Song of the North. Created and directed by Hamid Rahmanian. Music by Ramin Torkian, featuring vocalist Azam Ali. OZ Theatre, Nashville, Tennessee, 20 April 2024. As battle sounds fill the OZ Theatre in Nashville, shadowy figures of soldiers and weapons materialize on a large screen, shrouded in the fog of war. This dramatic opening sets the stage for Hamid Rahmanian’s innovative shadow puppet theatre production, Song of the North, inspired by Ferdowsi’s tenth-century Persian epic, Shahnameh (Book of Kings)[1]. Song of the North is part of the KINGORAMA project, founded by Hamid Rahmanian and Melissa Hibbard, which produces cultural products …
Month: March 2025
PERFORMANCE REVIEW: HUMAN
HUMAN. Written and directed by Nehprii Amenii. Music composed by Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby with sound design by Joo Wan Park. Choreography by Amparo “Chigui” Santiago, and lighting, projections, and scenic design by Marie Yokoyama. Puppet design and building by Dan Jones and Nehprii Amenii. A Puppetry NOW featured performance at the Center for Puppetry Arts, Atlanta, Georgia, January 17-28, 2024. Nehprii Amenii’s puppet theatre piece, HUMAN, considers a world where human beings have faded into extinction. Detached from the goodness of their hearts, the once-prosperous human race destroyed itself, and all that remains on Earth are the sea …
BOOK REVIEW: Object Performance in the Black Atlantic: The United States
Object Performance in the Black Atlantic: The United States. By Dr. Paulette Richards. New York: Routledge, 2024. 312 pp., 82 b/w illustrations. Hardcover $153.00, eBook $41.64, Paperback $41.60. In her well-constructed study, Object Performance in the Black Atlantic, researcher and puppet artist Dr. Paulette Richards elaborates several crucial questions into a new and generative format by engaging her topic through lines of inquiry that build on the work of previous theorists while also providing much needed expansions of the culturally charged work accomplished by objects in performance. In addition, Richards asks us to consider the many aspects of lived experience …
REPORT: A Journey Through Puppetry in Africa
Fedelis Kyalo In “A Journey Through Puppetry in Africa,” Fedelis Kyalo highlights the UNIMA Africa Commission’s efforts to promote puppetry as a cultural art form. The article discusses the “Tomorrow’s Puppets in Africa” training program and the “Pro-Vocation: Roots and Wings” conference in Cape Town, titled “An International Exchange on Puppetry Arts in Africa.” These events celebrated and explored African puppetry’s rich traditions and new ideas. They included three training courses, international meetings, a puppet festival, and an inter-African seminar, promoting collaboration and growth in puppetry across Africa. The attendees engaged in meaningful discussions and developed a ten-year plan to …
CONFERENCE REPORT: Wayang, Ecology and the Sacred Symposium
Wayang, Ecology and the Sacred Symposium. Yale University, Connecticut. November 9, 2024. The article summarizes a single-day symposium on the theme of Wayang, Ecology, and the Sacred organized by Professor Matthew Isaac Cohen with support from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University. Participants from a wide range of disciplines, including Theatre, Visual Arts, Puppetry, Ethnomusicology, and Museum Studies, investigated how wayang puppet traditions are both sacred and related to ecological issues. Rahul Koonathara is currently pursuing graduate studies at the University of Connecticut in the Department of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies under the guidance of Professor …
CONFERENCE REPORT: Wonderland Puppet Theater Symposium
Wonderland Puppet Theater Symposium. The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, University of Connecticut, October 25-26, 2024. The article summarizes the presentations of the two-day “Wonderland Puppet Theater Symposium” organized by The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, with support from the University of Connecticut, in October, 2024. This exhibition explored the fifty-year interracial collaboration of two pioneering puppeteers, Alice Swann and Nancy Schmale, in the late twentieth century. The symposium investigates the works, influences, and societal challenges faced by Alice Swann and Nancy Schmale, who lived in the Concord Park community inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of …
REFLECTION: The Topic of the Holocaust and Puppetry in the Ukrainian Context: Discussion of Kaddish Memorial Prayer, February 2023
This short reflection explores the theme of the Jewish Holocaust in puppet theatre. The puppet theatre in Odesa recently (2023) has presented the Jewish Holocaust and this article looks at a recent production, titled Kaddish Memorial Prayer, performed in Odesa during the war in Ukraine in 2023. This article looks at the appearance of this performance as an unusual choice because of the trauma in the narrative in a production within the context of a war zone. Considering the events of the Holocaust in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine could seem emotionally inappropriate given the people attending these …
Ukrainian Resistance Through the Nativity Puppet Theatre Vertep: Exposure of Russian Aggression in the Images of Moskal and Herod
Tetiana Zinovieva This article delves into the historical and cultural significance of vertep, a traditional Ukrainian portable Christmas puppet theatre, specifically focusing on a character known as Moskal. Vertep, with its multi-tiered structure, showcases both sacred and profane characters, embodying societal and cultural archetypes and stereotypes. Representing a national-ethnic identity, Moskal has a dynamic, often shifting, role within the performance, determined by contextual associations. The following discussion traces the evolution of the Moskal character in traditional Nativity plays, highlighting changing perceptions in light of modern events in Ukraine, particularly the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war since 2014. The focus of the research is on …
Note from the Editors: Puppetry and War – Contemporary Perspectives from Ukraine
Matt Smith and Nataliia Borodina The reports, reviews, and articles in this edition of PIR discussing the Ukraine are the results of a collaboration between University of Portsmouth and Odesa[1] Polytechnic. The background to this collaboration was the War in the Ukraine, which is ongoing at the time of writing. Initially, the seed was sown by Polish puppet authority Kamil Kopania during an online networking event in 2022, when he challenged the international community to respond to the war. One clear finding from the collaboration is that puppetry is alive, resilient, and vital to the culture of Ukrainian people. As a young nation …
From the Editor
Volume 2, No.1 of PIR continues to forefront the international nature of our publication with articles focusing on puppetry and related arts in Iran, Turkey, Ukraine, Japan, Taiwan, and throughout Africa. I am, as always, grateful for the wonderful work of the PIR team—Melissa Flowers Gladney, Colette Searls, Karen Smith, Skye Strauss, and Jungmin Song—who help bring this material to publication. I am also delighted to welcome some new members aboard. Pune Dracker, PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center, with a strong background in editing, has offered invaluable help on the current issue, and I look forward to having her assistance on future …
