Puppets, Masks, and Performing Objects

by Bell, John

• ISBN13: 9780262522939
• ISBN10: 0262522934
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-27
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Puppets and masks are central to some of the oldest worldwide forms of art making and performance, as well as some of the newest. In the twentieth century, French symbolists, Russian futurists and constructivists, Prague School semioticians, and avant-garde artists around the world have all explored the experimental, social, and political value of performing objects. In recent years, puppets, masks, and objects have been the focus of Broadway musicals, postmodernist theory, political spectacle, performance art, and new academic programs, for example, at the California Institute of the Arts. This volume, which originally appeared as a special issue of TDR/The Drama Review, looks at puppets, masks, and other performing objects from a broad range of perspectives. The topics include Stephen Kaplin's new theory of puppet theater based on distance and ratio, a historical overview of mechanical and electrical performing objects, a Yiddish puppet theater of the 1920s and 1930s, an account of the Bread and Puppet Theater's Domestic Resurrection Circusand a manifesto by its founder, Peter Schumann, and interviews with director Julie Taymor and Peruvian mask-maker Gustavo Boada. The book also includes the first English translation of Pyotr Bogatyrev's influential 1923 essay on Czech and Russian puppet and folk theaters. Contributors John Bell, Pyotr Bogatyrev, Stephen Kaplin, Edward Portnoy, Richard Schechner, Peter Schumann, Salil Singh, Theodora Skipitares, Mark Sussman, Steve Tilllis.

Author Biography

John Bell is Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut, where he is also Associate Professor of Dramatic Arts.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Entertainment, Spectacle, Crime: Puppetry in the Year 2000	p. 1
Introduction: Puppets, Masks, and Performing Objects at the End of the Century	p. 5
A Puppet Tree: A Model for the Field of Puppet Theatre	p. 18
Julie Taymor: From Jacques Lecoq to The Lion King	p. 26
What, At the End of This Century, Is the Situation of Puppets and Performing Objects?	p. 46
The End of Our Domestic Resurrection Circus: Bread and Puppet Theater and Counterculture Performance in the 1990s	p. 52
Performing the Intelligent Machine: Deception and Enchantment in the Life of the Automaton Chess Player	p. 71
Czech Puppet Theatre and Russian Folk Theatre	p. 87
Modicut Puppet Theatre: Modernism, Satire, and Yiddish Culture	p. 105
Articulations: The History of All Things	p. 125
If Gandhi Could Fly ...: Dilemmas and Directions in Shadow Puppetry of India	p. 144
Rediscovering Mask Performance in Peru: Gustavo Boada, Maskmaker with Yuyachkani	p. 159
The Art of Puppetry in the Age of Media Production	p. 172
Biographies	p. 186
Index	p. 189
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