Bell John - The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO PUPPETRY AND MATERIAL PERFORMANCE

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 Companys Basil Jones, Redmoons Jim Lasko, and Bread and Puppets Peter Schumann. Fully illustrated with more than 60 images, this volume comprises the most expansive English-language collection of international puppetry scholarship to date.

Dassia N. Posner is Assistant Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University. A theatre historian, dramaturg, and puppeteer, she is the author of numerous articles and chapters on Russian theatre, the history of directing, and puppetry and is Peer-Review Editor for Puppetry International. Recent dramaturgy includes Three Sisters and Russian Transport at Steppenwolf.

Claudia Orenstein is Associate Professor of Theatre at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at CUNY. Publications include The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation, and Festive Revolutions: The Politics of Popular Theatre and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. She is a board member of UNIMA-USA and Associate Editor of Asian Theatre Journal.

John Bell is Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and Associate Professor of Dramatic Arts at the University of Connecticut. An active puppeteer with Great Small Works and Bread & Puppet Theater, as well as a theatre historian, his publications include American Puppet Modernism (2008) and Puppets, Masks, and Performing Objects (2001).

First published 2014

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2014 Dassia N. Posner, Claudia Orenstein and John Bell

The right of Dassia N. Posner, Claudia Orenstein, and John Bell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Routledge companion to puppetry and material performance / edited by Dassia

N. Posner, Claudia Orenstein, and John Bell.

pages cm

1. Puppet theater. I. Posner, Dassia N. II. Orenstein, Claudia. III. Bell, John, 1951

IV. Title: Companion to puppetry and material performance. V. Title: Puppetry and

material performance.

PN1972.R68 2014

791.5--dc23

2013049987

ISBN: 978-0-415-70540-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-85011-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Goudy

by Taylor & Francis Books

To our children:

Sophia and Isaac Posner,

Caleb and Sophie Carman,

and Isaac Bell.

CONTENTS

DASSIA N. POSNER, CLAUDIA ORENSTEIN, AND JOHN BELL

EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY JOHN BELL

MARGARET WILLIAMS

PAUL PIRIS

JOHN BELL

ERIC BASS

BASIL JONES

ALEXANDER GREF AND ELENA SLONIMSKAYA

RIKE REINIGER

KATE BREHM

STEPHEN KAPLIN

JIM LASKO

PETER SCHUMANN

EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY CLAUDIA ORENSTEIN

AMBER WEST

DASSIA N. POSNER

LISA MORSE

JANE MARIE LAW

DEBRA HILBORN

MATTHEW ISAAC COHEN

KATHY FOLEY

CLAUDIA ORENSTEIN

IDA HLEDKOV

EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY DASSIA N. POSNER

JANE TAYLOR

DAWN TRACEY BRANDES

ROBERT SMYTHE

MARK J. SUSSMAN

CODY POULTON

COLETTE SEARLS

ELIZABETH ANN JOCHUM AND TODD MURPHEY

ELEANOR MARGOLIES

John Bell is Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and an Associate Professor of Dramatic Arts at the University of Connecticut. He is a founding member of the Great Small Works theatre collective; was a member of the Bread and Puppet Theatre company from 1976 to 1986; and received his doctoral degree in theatre history from Columbia University in 1993. He is the author of many books and articles about puppet theatre, including American Puppet Modernism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History (Detroit Institute of Arts, 2000). He also edited Puppets, Masks, and Performing Objects (MIT Press, 2001) and is an editor of Puppetry International, the publication of the US branch of UNIMA.

Claudia Orenstein is Associate Professor of Theatre at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center. Her publications include The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation, Festive Revolutions: The Politics of Popular Theatre and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and many articles on puppetry, political theatre, and Asian theatre. Her dramaturgy work includes Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and other puppetry-related productions. She is executive producer of the documentary on Indian puppetry Magic in Our Hands and serves as a board member of UNIMA-USA, peer reviewer for Puppetry International, and associate editor of Asian Theatre Journal.

Dassia N. Posner is Assistant Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University, where she teaches Russian theatre history, history of directing, dramaturgy, and puppetry. Her articles and reviews have appeared in Theatre Survey, Theatre Topics, Slavic and East European Performance, Communications from the International Brecht Society, Theatre Research International, and Puppetry International. She is currently working on a book, The Directors Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and Russian Thea-tricalist Directors, and is peer-review editor for Puppetry International. For many years she designed and performed with giant and shadow puppets with the Puppeteers Cooperative and with Luna Theatre. She is also a dramaturg; recent projects include