Kwaidan

After its sold-out premiere in 1998, Ping Chong’s Kwaidan returns to the Center for Puppetry Arts as part of its 2000-2001 New Directions Series for Adult Audiences. The legendary conceptualizer and director brings to life three Japanese ghost stories by expatriate American Lafcadio Hearn, who went to Japan in 1890 and never left. The stories are presented with three-dimensional and shadow puppets. Atlanta’s award-winning artist Jon Ludwig and Japan’s critically-acclaimed designer Mitsuru Ishii collaborated with Chong to make this production into a highly imagistic, interdisciplinary work embodying the magic, spectacle, and spirituality of Japan, a country in transition, from the Meiji era to the 20th century.