2025-

One Eye Sees, the Other Feels is an 'abstract' storytelling performance that speaks solely through visual, sound and lighting, without using spoken words. Inspired by modernist painters, particularly Paul Klee and Joan Miró, who ventured into the universe between abstraction and figurative, this work explores the uncharted territory between abstraction and narrative in the performing arts.

Initial experiments during the project week residency at Mercury Store, NYC, in January 2025.

2020-

“Shinnai Meets Puppetry… creates an aura of joy, wonder, and pathos. Sometimes puppetry gets to the heart of what it means to be human better than an actor can — and that is what this show accomplishes.”
— Puppetry Journal

Shinnai Meets Puppetry is an ongoing interdisciplinary performance project that combines traditional Japanese Shinnai-bushi storytelling with contemporary puppetry, object animation, shadow theatre, and subtitle projection.

The current double bill, One Night in Winter & The Peony Lantern, premiered at Japan Society in New York in Fall 2024 and has since been presented internationally, including at the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes (FMTM) in Charleville-Mézières, France, and the 31st International Festival of Puppetry Art in Bielsko-Biała, Poland.

In 2026, the production received the UNIMA-POLUNIMA Centre Award at the 31st International Festival of Puppetry Art.

The project has been supported by a 2024 Production Grant, an O’Neill Residency, and a 2025 Allelu Award from The Jim Henson Foundation, a NYSCA FY2024 Grant, a NEFA Artist Development Grant, the Brooklyn Arts Council Brooklyn Empower Fund, and USArtists International.

Read Tim Cusack’s review in Puppetry International Research Journal here

***
Shinnai-bushi is a genre of Jōruri (sung storytelling accompanied by shamisen music) from Japan that originated in the mid-18th century. From an early stage, shinnai-bushi was developed as Su-jōruri, a style of pure storytelling without the accompaniment of puppets or dancers. Shinnai-bushi’s lyrical melodies capture the sorrow of love and the subtleties of human nature, and they have been appreciated by ordinary people for centuries in Japan. Among the renowned shinnai-bushi storytellers in history, Grand Master OKAMOTO Bunya (1895-1996) largely contributed to the modernization and promotion of shinnai-bushi. Bunya created about 300 original compositions throughout his life. He found inspiration in Japanese (and foreign) literature, poetry, folk stories, and myths to create his new Shinnai-bushi repertoire. Working with spirited choreographers/dancers, he also experimented with and established Shinnai Buyō (Shinnai Dance).

Inspired by Bunya’s innovative spirit, Shinnai Meets Puppetry is an ongoing project that introduces shinnai-bushi repertoire to international audiences through collaborations with contemporary puppeteers.

As a disciple of Bunya’s successor, Master OKAMOTO Miyanosuke III, OKAMOTO Miya (a.k.a. Sachiyo Takahashi / Nekaa Lab) adapts and translates the repertoire for international audiences. For each chapter of the project, Miya invites a lead puppeteer to develop a new visual interpretation of a selected shinnai-bushi work through puppetry, object animation, shadow theatre, and related forms of visual storytelling.

Chapter 1: One Night in Winter

As the first step for this project, Miya invited Rowan Magee as a lead puppeteer to work on One Night in Winter by Okamoto Bunya, a story of a lonely old man who receives a surprise visit from Tanuki (a Japanese raccoon dog) on a cold winter night. A work-in-progress of this chapter was presented during Puppetopia from May 11-15, 2022.

Development Credits (2022 Work-in-Progress)
Lighting Design: Ayumu “Poe” Saegusa
Subtitle Operation: Amanda Kettell
Dramaturgical Support: Nick Lehane and Andy Manjuck

Chapter 2: The Peony Lantern

For the second chapter of this project, Miya invited Emma Wiseman as a lead puppeteer to work on The Peony Lantern by Okamoto Bunya, an adaptation of the famous ghost love story. We explore this fantastical song depicting the sorrow of a woman-in-love facing an unfaithful lover through new vocabularies of shadow puppetry.

