OSAKA -- The National Bunraku Theatre here will be offering an English introduction to the traditional bunraku Japanese puppetry this June for the second year in a row.

The event "Discover Bunraku" will be held at the theater in Osaka's Chuo Ward from 2 p.m. on June 17 in a rare opportunity for a worldwide audience to learn about the ancient art in English.

The theater usually holds "bunraku performance for beginners" workshops in June, running from June 9 to 22 this year. The performances and explanations are geared towards those with little knowledge of the art, and in 2016, the theater decided to hold one special workshop a year for study abroad students and foreign tourists.

The event attracted about 600 participants, and according to questionnaires collected afterwards, the participants came from 37 countries. The majority of the audience reported that the English synopsis and the explanation of the performance deepened their understanding of bunraku and that it was an amazing experience, among other positive feedback.

This year, the English-language "navigator" will be Shigeyama Doji, a young kyogen actor from Kyoto who puts on kyogen performances in both Japanese and English. The first part of the program will be "The ABC of Bunraku" lead by the head of the Kinoshita-Kabuki theater group, Yuichi Kinoshita. Participants can look forward to a special performance of a well-known Japanese song that Kinoshita has prepared in bunraku style.

In the second half of the workshop, the theater will perform selected famous acts from one of the three great bunraku plays "Kanadehon Chushingura (The Vendetta by 47 Ronin)" with English subtitles. An English audio guide is also available free of charge.

Tickets for the workshop are 3,700 yen for adults and 1,300 for students and can be purchased by calling the National Theatre Ticket Center at 0570-07-9900 or visiting their website (http://www.ntj.jac.go.jp/sp/schedule/bunraku/2017/6discover-bunraku.html?lan=e).