Can puppets change the world?
Wendy Passmore-Godfrey
January 2007
Can puppets change the world? This is the ambitious question woven through the conference presented by WP Puppet Theatre Society entitled Puppet Power 2007 – Puppets as Agents of Social Change in May 2007.
Keynote speakers, hands-on workshops, panel and world café discussions and even a puppet parade explore, discuss and challenge the extent and potential of puppet power in the world today.
Throughout history, the scene has been repeated and over many cultures: a rapt audience watches a small (or large) wooden (or cloth, leather, paper…) human-like object (or animal or some other thing) speak (or sing or be silent or just breathe…). They are caught up in the object’s thoughts and feelings. They are entering the object’s world and cheering for its success (or its downfall…)
And what of the man (or woman or child) behind the object as it moves to music, interacts with its world, converses…. ? What thoughts or feelings is the person expressing through this object - questions, explorations, anger, love, outreach, exploration, teaching…? What message is being promoted?
Reaching back into the process, when the object was created (or found), what soul was sculpted (sewn, carved, stapled, molded or imagined…) into its shape?
A puppet’s power is its inherent nature to “become” anything it’s designed to be. Puppets synthesize ideas. They are the essence of a thought, concept or character. As such they can represent qualities such as tolerance and peace quickly without qualifiers or explanation. They can teach without qualifications; model without ego; express without consequences. They can speak for us as a proxy.
This is what makes puppetry such an effective medium in so many therapeutic, educational or even propagandist settings and what has fascinated audiences since a shaman-caveman created the first puppet from a bone and a flickering fire’s shadow.
The Power of Puppets, as Michael Malkin writes in the Centre for Puppetry Arts museum catalogue, is that they “…can transcend personal and even cultural selfhood. They are our undeveloped spirits and unrealized thoughts that need to escape… to do things we cannot or dare not do…”.
But can Puppets change the world? Can their power turn the tide on AIDS? Can they save a rainforest? Can they teach the world to read? Can they overturn a despotic government?
Puppets working for change pop into every nook, cranny, classroom, fireside, community hall, street, hospital room, refugee tent, doctor’s office and churches around the world.
We have seen the news footage of puppets used in G8 Summit, IMF and World Bank protests. We may have heard of police raiding puppet studios in Philadelphia in August 2000. The self named ‘puppetistas’ were building puppets for protest at the Republican National Convention. This event brought up questions of civil rights, police surveillance and other constitutional questions. We possibly even know about the Balinese puppet company using their traditional wayang kulit puppetry to bring ‘natural balance’ back after the Bali bombings. And we have seen change, positive change, miniscule sometimes and slow change, change complicated by many factors, but perhaps we can say that puppets have had a part in it.
The stories from Puppet Power 2007 speakers will relate what puppets can do, have done and will inspire and aspire to do:
Keynote Gary Friedman will speak about his work with a project 'Puppets against AIDS' which began in South Africa in 1987 and toured the world for over nine years from Reunion Island to the remote eastern Arctic. He also developed a program “Puppets in Prison” which promoted, for the incarcerated puppeteers, an increase in self-esteem, a sense of pride about their accomplishments, and the perception that they had an important role to play in their community. He’s worked in Fiji assisting local puppetry teams tackling AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Dengue Fever and Disaster Management, amongst others.
Plenary Speaker Graciela Monteagudo will talk about life as an Argentine human rights activist and community artist. She has worked internationally with diverse communities both on her own and with Bread and Puppet Theater. Some of her work has included coordinating puppet and street theatre actions in Latin America and throughout the USA.
Shadowland, from Toronto, will share projects that have celebrated the community through the ritual of communal feasting counteracting the world of fast food and meals on the run. They will share their philosophy to reuse or recycle cast-off materials from business and industry to give them new life as puppets, theatre or art and to eschew cars and trucks, relying instead on bicycle technology.
Precipice Theatre from Banff will talk about their projects that channel the energy of youth into theatrical works that matter, and are relevant to the world they will inherit. Their current project centers on the issue of Global Warming.
Jhan Groom from Calgary will reach for beauty and meaning as she suggests that the stuff (even puppet stuff) in our everyday lives is sacred. Learning to recognize and appreciate this is itself an act leading to social change.
Of course a puppet, static on a shelf, doesn’t have power - a person is always required to provide the spark of spirit that moves through the puppet to the viewers. After relating their powerful stories, our previously mentioned speakers, along with half a dozen others will guide conference participants in their own practical and theoretical explorations into puppetry. One of the workshops will even culminate in a puppet parade through the university grounds.
It may seem preposterous to suggest that puppets can change the world and of course without people a puppet is just a sock (or a piece of wood or length of cloth…).
Yet to quote the oft quoted thought from Margaret Mead…“never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has."
Perhaps we can add to the thought …”never underestimate the power of a small (or large) puppet in the hands of a small (or large) group of committed puppeteers…”
This conference will show that puppets and their people have, in a small (or large) way changed the world and they possess the power to keep that change a comin’.
Notes:
The first half of this article was first printed in “Puppetry in Education and Therapy: Unlocking the mind........edited by Matthew Bernier and Judith O'Hare
Police raid in Philadelphia from http://rwor.org/a/v22/1070-79/1076/puppet.htm and many other sites
Sedana, I Nyoman "Theatre in a Time of Terrorism: Renewing Natural Harmony after the Bali Bombing via Wayang Kontemporer" Asian Theatre Journal - Volume 22, Number 1, Spring 2005, pp. 73-86 University of Hawai'i Press
Center for Puppetry Arts- www.puppet.org - 1404 Spring St NW Atlanta, GA 30309 USA
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