Work-in-progress presentations of this chapter were held at FiveMyles in Brooklyn in 2023.

***

Shinnai Meets Puppetry: One Night in Winter & The Peony Lantern

Based on the original shinnai-bushi song-stories by Okamoto Bunya (1895–1996)

Concept and Direction: Sachiyo Takahashi
Co-Creation: Sachiyo Takahashi, Rowan Magee, Emma Wiseman
Shinnai-bushi Storytelling: Okamoto Miya (a.k.a. Sachiyo Takahashi)
Puppetry: Rowan Magee and Emma Wiseman
Puppet Design and Building: Emma Wiseman (The Peony Lantern), Rowan Magee (One Night in Winter)
Screen Design and Building: Rowan Magee (The Peony Lantern)
Sound Design: Sachiyo Takahashi
Lighting Design: Tsubasa Kamei
Supervision: Okamoto Miyanosuke III
Dramaturgical Support: Nick Lehane, Andy Manjuck, Peter Eckersall, Helena Pennington
English Translation: Sachiyo Takahashi, Rowan Magee, Emma Wiseman, Helena Pennington, Madeleine Dauer. Rancho (One Night in Winter) excerpt translated by Alison Tokita
French Subtitle Translation: Keiko Courdy
Subtitle Operation: Madeleine Dauer
Production: Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi

Premiered at Japan Society, New York, in 2024.

- Support and Special Thanks -

Support for the development of Shinnai Meets Puppetry was provided by The Jim Henson Foundation, The Jane Henson Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), Brooklyn Arts Council Brooklyn Empower Fund, FiveMyles, HERE Dream Music Puppetry, Japan Society, and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.

The Shinnai Meets Puppetry team extends special thanks to Jim Freeman, Cheryl Henson, Heather Henson, Jessica Simon, Hanne Tierney, Filip Jaśkiewicz, Ikuyo Takahashi, and the staff and artists who supported the project through the O’Neill Residency and Puppetry at the Carriage House (PATCH).

Fishgirl Radio for sleepless nights. We collect terrestrial sounds and secretly bring them to your ears. 

Please listen to it on Fishgirl Radio.

眠れぬ夜のフィッシュガール・ラジオ。地上の音を採集して、あなたの耳にそっとお届けします。
Fishgirl Radioでお聴きください。

Production: Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi

2023

“None of the forms or puppets in this spectacle constitutes a representation of reality, thus even more strongly steering us to experience emotions and not to follow the story.” — by Filip Jaśkiewicz, Teatr Lalek

read more review

The Emotions: Equinox, by Sachiyo Takahashi, is an abstract storytelling through puppets/objects, live projection, and original music, developed in collaboration with Korean video and object designer Yudam Hyung-Seok Jeon and puppet builder/puppeteer Emma Wiseman. The story told in The Emotions: Equinox is a birth of emotion and its transformation that finally reaches a sort of festivity to find a new beginning, like the cycle of the earth suddenly shifting at the equinox to mark a rebirth. Through this work, Sachiyo explores and shares what makes the material alive and emotional through the lens of East Asia, celebrating the exact time of the equinox with the audience after a long pause with the pandemic.

The Emotions: Equinox premiered in spring 2023 as a part of a two-act experimental music performance, The Emotions, co-conceived by Korean master instrumentalist gamin and Japanese composer and artist Sachiyo Takahashi. The culmination of a three-year residency, The Emotions, using traditional and folk East Asian music as entry points, explores the intricacies and power of emotional expressions found in traditional Eastern Asian cultures while also reflecting on the role of emotions in our contemporary, hi-tech world in which they are often stereotyped, fragmented, or left behind.

