accepted by the French, and why they love to performkamishibai. Kamishibai is a very simple object that gives us many opportunities. As one
12Japanese who lives and works with kamishibai in France, I would like to understand both
cultures, explain them to each other, and hope that together, we can establish the future ofkamishibai.
Yuiko Tsuno, author / illustrator, spent her early childhood in France and now she lives inFrance, creates and works with kamishibai. After studying painting in Tokyo (Tama Art
University, Bachelor of oil painting in 2008 and Master of painting in 2010), she taught
painting and drawing for seven years in an art school in Kanagawa (Japan). She also
participated in the training on the history and interpretation of kamishibai at IKAJA(International Kamishibai Association of Japan). In 2013, she started to create kamishibai. She
creates, draws, and interprets her own stories, as well as the authentic Japanese kamishibai.
In 2014, she came to France to practice kamishibai. She did her presentation at Japan Expo,
Maison de la Culture du Japon à Paris, Maison-Atelier Fujita, and numerous libraries, schools,
cultural centres and festivals. She also organizes kamishibai workshops for children:collaborations with schools, after-school programmes, activities at the cultural centre, etc. In
2017, she organized the conference of Kyoko SAKAI (chair of the publishing company
Doshinsha, spokesperson of IKAJA) about kamishibai at La Maison de la Culture du Japon àParis. On this occasion, she also organized the Kamishibai Festival and invited several French
and Japanese artists to La Maison de la Culture du Japon à Paris. Some of her kamishibai arepublished in France: “Les Parapluies magiques” (Kamishibais Editions, 2015), “La poule brune
et le renard fûté”（Kamishibais Editions, 2016), “Le Chapeau charmant” (Kamishibais
Editions, 2016), etc.
Sharalyn Orbaugh
Performing Propaganda: Kamishibai in Japan’s Fifteen-Year War
This presentation will analyze the dramatic techniques used by kamishibai performers during
the years when kamishibai was part of the Japanese government’s propaganda arsenal, 1932–
1945. A variety of techniques were used in the early years of the Fifteen-Year War (the Asia
Pacific War), when kamishibai celebrating military heroes and famous battles were produced
and performed primarily by gaitô kamishibai organizations. When the China War started in1937 and Japan was officially on a wartime footing, kamishibai came under the government’s
charge, and performance techniques were standardized. These techniques were very
different from those used by gaitô performers, and yet attempted to maintain the significant
aspects of a live performance: warmth, immediacy, and shared emotion.
The government recruited experienced kamishibai performers to teach the new cadre ofnarrators, many of whom were young women who had volunteered for or been drafted into
wartime service. The journal “Kamishibai”, the in-house magazine of the quasi-governmentalorganization Nippon kyôiku kamishibai kyôkai, featured articles in which professional
kamishibai artists, scriptwriters, producers and performers discussed proper performancetechniques. Even when wartime kamishibai were to be performed at home, new propagandaappropriate performance techniques were encouraged through articles in children’s andwomen’s magazines. Drawing together information from all of these sources, thispresentation will sketch out and analyze the dramatic techniques advocated for use underthese particular circumstances.
Sharalyn Orbaugh first encountered kamishibai about twenty-five years ago when, at a flea
market in Kyoto, where she found a play for sale. It was obviously quite old, and obviously
had to do with the war.SheI was at the time writing a book about the fiction produced in
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Japan between 1937 and 1952, so she bought the play, “Mumei no haha” (“The Unsung
Mother”), and took it home to analyze. This started her obsession with kamishibai. Since
that time she has collected over 150 plays, mostly produced between 1938 and 1944, andshe has written a book on the way kamishibai was used as a medium of propaganda in WorldWar Two: “Propaganda Performed: Kamishibai in Japan’s Fifteen-Year War” (Brill, 2015).
Currently she is in the midst of a second book on the same topic.
Originally she was trained as a literature scholar, and has taught modern Japanese literature
at universities in the U.S. and Canada for thirty years. Currently she is a professor in the
Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
But these days her primary interests are in popular culture forms such as kamishibai, manga,
and anime, which combine word, image, and, in the case of kamishibai, performance.
