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 …
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Women Karagöz Puppeteers in Turkey: Ambiguous Alliances within a Patriarchal Playing Field
Deniz Başar With karagöz puppetry categorized as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage in 2009, The Ministry of Culture became the only official accreditation for any or all karagöz artists in Turkey. While this has opened a new door for female karagöz artists to earn certificates of proficiency, juries made up mostly of men have made it difficult, if not impossible, for Turkish women to get accredited. This article analyzes the cultural and institutional barriers that women karagöz practitioners face—including precarious encounters with male shadow masters who are determined to keep women out of the field—while highlighting understudied aspects of their points of entry into the profession. As many women continue to challenge the gender-based gatekeeping …
Animism and Performing Objects in the Processions of Muharram
Salma Mohseni Ardehali In Iran and in Shia Islam, and in the mourning ceremonies of Ashura, some performative/theatrical rituals have developed. One of the most common and prominent of these is the procession. These processions are classified as mass mourning rituals. However, since the process of “performing” has a relatively specific beginning, middle, and end and a predetermined ritual, and more importantly, a large number of people who watch or accompany these processions, in this article we consider such processions to be a kind of ritual “performance” that has highly figurative theatrical elements. These elements (objects and figures) are expressive …
Ukrainian Puppet Theatre with Children and Adolescents During the War
Sofiia Rosa-Lavrentii The current research focuses on the methods and adaptations that the Ukrainian puppet theatre has explored in order to build communication with younger viewers in times of war. In the article, we explore how the modern puppet theatre presents such difficult topics as war and trauma and also how it specifically communicates with its youngest audiences. We explore the question: “What is the role of theatre in speaking and creating narratives on topics provoked by the war?” In discussing the creativity of Ukrainian puppet theatres from this perspective, we single out several distinct themes, each of which is …
Opening Doors to Tradition: The Osaka Bunraku Workshop as a Model for Engagement
Seiko Shimura and Robin Ruizendaal This report examines an interactive traditional performing arts project conducted in Osaka in January 2024, designed to inspire students to engage with and appreciate traditional arts in a globalized context. The project demonstrated that traditional performing arts can integrate modern creative elements while preserving their cultural essence, offering a replicable model for engaging younger audiences. By participating in production and performance, students overcame preconceived notions of traditional arts as “difficult and old-fashioned” and discovered their joy and value. The study underscores the importance of hands-on educational experiences and innovative approaches that balance tradition with modernity …
Puppetry in the Face of War: A Study of the Odesa Puppet Theatre Project
Matt Smith, Tamara Rozova, Nataliia Borodina, and Tetyana Ovcharenko This article is devoted to the discussion of Puppetry in the Face of War: A Study of Odesa Puppet Theatre project, which took place in 2023.[1] This project focused on puppetry’s socio-humanitarian role during the war and as a part of the subsequent recovery of Ukraine. The activities of the puppet theatre were analyzed through the prism of children’s education and socialization during the war. Research methods included artist interviews, historical narratives of the puppet theatre, surveys, and photography as sources. As a result of the study, we determined three significant spheres of influence of the puppet theatre …
Mane Bernardo and Sarah Bianchi’s Acting Hands: Pantomime of Hands and Modern Puppet Theatre
Bettina Girotti In this article I analyze a series of performances, developed since the 1950s by Mane Bernardo and Sarah Bianchi, that uses the puppeteer’s bare hand, which led to the creation of a technique called pantomime of hands. [1] I will examine the limits of the traditional definition of puppet and the practices it encompasses, along with the notion of experimentation proposed by Bernardo, an idea marked by the tensions between traditional and modern puppet theatre. I aim to place this new technique among others that contributed to the modernization of the puppet theatre in Argentina. Bettina Girotti holds …
Pictures and Puppet Performance: Peter Schumann’s Bedsheet Paintings
John Bell Late in his life, and influenced by the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the death of his wife Elka, and his frustration with the persistence of US-supported wars around the world, Bread and Puppet Theater director Peter Schumann began a new phase in his art and theatre making by creating hundreds of paintings on discarded bedsheets, and then using them in different ways in Bread and Puppet productions of the early 2020s, especially productions focused on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The article argues that this reflects Bread and Puppet’s continuing interest in exploring new forms, as …
PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Dracula: Lucy’s Dream and A Dolls’ House
Dracula-Lucy’s Dream. By Plexus Polaire and Puppentheater Halle. Director Yngvild Aspeli. Dramaturges Ralf Meyer and Pauline Thimonnier. Inspired by Dracula by Bram Stoker. Theatre du Blavet, Inzinzac-Lochrist, France, March 10, 2023 and La Patinoire, Avignon, France, July 7-24, 2023. A Doll’s House. By Plexus Polaire. Directors Yngvild Aspeli and Paola Rizza. Based on A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. Bayard Square, Charleville, France, September 16-17, 2023 and Théâtre Dijon Bourgogne, Dijon France March 12-20, 2024. Yngvild Aspeli, the artistic director of French-Norwegian company Plexus Polaire, believes that puppetry can hold its own as theatre—not just as a subgenre. Her productions …
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 …