***

The Emotions: Equinox - created and performed by
Yudam Hyung Seok Jeon, Emma Wiseman and Sachiyo Takahashi

Concept, Direction, Sound Design, and Video Design by Sachiyo Takahashi
Object Design and Video Design by Yudam Hyung Seok Jeon
Object Builder: Emma Wiseman
Lighting Design by Poe Ayumu Saegusa
Associate Lighting Design by Jonathan Cottle
Taiko drums, Chappa cymbals, and Voice (recording) by Toru Hasegawa
Dramaturgy by Peter Eckersall
Puppet Advisor: Nick Lehane, Rowan Magee
The framework, The Emotions, Co-conceived by gamin and Sachiyo Takahashi

The Emotions: Equinox was developed through HARP, the artist residency program at HERE Arts Centre in NYC in 2020-2023 with the support of its Dream Music Puppetry program.

Made possible by the 2022 NYSCA Music grant and The Café Royal Cultural Foundation Fall 2022 Performance Grant.

Special Thanks to Ceci Lynn-Jacobs, John Mosloskie, Gasui Igarashi, and Ikuyo Takahashi

Premiere: March 22-23, 2023, at HERE Arts Centre, NYC, during its Puppetopia festival.

“ …the most poetic hour of theater you are likely to see at the moment “ — by Molly Grogan, Exeunt Magazine

read more reviews

Sheep #1 is the first production in Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre, conceived in 2006. A new updated version with live music premiered on May 5, 2018, at The Tank, NYC. The additional version (Program B) premiered on November 5, 2021, at Japan Society, NYC.

Inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s writings, sheep #1 is the adventure of a sheep in search of the meaning of life. The performance is in the style of Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre, where the performer manipulates small characters who are magnified with a video camera and projector. This creates an intimate dream-like experience by combining cinematic presentation and live operation. An abstract storytelling, sheep #1 is presented without spoken words, accompanied by an electroacoustic soundtrack and a live musician.

Updated Original Version (Program A)

Concept, Sound Design, Visual Design and Performance: Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi
Live Music: Emile Blondel, piano
Dramaturg: Peter Eckersall
Technical Advisor, Builder: Willie Gambucci
Original Live Music by Emile Blondel with excerpts from Frédéric Chopin - Rondo à la Krakowiak, Op.14 and Franz Schubert - 4 Impromptus, D. 935 / Op.142.
Electroacoustic Soundtrack by Sachiyo Takahashi.
Text: Quoted from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and original text by Sachiyo Takahashi
Production: Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi
Co-production: The Tank, NYC
World Premiere in collaboration with Blim, Vancouver
This production (new version) is presented with generous support from The Jim Henson Foundation.

World Premiere: December 17, 2006, Blim, Vancouver (CA)
US premiere (updated version): May 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19 & 20, 2018, The Tank, NY (US)

Additional version (Program B)

Concept, Sound Design, Visual Design, and Performance: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi
Live Music: Kato Hideki, bass guitar
Dramaturg: Peter Eckersall
Technical Advisor, Builder: Willie Gambucci
Music/Sound: Original Live Music by Kato Hideki with excerpts from his song "The Man Who Married the Moon"
Electroacoustic Soundtrack by Sachiyo Takahashi
Text: Quoted from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and original text by Sachiyo Takahashi
Production: Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi

Presentation of Program A & premiere of Program B: November 4-7, 2021, Japan Society, NYC.

For booking inquiries, please email us.

“…a serious exploration of time and space, in an effort to see what can be found by shape shifting…” —by Marcina Zaccaria, Theater Pizzazz

read more reviews

Inspired by abstract visual artists, notably Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Calder, and Otto Piene, Everything Starts from a Dot is storytelling solely with abstract characters - shapes, lines, color, light/shadow, and sound. Combining projection by Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre technique and the presence of moving objects on stage, it invests the border between pure abstraction and the appearance of narrative, animating the entire theatre space.

An inhabitant of two dimensions, the dot escapes from its familiar environment. Through various encounters and metamorphoses, the dot explores microscopic yet cosmic territories in itself and beyond. The performance is accompanied by an electroacoustic soundtrack without spoken words.