Nagisa Moritoki
Kamishibai in Japan and abroad: history, transition and future perspective
The aim of this paper is to briefly present the history of kamishibai, as well as its future
perspectives in the present digital age with the focus on its role in society.
It is difficult to pinpoint when and how kamishibai first appeared. The kamishibai is said tohave its roots in ‘emaki’ (picture scrolls with interspersed narrative accounts), or ‘utsushi-e’(magic lantern performances) and ‘tachi-e’ (paper doll performances). It would appear thatkamishibai was performed in the end of the 19th century as a form of entertainment. Morethan a hundred years have passed since then, and a glance at historical accounts shows thevarious transformations of kamishibai in the tradition of kamishibai storytelling.
During WWII, kamishibai functioned as a medium for propaganda used by the Empire ofJapan. Kamishibai was shown as a tool for building a bilateral relation between the performer
and the audience. Its performance contributed to the infiltration of militarism into literally
every aspect of life at the time, and the influence of kamishibai surpassed that of newspapers
andbroadcasting
in
that
age.
Post-war, kamishibai became entertainment again. It was performed in the streets, and manystories were written one after another using drawings. Children comprised the majority ofthat audience, and were looking forward to the performances which were played several
times a day. Kamishibai’s popularity continued to rise until television broadcasting spread in
the 1960s. After the appearance of television, the audience of kamishibai disappeared fromthe streets and started to watch programmes in their own homes. Gradually kamishibaicame to be performed at schools and libraries. The stories are mostly well-known old tales,
therefore it is difficult to point out the particular feature that differentiates kamishibai frompicture books in this age.
The role of kamishibai in the 21st century is that of a tool of self-actualization. It is exported
and performed both abroad and in Japan. Each person may make or select a story, draw it,
and perform it. Kamishibai is even used in the fields of psychotherapy and linguistics
research. Nowadays, the relationship between the performer and the audience in kamishibai
performances has changed: the communication style is rather one-sided – namely from theperformer to the audience.
Nagisa Moritoki, Ph. D. (born in 1969), is an assistant professor at the Department of
Asian Studies at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana. She teaches Japanese
language and literature in the undergraduate and graduate programmes. Her researchinterests include text-linguistics, language education and language policy. Dr. Moritoki
actively cooperates with researchers in Central Europe as well as in Japan on various fields,
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from linguistics to language education. She is also an external researcher at the National
Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics and at the University of Tsukuba.
Dr. Moritoki is also a musician of Japanese traditional music. She plays traditional andmodern music on koto, shamisen and sanshin from the Okinawa islands and collaborates
with artists as a vocalist. She is fascinated by the oral tradition in Slovenia and Japan,
including storytelling. She performs as a storyteller and shares happiness, misfortune,
laughter and emotion with people through their stories. Dr. Moritoki finds storytelling to bea wholesome fusion of linguistics, music and education.

EXTERNAL PARTICIPATION
Hicela Ivon and Emanuela Zavoreo Rakić

The development of empathy during a performance of Kamishibai theatre
The article deals with theoretical and empirical explanations of the influence of kamishibai
art on emotional empathy and the imagination of children and adults. Emotional empathy
implies a global affectionate empathy that is reflected in the perception of other people’semotional experience, while emotional imagination is a tendency to enjoy imagination,
feelings and activities of imagined characters from stories, novels and movies.
The art of Kamishibai is the artistic context for a child’s natural learning about the values of
empathy: how to empathize and how to empathically communicate, which are the necessary
prerequisites to develop into a person who is ready to communicate with herself and others.
Consequently, by enjoying the emotional states of characters (through pictorial and verbal
symbols), a child understands the values of compassion, altruism, aiding, and the value(application) of pro-social behaviour.
Visual and verbal symbols which are complementary and which alternate during the art ofkamishibai allow children not only to enjoy the imagination, feelings, and activities of thecharacters in the story, but to better understand what they see and hear. This is atransformation of the experienced and a transition to a more complex (emotional)
understanding, which is the process of development towards ever-increasing empathy.
