Felice Amato During 2021-22, we held a year-long virtual conference entitled “Women and Masks: A Transdisciplinary Arts-Research Conference” through Boston University. This report provides insights into the four weekends of virtual events, which featured presenters from around the world who offered a diverse range of content and experiential opportunities. The conference was inspired by the organizers’ interest in women’s complex experiences with mask practices. It highlighted the paradoxical potential of masks, often revealing the political and cultural narratives surrounding women. The intersection of these two themes exposed both exclusions and acts of agency while illuminating the complex phenomena related to …
Month: July 2024
PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Adrift: A Medieval Wayward Folly
Adrift: A Medieval Wayward Folly. By Happenstance Theater. Co-Directed by Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell. 59E59 Theaters, New York, New York, November 29 to December 24, 2023. Upon arriving on the third floor of the 59E59 theatre complex in New York City to attend a performance of Adrift in December 2023, audience members are greeted by the costumed artistic co-director of Happenstance Theater, Mark Linden Jaster. Jaster’s company is an ensemble-driven troupe from the DC/Baltimore metropolitan area that creates original theatrical pieces rooted in physical comedy and clown technique that in his words “tend to go nostalgic … look retro” …
EXHIBITION REVIEW: The Calling: The Transformative Power of African American Doll and Puppet Making.
Kathy Foley The Calling: The Transformative Power of African American Doll and Puppet Making. Camila Bryce Laporte, curator, and Phyllis May-Machunda, curatorial consultant. City Lore Gallery. New York, NY. October 6, 2023 to March 3, 2024. This exhibit in a one-room space in New York’s East Village seems simple—dolls, soft sculpture figures, assemblage, quilts, and puppets by twenty-six contemporary Black artists juxtaposed in the gallery. Figures are arranged 1) to evoke the chronology of the African American diasporic experience and 2) to create dialogue about loss, trauma, and resilience. Doll making heals the spirit and builds community for these otherwise …
Founders of the Field: Nancy Lohman Staub
Bradford Clark This is a profile of Nancy Staub, the founder of the Worlds of Puppetry Museum at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia. The article traces her contributions to world puppetry from the 1950s to the present day. As a performer, director, producer, researcher, and collector, she has collaborated with international puppet artists (including Jim Henson) and scholars to bring awareness of puppet theatre to a wider audience. The article includes a selected bibliography of her publications. Bradford Clark is a professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, …
EXHIBITION REVIEW: Stillness, Silence, and Shadows: Indonesian Wayang Exhibit at Yale
Performance and Court in Indonesia. Asian Art Galleries, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. In Indonesia, wayang shadow puppets are presented to the audience in a dizzying swirl of sound and action. The dalang story-teller brings the artfully perforated puppets to life with deft manipulations of shadows that change shape to the shifting rhythms of a clanging gamelan orchestra. As the dalang sings, chants, jokes, and punctuates the dialogue with percussive clacks of a cempala, the characters interact with a rich array of human emotions. The puppets praise, seduce, flatter, betray, mock, and battle each other with gestures that …