Concept, Sound Design, Visual Design by Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi
Dramaturgy by Peter Eckersall
Lighting Design by Marika Kent
Technical Advisor & Builder: Willie Gambucci
Text from “Point and Line to Plane” by Wassily Kandinsky
Violin: Paradis’ Sicilienne, played by Ikuyo Takahashi
Production: Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi
Performed by Sachiyo Takahashi, Zac Pless, Willie Gambucci, and dot

***

Preliminarily development as a part of Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse 2015-2016, with the support of The Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant 2017 and Production Grant 2018
World Premiere at La MaMa, NYC, Nov 8-10, 2018
Special thanks to FiveMyles

For booking inquiries, please email us.

by Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi & Willie Gambucci

Inspired by abstract visual artists, most notably Wassily Kandinsky, Everything Starts from a Dot is a performance with live projection and object manipulation in live space.

This exhibit represents a small excerpt of the show in the style of a kinetic installation. During the live performance, the objects are controlled manually by a performer — in this installation, they are controlled by pulleys and motors, simulating the performer's movement and choreography of objects.

Concept, Visual and Sound Design, Choreography: Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi

Technical Advisor, Builder: Willie Gambucci

Everything Starts from a Dot is supported by The Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant in 2017 and a Production Grant in 2018.

Special thanks to Hanne Tierney for inspiration from her works. And FiveMyles for generous support.
This installation was exhibited at The Plaxall Gallery, LIC (NY) from April 13 - May 13, 2018

Not Outside is the seventh production in The Nekaa Room series of Sachiyo Takahashi’s Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre.

The main character is a sheep who, from previous Nekaa Room performances, is known to love big adventures. In this piece, however, the sheep cannot go outside due to circumstances out of its control. Through boredom and simple curiosity, the sheep starts exploring its daily space. What is connected to this small world, not outside? Not Outside is a story of a tiny journey that might be the size of a universe.

concept, sound design, and visual design by Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi
performed by: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi

production: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi / in collaboration with Your Kontinent Festival, Vancouver 

world premiere: July 23, 2011, Your Kontinent Festival, Vancouver (CA)

2017-

Inspired by abstract visual artists, notably Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Calder, and Oskar Schlemmer, Object Dance is storytelling told through live projection and manipulation of large objects in live space. While the main characters in Object Dance are represented by simple geometric objects, a human dancer dances with “object dancers” to reveal the relationship between the object and the human body from time to time.

A work-in-progress version was presented on September 28, 2017, at FiveMyles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.

Credit (work-in-progress version)
Creation and Performance by:
Un Yamada & Sachiyo Takahashi & dot
Technical Advisor & Builder: Willie Gambucci
Sound Design: Sachiyo Takahashi
Dramaturg: Peter Eckersall

＜浮かぶカフェ＞に漂う声をお届けする気ままなネットラジオです。

毎週、日本時間の金曜夜配信

番組ページはコチラ

Ukabu Cafe is a podcast where voices and sound float up to be free from the transient world for a brief moment.

Guest artists bring their thoughts and work in the style of talk, poetry, song, music, and more.

Language: mostly Japanese

Project page is HERE

Visuals for two music videos of songwriter Matt Kivel's album, last night in america, available May 10, 2019, via Cascine and Pedro Y El Lobo.

The song by Matt Kivel
Visuals by Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi

Stream track: https://lnk.to/lastnightinamerica

Sound Weave is an audience-participatory installation. It is a weaving of used audio tape cassettes. We use 110 used cassettes for the warps (the threads that extend from the back of the loom.) The audience can join this participatory installation by bringing their own used cassettes for the woofs (the thread that weaves back and forth).

This piece was exhibited as a part of the Heart of PQ Project at the Prague Quadrennial in 2003. After 15 days of the exhibition, the weave became 5 meters long.