In other words, during the process of experiencing and learning while watching the art ofkamishibai, a child is relieved of the cognitive and emotional egocentrism (characteristic of
the preoperational stage in the development of thinking), which allows one to understandother people’s higher emotions and develop their own higher emotions (e.g. compassion).
The emotional states that children express during and after kamishibai performances areevaluated in the descriptions of the child’s emotional enjoyment and are reflected ascommunication, collaboration, help and children’s artistic expression.
Adults are well-versed in expressing empathic communication with children by performing
kamishibai in terms of their greater readiness to accept feelings, thinking and understanding
children, as well as a general openness to new challenges and problems of preschool
education.
A kamishibai performance can only succeed if the adult likes the story he is telling and if theadult has become a part of it – if the scenario of his play has become his mental treasure.
Only in this way he can successfully transfer it to children.

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Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sc. Hicela Ivon was born and lives in Split, where she completed
elementary and high school education, as well as a teaching study “Biology – Chemistry”. She
continued her studies with a group of pedagogical subjects at the Faculty of Philosophy inSarajevo and completed a master's degree in didactics with the topic “Teamwork – Team
Teaching” at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. She has a PhD in social pedagogy with the
topic “Influence of puppets on social behaviour and playful activities of preschool children” at
the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana.
She worked on TV journalist jobs, as a school pedagogue, as an educator for preschool
education, and as a teacher at the Departments of Preschool Education at Universities in
Zadar and Split.
She publishes scientific and professional papers in journals, books and collections frominternational and domestic scientific and professional conferences. She published several
books and participated as an editor on over sixty collection of papers, scientific andprofessional books.
She has participated in several professional-scientific projects with international cooperation. Within the European Institute for Development of All Children Potential (IEDPE,
Paris) she has been active since 1989 as a researcher on professional-scientific projects basedon interactive pedagogy and its methodology.
She is a former long-time editor in chief, now a deputy, of a journal for pedagogical theory
and practice “Školski Vjesnik” (now published by the Faculty of Humanities and Social
Sciences in Split). She has performed numerous professional and social functions.
She was the winner of the lifetime achievement award “Ivan Filipović” in 2013.
Emanuela Zavoreo Rakić was born in 1980 in Split, Croatia, where she completed
elementary and high school education. After completing two years at the “Teacher's School”(University of Split), she signed up for “Pre-school Education” at the Faculty of Humanities
and Social Sciences, University of Split. Her graduation thesis was “Puppets in the
Educational Process”, completed in 2008.
She is particularly interested in the use of puppets as a medium to promote the overall
development of children in the educational process. In cooperation with Dr. sc. Hicela Ivon
(Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, Department of Pre-school
Education) she published the review article “Characteristics of Developmental Possibilities of
the Puppet Game” in Školski vjesnik in 2011.
She is a member of the European Institution for the Development of All Children Potential(IEDPE, Paris) where she participates as a preschool teacher and an active researcher on
professional-scientific projects based on interactive pedagogy and its methodology. Active
participation in research and co-operation with academic research scientists are challenging
for her professional growth; she strives to develop as many research and reflective skills as
possible.
She lives and works in Split. Since 2009, she has been working as a pre-school teacher at“DV Radost–Split.”
Tea-Tereza Vidović Schreiber
Kamishibai – a new narrative context of oral literature in working with preschool
childrenThis paper starts with the assumption that kamishibai, as a special language of art, opens up
new narrative possibilities in the realization of oral literature for children of early andpreschool age.
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Using the relevant and available literature, it will be shown that historically, kamishibai wasonce the form of Japanese street theatre and storytelling. It offers the possibility of being
used by everyone. In the context of the work that puts kamishibai into the educational
process, that would mean educators who would – with the help of kamishibai – be able tobring the story or any other oral literary form closer to children.
Storytelling in traditional culture is defined as the process of shaping and establishing theappearance of an event with the help of speech. Narrative as a related/connected system of
speaking therefore requires greater lexical inventory and a higher level of conceptual thinking
in order to accomplish the narration.
