The King’s Dream. Created and performed by Michael Schuster, music performed by Rachel Saul. ARTS at Mark’s Garage, Honolulu, Hawai’i, 21 and 28 May 2023. Compelled by isolating pandemic years, puppeteer and storyteller Michael Schuster plunged into creativity. He researched, wrote, and built The King’s Dream, an intimate nineteenth- century storytelling style performance based on the historical interactions between Hawai’i’s reigning monarch, King David Kalakaua, and Elias Abraham Rosenberg. Rosenberg was an Eastern European Jewish emigrant, who had arrived in Honolulu during the tumultuous years of 1886-1887, when the Hawaiian monarchy was under severe political pressure from the Missionary Party …
Category: March 2023
PERFORMANCE REVIEW: 9000 Paper Balloons
9000 Paper Balloons. By Maiko Kikuchi and Spencer Lott. Director and Dramaturg Aya Ogawa. Japan Society, New York, New York, Oct. 28-30 2023. Co-created by Japanese artist Maiko Kikuchi and American puppeteer Spencer Lott, 9000 Paper Balloons, performed at the Japan Society NYC from October 28-30, follows the transpacific journey of a swarm of “Fu-Go” balloons (hydrogen balloon bombs deployed by Japan against the United States near the end of World War II) from their creation in Japan to their destined destruction either during the journey above waves or on US soil. The balloons’ trajectory intertwines with the intergenerational story …
BOOK REVIEW: Women and Puppetry
Women and Puppetry: Critical and Historical Investigations. Edited by Alissa Mello, Claudia Orenstein, and Cariad Astles. London and New York: Routledge, 2019. 242 pp., 35 b/w illustrations. Hardcover $170, paperback $49.95, eBook $49.95. There is no shortage of women artists who use puppets as their medium, and there are many female scholars. But we have fallen behind in documenting and analyzing women’s contributions to puppetry’s artistic, cultural, and social efficacies. Women and Puppetry, which collects essays from scholars and practitioners, carries out tasks that cannot be delayed any longer. Its well-thought through introduction points out the inadequate recognition of female artists, the …
BOOK REVIEW: The Image of the Puppet in Italian Theater, Literature and Film.
The Image of the Puppet in Italian Theater, Literature and Film. By Federico Pacchioni. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. x, 125 pp., 1025 b/w, 9 color illustrations. Hardcover $49.99, eBook $39.99. The best way to appreciate this study is as a map of where a variety of puppet types—not just the most famous of all, Pinocchio—appeared in Italian artistic production across time and various media, with an emphasis on contemporary filmic remediations. Throughout the volume’s twelve short chapters, Pacchioni mentions puppet variants ranging from the wooden-head burattino operated through a glove from below, typical of the Po Valley, to the …
Modernism in Tholpavakoothu: Analyzing Contemporary Productions
Rahul Koonathara Tholpavakoothu is a shadow puppet play of Kerala, South India, performed in Hindu temples in specially constructed puppet playhouses called koothumadam. It narrates the whole Kamparamayanam, the Ramayana text by the twelfth-century Tamil Poet Kampan (1180–1250 CE) to mother goddess Bhagavathy (also Bhagavati). From January to May every year, the tale of Rama and Ravana’s fight is presented through songs and dialogues by puppeteers using leather puppets. Performances start each night after a set of opening rituals and go on till early morning. These performances are highly spiritual and done as an offering to the mother goddess. This …
CONFERENCE REPORT: Portrait of the Puppeteer as Author
Portrait of the Puppeteer as Author: Second International PuppetPlays Conference: Writing Practices for Puppets in Western Europe (Seventeenth – Twenty-first Century). Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, Montpellier, France, 23-25 May 2023. This report provides an overview of the second PuppetPlays project conference that explores authorship and what constitutes a play script in a broad range of historical and contemporary puppetry. The review includes a link to the conference page that has videos of all conference sessions in French, Italian and English as well as links to artist pages. Alissa Mello, PhD, is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Exeter …
CONFERENCE REPORT: Wayang and Puppetry Now
Wayang and Puppetry Now: UNIMA Councillor Meeting Seminar. Institut Seni Indonesia (Indonesian Institute of the Arts), Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, 28 April 2023. This is a report on the seminar held on 28th April 2023 at the Institut Seni Indonesia (Indonesian Institute of the Arts), Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, 28 April 2023. It was part of the UNIMA 2023 Council Meeting. The report highlights the place of spirit and of ritual practice in Asian puppetry, as a way to understand and to function in the world. Cariad Astles is a puppetry scholar, practitioner, teacher, trainer and director. She is puppetry tutor at …
WORKSHOP REPORT: Wayang Workshop
Wayang Workshop: Balimodule, Denpasar, Bali, May 2-7, 2023, UNIMA-USA and University of California, Santa Cruz A workshop in Denpasar in May 2023 by I Nyoman Sedana and I Made Georgiana Triwinadi introduced foreign theatre practitioners to Balinese wayang kulit. Instruction focused on four character types and culminated in a performance based upon Arjuna’s Meditation. The workshop included visits to noted Balinese dalangs (puppet masters) at their sanggars (home studios) and performances of topeng, kecak, and trance dance enacted within temple contexts. Karen Smith is a recent President of UNIMA-USA. As a member of UNIMA International’s Executive Committee, she has been …
Tutur Candra Bherawa: A New Balinese Theatre Work
I Gusti Putu Sudarta and I Gusti Made Darma Putra Pakeliran Tutur Candra Bherawa (Performance of the Teachings of Candra Bherawa), produced in April 2022 in Denpasar, Bali, was a total theatre performance exploring traditional theatre using song in storytelling. The melodies and vocals were not confined to Balinese and Javanese traditions but borrowed from South Asia’s Sufi qawwali and other spiritual song sources. The form was presented in the Balinese sangita (sung drama) form, which combined singing, instrumental music, puppetry, and dance. I Gusti Putu Sudarta has trained as a musician, composer, dancer, and dalang from his childhood in …
Cenk Blonk’s Balinese Shadow Puppetry During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Dru Hendro and I Made Marajaya Cenk Blonk (I Wayan Nardayana) is Bali’s best known shadow puppeteer (dalang). His moniker is the composite of the names of his two favorite punakawan (clown) characters, Cenk and Blonk. During the COVID-19 pandemic, using his Cenk Blonk Channel on YouTube, he presented a series of simple, ten-to-twenty-minute scenes, featuring clown characters. These were meant to educate the public around issues of COVID-19 and promote social distancing in the Balinese community. Dru Hendro is a graduate of and teacher at the Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI, Indonesian Arts Institute) in Denpasar, Bali. His extensive writings …
