This anthology of essays, a companion to Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects, Volume I, 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 in contemporary artistic work in various mediums? How do puppets open avenues for discussion in a world that seems to be increasingly polarized around religious values? How do we describe, analyze, and theorize the present moment? What new questions do puppets address for our times, and how does the puppet’s continued entanglement with these concerns trouble or comfort us? The essays in this book, from scholars and practitioners, provide a range of useful models and critical vocabularies for addressing this aspect 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.
Edited by:
Claudia Orenstein,
Tim Cusack
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 644g
ISBN: 9780367713799
ISBN 10: 0367713799
Series: Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies
Pages: 234
Publication Date: 17 October 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of figures Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Foreword Teri Silvio Introduction Tim Cusack and Claudia Orenstein Part I: Assuming Shamanic Roles 1. Consoling the Dead: Sim U-sŏng’s Puppet Rituals for Modern Korea Jungmin Song 2. Spiritualist Material Performance, Whiteness, and the Animist Other Hazel Rickard 3. Worth Her Salt: Zombification and Liberation Theology in a Puppet Film Paulette Richards 4. The Spirituality of Ordinary Things Frank Maugueri Part II: Communitas Reclaimed 5. The Thing You Can’t See: Bread and Puppet Approaches Spirituality John Bell 6. Queer Puppet Saint: Nested Intuitions Erik Ehn with contributions from Susan Simpson 7. Talking about Lunch with Sonia: A Ritual for Departing by Loco7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company Federico Restrepo and Denise Greber Part III: Faith in Secular Performance 8. “When the House Is in Ruins”: Tadeusz Kantor’s Archive as Reliquary and Tabernacle for Cross- Temporal Performing Objects Jacob Juntunen 9. Children, Birds, Flowers – A Minor Musical: Performance as Prayer Katriina Andrianov 10. Fabricating Tales of Spirit: A Conversation with Jill Joubert Aja Marneweck and Jill Joubert 11. Puppets and The Good News Edna M. Bland Part IV: Staging the Other World 12. Yūrei and Puppetry in Japanese Ghost Stories: (Mis)perception and Ambiguous Bodies in Kaidan Laura Purcell-Gates 13. Bardo! By Performers semFronteiras: A Reflection on the Immateriality in Shadow Theatre Gilson Moraes Motta Part V: Complex Sacrality in the Contemporary World 14. Relics, Artifacts, and Bones: Activating Migrancy's Traces Through Performance Ana Martínez 15. Restitution and Resurrection: The Return of Objects to Benin from the Quai Branly Museum Heather Jeanne Denyer 16. Meat Puppets: The Body and the Museum Margaret Werry Index
Claudia Orenstein is Professor of Theatre at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She has spent over a decade writing on contemporary and traditional puppetry in the US and Asia. Tim Cusack is an Adjunct Lecturer in Theatre at Hunter College. He was the co-founder and artistic director of Theatre Askew, an independent theatre company dedicated to the exploration of representations of queerness onstage.