Since oral narrative is a live talking and narrative activity, the question that arises is how (andwith the help of which storytelling technique) one can animate the story if the interest of
kamishibai lies in its mimicry, voice, and image. Kamishibai is thus an interdisciplinary art.
Exactly this kind of storytelling model opens up a range of improvisations as well as new
ways of learning storytelling skills. It also erects certain frameworks, which are primarily
related to the reduction of both images and words, more precisely, the picture and the word
harmoniously complement one another.
This paper tries to point out the importance of childhood narrative with a special emphasison oral literary forms: tongue twisters, songs, poems, prayers, fables, fairy tales, legends,
anecdotes, tales of life, childhood stories, etc. They originate both from the national andworld traditional literacy in the context of kamishibai, which nurtures the linguistic andliterary heritage as one of the expressions of identity, and develops the feeling of acceptanceof other cultures and civilizations.
dr. Sc. Tea-Tereza Vidović Schreiber graduated from Croatian language and literature
at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar. She also completed a postgraduate degree course at
the Faculty of philosophy in Zagreb. In 2011 she obtained a MA in the field of literature.
Since 2016 she has been working as a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities and Social
Sciences in Split, at the Department for early and pre-school education.
The areas of her professional and scientific interest are Croatian legends, traditional
narratives, urban legends, children’s literature, contemporary Croatian literature, puppetry,
theatrical and media culture. She uses these topics when educating teachers for children ofearly and preschool age, as well as when teaching MA courses for early and pre-school
education.
She is a member of “Matica hrvatska”, the Croatian Philological Association, the Union ofSocieties “Our children”, a cultural artistic society Progress, and the Council for culture of
the City of Split.
She has published a scientific book Fabulous honey words, two collections of poems(The Soul and the Body and The Nest without a Sound), as well as a shared collection
Clouds. She has copy-edited numerous scientific monographs and collections of works andwrites and publish scientific articles in the fields of literature, theatrical and media culture.
e-mail: tea.vidovic@gmail.com; tea.vidovic@ffst.hr
Yevgeniya Karpenko
The art of kamishibai as an educational cognitive technology in FLT in primary schoolin Ukraine
Kamishibai is an art which can be effectively connected with the teaching and learning
processes. This cognitive technology will help increase cognitive effectiveness, social
cohesion in education, motivation and involvement in teaching and learning processes. This
technique allows starting education with the youngest students and successfully educating17

them by creating a motivated learning dimension [1]. In addition, this approach will help
solve the problem of social cohesion by educating various groups of pupils (with different
social styles). It is connected with the one of main tasks of education – morality and sense
making. The main approach is to develop the pupils’ thinking, to increase the level of their
cognitive ability as well as develop their emotional culture.
Using kamishibai in FLT in primary schools in Ukraine is an important part of helping thekids learn to find a compromise, unite for mutual peace, and help those in need. It is moreeasily done through communication, which is uniquely possible in kamishibai. The plot can be
designed in an interactive way, so that children are led to predict the story, help the main
heroes solve the problem, and find a peaceful way out even if conflict occurs.
Another possible way of using kamishibai in FLT in primary schools is “tezukuri” [2, P. 16], ahand-made kamishibai in which children create their own stories to “achieve comprehensive
life education” [1, P. 16] using kamishibai as a storytelling tool. Video scribing is an innovative
way of using kamishibai in the education process. With the Sparkol – Doodle Video, forexample, there is a possibility to create your own whiteboard video in a five steps(http://www.videoscribe.co). This is a new type of kamishibai: an interactive approach indrawing the pictures and following the speech.
Mgr.Yevgeniya Karpenko, PhD is a senior teacher at the Department of the English Language
and Primary ELT Methodology (Educational and Research Institute of Pedagogics, Zhytomyr
Ivan Franko State University, Zhytomyr, Ukraine). She lectures on general linguistics and ELT
methodology (primary level included). She completed a research stay at the university of Zilina,
Slovakia.
She publishes and works in the fields of methodological issues of professional training ofprospective foreign language teachers, ELT methodology in Europe, formation of information andanalytical skills of prospective foreign language teachers, etc.
E-mail: karpenko26@i.ua.

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