Shinnai Meets Puppetry: One Night in Winter & The Peony Lantern by Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi received the Polish UNIMA-POLUNIMA Centre Award at the 31st International Festival of Puppetry Art in Bielsko-Biała, Poland, in May 2026. The festival is hosted by Teatr Lalek Banialuka.

The award statement honored the performance “for the creative combination of distant traditions, from which a new theatrical quality emerges.”

Shinnai Meets Puppetry brings together shinnai-bushi, a traditional Japanese form of musical storytelling, and contemporary puppetry developed in New York City. The production is the result of a collaboration among artists from different cultural and artistic backgrounds.

“We are especially happy that our collaboration, rooted in Japanese traditional storytelling and contemporary puppetry in NYC, has been recognized by the Polish puppetry community through a festival with such a long and rich history,” said Sachiyo Takahashi, founder and artistic director of Nekaa Lab. “We are grateful to the festival, to UNIMA Poland, and to the audiences of all ages who welcomed our performance so warmly.”

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

Principal creative team: Sachiyo Takahashi (Okamoto Miya), concept, direction, co-creation, and shinnai-bushi storytelling; Rowan Magee and Emma Wiseman, co-creation and puppetry; Tsubasa Kamei, lighting design and technical direction; Madeleine Dauer, subtitle operation.

Shinnai-bushi supervision: Okamoto Miyanosuke III.

Shinnai Meets Puppetry has received support from The Jim Henson Foundation, including the Jim Henson Foundation Puppetry Residency at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Puppetry at the Carriage House (PATCH) residency, with support from 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; and Japan Society.

About Nekaa Lab

Founded in Canada in 2006 and based in Brooklyn since 2012, Nekaa Lab is a troupe of objects—including small figurines and plush toys—led by artist Sachiyo Takahashi. The Lab collaborates with artists from different disciplines, forming new creative teams for each project. Its interdisciplinary practice explores storytelling through objects, sound, and live imagery, spanning puppetry, Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre, visual and sound art, and traditional Japanese narrative music.

For its 2025 performances at the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes in Charleville-Mézières, France, Nekaa Lab received the Allelu Award and support from USArtists International, a program of Mid Atlantic Arts. Nekaa Lab has received multiple Jim Henson Foundation awards and has presented work at Japan Society, La MaMa, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and HERE Arts Center.

Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi is a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas.

Website: https://www.nekaa.org
Instagram: @nekaalab

Performance photos by Richard Termine.
Award photo by Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi.