8/13/2023 0 Comments String puppetry![]() “They brought in international puppeteers. These festivals would invite puppeteers from all across Canada to celebrate the unique art form. ![]() Then, as a teenager, she would attend puppetry festivals that were held in Wolfville. Brendyn Creamerįrom there, at the age of 10, Heather began to make her own string puppets. I saw all kinds of puppetry, but I loved the string puppets.”ĭarryll and Heather Taylor showing off their marionettes inside of their puppet wagon. ![]() “ The Sound of Music had just come out, and in the (film) there’s marionettes, the Lonely Goatherd,” Heather explained. Heather recalled she first discovered puppetry as a child when she saw a then-recent film that utilized the art in one of its scenes - The Sound of Music. The wagon is a recent addition to their show, having been built in 2019 however, Darryll and Heather’s marionette journey started long before that. Nowadays, they have taken to bringing their show on the road all across Atlantic Canada using their custom-built puppet wagon. The Truro-based puppeteering duo has operated their own puppet theatre company, Maritime Marionettes, since 1986. They’ve toured Canada, the United States, and have even taken their show to parts of Europe and Asia. Darryll and Heather Taylor have taken their marionette show all across the world. And, like so many of the puppets on display here, it tells a story of the human condition in terms both real and fantastical.TRURO, N.S. With its skeletal frame, dangling balls, and erectable penis, this being is a hilarious and frightening fusion of the deadly and the priapic. Equally compelling is a warlike Winalagalis puppet, made by the late Kwakwaka’wakw artist, activist, and storyteller Beau Dick. Particularly arresting are intricately cut and translucently thin shadow puppets from China’s Hebei province extravagantly rendered and adorned string puppets by Jorge Cerqueira of Sintra, Portugal rod puppets with fabulously carved and painted wooden heads and beaded costumes, from Java, Indonesia and the haunting stop-motion animation and accompanying silicone puppets of Indigenous filmmaker Amanda Strong. Nahua or Totonac hand puppets by an unknown maker. With all this visual and verbal material to encounter and process, the exhibition demands a second visit. There are numerous vitrines, too, along with video images of puppet shows, sound and light effects, and reams of wall text. The puppet theatres are complemented by “backstage” displays, demonstrating workshop and storage settings and again featuring an extraordinary array of puppets. The show is seductively designed and installed with five beautifully made and adorned stages, each showcasing a different puppet type: shadow, string (marionette), rod, hand (glove), and stop-motion. The puppets themselves, the vehicles of such narratives, assert a strong material presence. I understood this to mean that the stories told, whether secular or religious, are intangible. A number of the puppetry traditions on view at MOA, Levell said, are recognized by UNESCO as parts of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The narratives represented here range from the Indian Ramayana and the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms to the Italian Orlando Furioso and the Portuguese Lusiads. String puppets by Portugal's Jorge Cerqueira. Because, really, as the show’s curator, Nicola Levell, asserted during the media preview, that’s what puppetry is about: storytelling. And the cultural and historical significance of puppets as a traditional and sometimes centuries-old means of storytelling is compelling too. The sheer craftsmanship of the 250-plus handmade puppets on display, whether executed in wood, textile, silicone, papier-mâché, or animal hide, is equally compelling. Marionetas from Portugal, rukada from Sri Lanka, wayang kulit from Indonesia, budaixi from Taiwan, piyingxi from China, yoke thé from Myanmar, Punch and Judy from England, mamulengo from Brazil, dᵻu gwe’ from this province’s Kingcome Inlet-all these diverse puppetry forms and traditions are fascinating. It was a surprise, then, that Shadows, Strings and Other Things, the Museum of Anthropology’s exhibition of puppets from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, won me over. ![]() Shadows, Strings and Other Things: The Enchanting Theatre of PuppetsĪt the Museum of Anthropology at UBC until October 14įull disclosure: I’ve never been a fan of puppets or puppetry. ![]()
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