Audio cassette tape is a vanishing analog technology. People still keep a stock of used tapes at home not being used, with a strange attachment and nostalgic feeling to these disappearing objects. Through this weave, audio tapes become "artifacts" and live a different life.

concept and realization: Sachiyo Takahashi & Sidney Fels

in collaboration with Heart of PQ - Prague Quadrennial / with the support of POLA Art Foundation, The Canada Council for the Arts

June 12-26, 2003, Prague Quadrennial, Prague (CZ)

God is in the Details is a "peep-show" installation of seven small boxes to introduce audiences to the world of Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre: The Nekaa Room series. The seven boxes contain bubbles, a heart, a TV/fireworks, mirrors, orbital planets, and feathers, plus one with sheep capsules that the audience can purchase with a token to bring home.

Material: paper box, lens, mirror, rubber, soap, water, plastic figurines, motor, projector, LED light

production: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi / in collaboration with Café for Contemporary Art, Vancouver 

premiere: August 2012, Café for Contemporary Art, Vancouver (CA)

Are you sure that what you see is everything there is to see? 
Is the world you live in the only one?
Is there perhaps another universe that you can only reach through a secret entrance? 

With The Seventh Floor of the World, choreographers Heine Avdal + Yukiko Shinozaki and multimedia artist Sachiyo Takahashi take you on an imaginary journey, shifting between reality and fiction. Through various levels of abstraction and play with scales, they guide you to unknown layers where words, shapes, and colors melt in the senses. This playful exploration of passages to other levels is testing your perceptions.

concept & direction: Heine Avdal, Yukiko Shinozaki, Sachiyo Takahashi
created with & performed by Heine Avdal, Luke George, Dolores Hulan, Yukiko Shinozaki, Sachiyo Takahashi/Nekaa Lab
dance & co-creation during the rehearsal period: Kayoko Minami
sound design & video: Sachiyo Takahashi/Nekaa Lab
light design, artistic collaboration & technical direction: Arnaud Meuleman
assistance scenography: Margerite Monnoyen
 
production: Heine Avdal, fieldworks vzw / co-production: Dansefestival Barents, Hammerfest  / in collaboration with BRONKS Brussels / with the support of Norsk Kulturråd, Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie

The seventh floor of the world is a performance for all ages, starting from the age of 8.

world premiere: November 7, 2013, Dansefestival Barents, Hammerfest (NO)

Dark Matter  is the eighth production in The Nekaa Room series with an ensemble cast from the Nekaa Lab, emphasizing the alternative perspective in Sachiyo Takahashi's Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre.

This work examines the culture of kawaii ( "cuteness"), which is rooted in contemporary Japanese society but has been expanding internationally.
Through her microscopic view, Sachiyo explores an alternate side to the world of kawaii.

concept, sound design, and visual design by Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi

performed by: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi

production: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi  / in collaboration with Boca Del Lupo & Blim, Vancouver 

world premiere: October 28, 2011, VIVO, Vancouver (CA)

Between the Lines is the sixth production in The Nekaa Room series of Sachiyo Takahashi’s Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre.

Between the Lines is a story of the adventure of a goat who fell into a gap between the lines.

This piece explores the narrative territory beyond language, where things are inexpressible yet sensible, playing with the materiality of letters. 

concept, sound design, and visual design by Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi

performed by: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi

world premiere: May 7, 2011, Richmond Cultural Centre, Richmond (CA)

Galaxy Green is the fourth production in The Nekaa Room series of Sachiyo Takahashi’s Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre.

Disappointed with its current home, a sheep decides to go on a trip to explore outer space, trying to find an ideal place called Galaxy Green. Does Galaxy Green really exist? If so, how far will it be?

Galaxy Green examines the notion of the perfect home through a 55-minute make-believe space odyssey.

concept, sound design, and visual design: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi
performed by: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi

world premiere: July 24, 2010, Blim, Vancouver (CA)

The Red String is the second production in The Nekaa Room series of Sachiyo Takahashi’s Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre.

