Let’s open a Japanese Story-Box: Kamishibai

Event details

World Kamishibai Day Event

Let’s open a Japanese Story-Box: Kamishibai

In 1985, Sakuramoto, a Japanese author wrote: “because Kamishibai is a simple and straightforward integrated art form, [...] it can be used extremely effectively as a teaching tool for winning hearts and minds [...]. Many years of putting this idea into practice confirm it”. Indeed, and whether it serves as a pedagogical tool or for entertainment, whether in Japan or elsewhere, Kamishibai remains both relevant and strangely reassuring in the face of today’s fast-changing, digital world.

If you join Géraldine Enjelvin, Yumi Nixon and Ulrike Wray on the fascinating journey from the etoki  (pictorial storytelling) culture in the tenth century, to today’s Kamishibaiya (storytellers), you will learn about kamishibai – from kami, meaning paper and shibai, meaning play or theatre – an ancient art form that many libraries and many schools use in many countries throughout the world.

How and why has Kamishibai evolved? What is the appeal? How could you use, or even make, Kamishibai storyboards and a butai (a storytelling box) ?