An introduction to ways of thinking about and theorising puppets and puppetry. Written for early career researchers, students and practitioners of puppetry. Uses autotheory and unique critical perspectives to offer an unprecedentedly accessible guide to theorising puppetry.

An introduction to ways of thinking about and theorising puppets and puppetry. Written for early career researchers, students and practitioners of puppetry. Uses autotheory and unique critical perspectives to offer an unprecedentedly accessible guide to theorising puppetry.

This anthology of essays aims to explore the many types of relationships that exist between puppets, broadly speaking, and the immaterial world. The allure of the puppet goes beyond its material presence as, historically and throughout the globe, many uses of puppets and related objects have expressed and capitalized on their posited connections to other realms or ability to serve as vessels or conduits for immaterial presence. The flip side of the puppet’s troubling uncanniness is precisely the possibilities it represents for connecting to discarnate realities. Where do we see such connections? How do we describe, analyze, and theorize these relationships? The first of two volumes, this book focuses on these questions in relation to long-established, traditional practices using puppets, devotional objects, and related items with sacred aspects to them or that perform ritual roles. Looking at performance traditions and artifacts from China, Indonesia, Korea, Mali, Brazil, Iran, Germany, and elsewhere, the essays from scholars and practitioners provide a range of useful models and critical vocabularies for addressing the ritual and spiritual aspects of puppet performance, further expanding the growing understanding and appreciation of puppetry generally. This book, along with its companion volume, offers, for the first time, robust coverage of this subject from a diversity of voices, examples, and perspectives.

Women and Puppetry is the first publication dedicated to the study of women in the field of puppetry arts. It includes critical articles and personal accounts that interrogate specific historical moments, cultural contexts, and notions of "woman" on and off stage. Part I, "Critical Perspective," includes historical and contemporary analyses of women's roles in society, gender anxiety revealed through the unmarked puppet body, and sexual expression within oppressive social contexts. Part II, "Local Contexts: Challenges and Transformations," investigates work of female practitioners within specific cultural contexts to illuminate how women are intervening in traditionally male spaces. Each chapter in Part II offers brief accounts of specific social histories, barriers, and gender biases that women have faced, and the opportunities afforded female creative leaders to appropriate, revive, and transform performance traditions. And in Part III, "Women Practitioners Speak," contemporary artists reflect on their experiences as female practitioners within the art of puppet theatre. Representing female writers and practitioners from across the globe, Women and Puppetry offers students and scholars a comprehensive interrogation of the challenges and opportunities that women face in this unique art form.

The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance offers a wide-ranging perspective on how scholars and artists are currently re-evaluating the theoretical, historical, and theatrical significance of performance that embraces the agency of inanimate objects. This book proposes a collaborative, responsive model for broader artistic engagement in and with the material world. Its 28 chapters aim to advance the study of the puppet not only as a theatrical object but also as a vibrant artistic and scholarly discipline. This Companion looks at puppetry and material performance from six perspectives: theoretical approaches to the puppet, perspectives from practitioners, revisiting history, negotiating tradition, material performances in contemporary theatre, and hybrid forms. Its wide range of topics, which span 15 countries over five continents, encompasses: * visual dramaturgy * theatrical juxtapositions of robots and humans * contemporary transformations of Indonesian wayang kulit * Japanese ritual body substitutes * recent European productions featuring toys, clay, and food. The book features newly commissioned essays by leading scholars such as Matthew Isaac Cohen, Kathy Foley, Jane Marie Law, Eleanor Margolies, Cody Poulton, and Jane Taylor. It also celebrates the vital link between puppetry as a discipline and as a creative practice with chapters by active practitioners, including Handspring Puppet Company's Basil Jones, Redmoon's Jim Lasko, and Bread and Puppet's Peter Schumann. Fully illustrated with more than 60 images, this volume comprises the most expansive English-language collection of international puppetry scholarship to date.

The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance offers a wide-ranging perspective on how scholars and artists are currently re-evaluating the theoretical, historical, and theatrical significance of performance that embraces the agency of inanimate objects. This book proposes a collaborative, responsive model for broader artistic engagement in and with the material world. Its 28 chapters aim to advance the study of the puppet not only as a theatrical object but also as a vibrant artistic and scholarly discipline. This Companion looks at puppetry and material performance from six perspectives: theoretical approaches to the puppet, perspectives from practitioners, revisiting history, negotiating tradition, material performances in contemporary theatre, and hybrid forms. Its wide range of topics, which span 15 countries over five continents, encompasses: * visual dramaturgy * theatrical juxtapositions of robots and humans * contemporary transformations of Indonesian wayang kulit * Japanese ritual body substitutes * recent European productions featuring toys, clay, and food. The book features newly commissioned essays by leading scholars such as Matthew Isaac Cohen, Kathy Foley, Jane Marie Law, Eleanor Margolies, Cody Poulton, and Jane Taylor. It also celebrates the vital link between puppetry as a discipline and as a creative practice with chapters by active practitioners, including Handspring Puppet Company's Basil Jones, Redmoon's Jim Lasko, and Bread and Puppet's Peter Schumann. Fully illustrated with more than 60 images, this volume comprises the most expansive English-language collection of international puppetry scholarship to date.

Women and Puppetry is the first publication dedicated to the study of women in the field of puppetry arts. It includes critical articles and personal accounts that interrogate specific historical moments, cultural contexts, and notions of "woman" on and off stage. Part I, "Critical Perspective," includes historical and contemporary analyses of women's roles in society, gender anxiety revealed through the unmarked puppet body, and sexual expression within oppressive social contexts. Part II, "Local Contexts: Challenges and Transformations," investigates work of female practitioners within specific cultural contexts to illuminate how women are intervening in traditionally male spaces. Each chapter in Part II offers brief accounts of specific social histories, barriers, and gender biases that women have faced, and the opportunities afforded female creative leaders to appropriate, revive, and transform performance traditions. And in Part III, "Women Practitioners Speak," contemporary artists reflect on their experiences as female practitioners within the art of puppet theatre. Representing female writers and practitioners from across the globe, Women and Puppetry offers students and scholars a comprehensive interrogation of the challenges and opportunities that women face in this unique art form.

Are traditions of popular theatre still alive in politically-engaged theatre today? In San Francisco they are. The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a modern link in the long history of public performances that have a merry air but have a voice of political protest and social comment. Every summer since 1962 the Troupe has taken free outdoor performances to public parks in the Bay Area. In a style that is festive and a spirit that is revolutionary the Mime Troupe has relied on popular theatre forms to address timely political and social issues. Their productions maintain a contemporary political edge, while showing their origins to be the popular traditions of the commedia dell'arte, circus clowning, vaudeville, puppetry, and minstrel shows. With "The Minstrel Show" or "Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel" (1965) they expressed support of the civil rights movement. With "L'Amant Militaire" (1967) they voiced support of Vietnam War protests.

To discover what makes these apparently frivolous theatrical traditions effective for contemporary political theatre, "Festive Revolutions" explores the historical origins of the popular forms the Mime Troupe draws on. In old Europe, where performance traditions began, political turmoil blended with festive celebration. The lineage of the Mime Troupe's Punch the Red can be traced back to the Italian puppet figure Pulcinella through its English and Russian counterparts Punch and Petrushka. In the Mime Troupe the use of stereotypes and reliance upon colorful festivity are diverse strategies for dodging censorship. Productions like "Ripped Van Winkle" continue today to rekindle the radicalism the Troupe inherited from the culture of the 1960s.

"Festive Revolutions" shows that such forms have inspired political theatre for centuries.