One day, a sheep hears that you and your soulmate are connected by a red string. The sheep decides to follow a red string growing from his leg. After a long adventure, the sheep meets a rock star who has lost his red string. Does the sheep find his soulmate?...

As a contemporary twist to Asian mythology of the Red String of Fate, The Red String brings audiences on a dream-like journey to find the meaning of fate.

concept, sound design, and visual design by Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi

performed by: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi

concept, sound design, and visual design by Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi
performed by: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi

production: Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi / in collaboration with Powell Street Festival Society and Blim, Vancouver

world premiere: June 21, 2007, Powell Street Festival, Vancouver (CA) 

In the Japanese-tea-room-like Sound Room, the Sound Master invites guests to a unique sound ceremony. The guests find a ceremony table with 13 plastic pipes in the middle of the room. These pipes are connected to different spaces outside the Sound Room through long plastic tubes to collect sound from diverse environments. The guests can listen to the sound by attaching special hollow tube headphones to the ceremony table. Using T-connectors, L-connectors, and I-connectors, the guests can create variations of sound mixes, such as multiple people listening to the same source and 'air mixing' more than one source. The guests help each other by adjusting their bodies to support the tube structures as they grow. The Sound Master occasionally talks to the guests through the 13th tube connected directly to the Sound Room. Sound Room is a playground for people to discover the hidden world of sound and reconnect themselves to others through sound and listening.

concept and realization: Sachiyo Takahashi & Sidney Fels
in collaboration with Heart of PQ - Prague Quadrennial / with the support of POLA Art Foundation and The Canada Council for the Art

world premiere: June 2003, Prague Quadrennial, Prague (CZ)

Laika Space Program (LSP) is an experimental audience-participatory performance. Audiences are divided into several groups at the entrance and given the roles of either "Laika," "flea," or "scientist." In 1957, Laika was a dog sent into space as the first living creature in the Russian satellite Sputnik II. The story of LSP takes the imaginary view that Laika had fleas that went to outer space with her. In LSP, "fleas" are blindfolded and connected to the belt of "Laika" by thin ropes and helped by "scientists." "Fleas" and "Laika" experience the extreme of the five senses through LSP: "Laika" experiences "artificial senses," and "fleas" experience the "real senses." LSP is a unique experiment that re-discovers human sense and bonding experiences through forced performative situations.

concept: Sachiyo Takahashi & Sidney Fels
sound design: Sachiyo Takahashi
project coordination: Olga Škochová Bláhová
developed and performed by: Heart of PQ - LSP Team
in collaboration with Heart of PQ - Prague Quadrennial / with the support of POLA Art Foundation, The Canada Council for the Arts, the sponsors of The Heart of PQ

world premiere: June 2003, Prague Quadrennial, Prague (CZ)

Aviation/Abbreviation is an experimental "sound-action performance" on distance and communication between people in contemporary life told through the episodes of airplane and flight.

The stage is a 5m*5m square inspired by the Japanese Noh theatre. Audiences are around the stage and sit very close to the performers. The sound is controlled by one of the performers ("pilot") on the set using a body suit with a mixer and two DAT walkmans to stimulate and transform the bodies of other performers, creating a dream-like experience for the audiences with a minimal and fragile mixture of sound, movement, and light.

concept: Sachiyo Takahashi
creation and performance: Martin Nachbar, Fabian Schnedler (the first version), Ugo Dehaes, Chloé Dujardin (the second version), and Sachiyo Takahashi
set/lights: Kris Van Aert
sound design: Sachiyo Takahashi
costume: Jesse Boeijen, Lies Van Assche
photography: Steven Liegeois
video: Alda Snopek
production: Troubleyn/Jan Fabre, in collaboration with Monty, Antwerp
world premiere: December 9, 1999, Monty, Antwerp (BE)