 center, the Graduate Center, CUNY in Midtown Manhattan. Again, it's a sunny hot day in Manhattan where one thing they asphalt might melt or might leave a footprint on the streets. And it's another day on planet Earth. We think hopefully a good one. And one of the reasons is, you know, because we have the great, great puppeteers of people from the world of puppetry with us. It's a great day. We love that art form. We think it is so important, at least in the Western world, often a slightly overlooked, even so among real theater people. They are so highly respected and their work is of significance. So we have three great speakers with us as a little note from the Segal Center side. It's a big day for us. Two at Segal Talk, 150. We can't believe it. It's a long series, a little endurance marathon. So we are proud of it. And it was such a privilege to listen over a year now, over a year and a half almost, not really yet, but over a year to so many artists from around the world who have made a difference where, as Milo Rao says, agents of change who have been on the right side of history, the right side on the fight for social justice and who are also great, great human beings. One of the things that will come out of this is we will host a 24-hour marathon with our Indian colleagues who have done so much to help the Indian population around Bangalore and everyone in India to deal with COVID and the horrific situation in India and as a symbol to all the theater artists who really helped to make the planet a better place and during that time, it might also be coming slowly to an end of our official Corona series, focus on it, but we will continue to talk about theater and art. But as an ending after 150, we will do in July a 24-hour marathon to really raise awareness of the really hard situation that is out there and Segal Center will always participate. It's also as an announcement on September 5th, the Memorial Day weekend, we will hope to help organize readings all around the city in all five boroughs of New York to honor the people who died. We will get 100 little speakers and microphones and we hope to read letters from people who died or let us written for them to them or imagined letters that might come back inspired by Odeel Kates' great work in Rwanda and so we will also let you all know more about this is our next step to get involved in New York City itself but let's come back to what is really important and why we are here today and to everybody out there again thank you for listening if you're catching us today maybe the first time of our repeated time it's so great to have had all these listeners we got so many comments and how meaningful it was for them oh and we made things wrong and we said something that wasn't right and we got directed but you know really we got such such a great response and it helped us to go over so today we have with us Claudia Orenstein from Hunter College we have Paulette Richards in Atlanta and we have Manuel Antonio Moran with us and I'm going to read a little bit about the bias so we get it behind us so it worked but tell us where are you now and what time is it where you are in the moment pull out maybe you start yes I'm sitting in my studio in Atlanta and it is 12.03 in the afternoon well let's close to our time and Manuel where are you hi everyone thank you for having me here um I am upstate New York actually in Sullivan County um and it's the same time 12.04 now actually Claudia I'm in uh Manhattan and it's also uh oh yeah 12.04 and I also just wanted to say bravo to you Frank for 150 of these yes well done thank you yeah it's like David Plain territory where he likes being underwater you know for for a long time and but I hope it was a small contribution really to to to understanding of the world we were in and to create some meaning and it really helped me personally so let me talk to you all a little bit about our guest today Manuel Antonio Moran who's here was born in Puerto Rico in San Juan and he has been actor, singer, writer, composer, puppeteer, theater and film director and producer in his home country in Latin America in Puerto Rico and Europe and the United States he's a founder and artistic director of CEA the SA right yes which is the Society of the Educational Arts with offices in Puerto Rico Florida and New York City you can look it up on the web it's teatrocea.org and for celebrating now 35 years you know the existence and they have made a real difference in the field and offered entertainment alternatives with real cultural and artistic value and educational quality for kids youth adult and through bilingual educational programs workshops seminars theater and also puppet work that's something where we will talk about we have the great also Paulette Richards with us she's a puppet artist and an independent researcher she holds a PhD in French civilization from the University of Virginia and has taught at Georgia Tech she has taught animatronic puppetry workshops at the French school of Atlanta and many many many many other places the center for puppetry arts puppeteers of America 2017 festival she co-curated living objects African-American puppetry exhibits at the Institute and Museum of Puppetry in 2018 and 19 and she is currently curating exhibit of African-American puppetry at the Center for Puppet Arts and her book object performance in the Black Atlanta is forthcoming from the great Wattlich a publishing house and you're also working on a new book right you said and we will hear about it and she is asking for contributions of anybody is listening and then we have with us a close friend of the Segal Center Claudia who also helped us to put this group together we have done many events around puppetry together at the Segal Center over a decade and she's a professor at Hunter College and the Graduate Center and her publications include women and puppetry critical and historical investigations with Alisa Mello and Caridad Astlens the Wattlich companion to puppetry and material performance a very important book encourage everybody also to get it as he did it with Dacia Posner and the great John Bell from the great small works she was a dramaturg for the wind-up both conical with Tom Lee and Nishikawa Kirovi and Sunks Marks and she's a member of Unima USA if not one of the main forces actually behind it she's the associate editor of the Asian theater journal and her current book projects one of the many many things she does is thinking through puppets essays on puppet dramaturgy or and with Tom Kusak who also has been often at the Segal puppet and spirit religion ritual and performing objects and she got a full bright and she is on to go to Japan and research if I understand right the work of puppetry and the connection to a ritual and a sense of of a place in its history of the country so we can wait to hear about I think it's going to be at the end of the year so first of you all welcome and Paulette how has been the last year how was it what's going on in Atlanta well first I need to make a small correction yes we are aware of the impact that the shelter in place and the coronavirus plague have had on arts institutions such as museums and theaters and because of the financial hardship the center for puppetry arts was not actually able to raise enough money to put on the exhibit this this at the present moment but we hope that that may become a reality down the road oh that's very sad so the plague puppetry exhibition is a real is a victim also of corona time is a really that's unfortunate especially yes for the time we live in that's a really really unfortunate no spawn that was there so how was that here for you um well it's actually been ironically a very productive year for me um I sort of put my head down during the shelter in place and read a very tall stack of books on african-american theater history because I was looking for object performance in african-american theater history and then I was asked to speak about that topic in the ballard institute's puppetry forum series in the early june just a few days after the murder of george floyd and since then um I have felt a really strong commitment to research that I never had before because the work that I'm doing feels relevant for the black lives matter movement I'm looking particularly at object performance as a strategy of resistance to the objectification of black bodies no that that is said about how many how much money is it all about what's missing maybe someone is listening who should they contact you or uh I would direct them to contact um best shavo who is the executive director of the center for puppetry arts in atlanta in atlanta itself so really this is important um an important um exhibition and important research and it's quite devastating next to everything that happened that also that exhibition um that was already planned I guess you know a year ago or two um it did not did not materialize and Manuel tell us a bit about about you and your experience of the last year well first of all thank you for having me here again um it's been a tough year it's being a very tough year I'm a practitioner I run a theater company as you know everybody heard in the with my bio and the theater basically has been closed for a year and a half and even though you know they say in April that we can open 30 percent you know it wasn't really cost effective to open the theater um especially small theaters I have a I have a black box black box theater in Manhattan uh for 150 people you know so 30 percent sometimes I will get even more people on stage and backstage than on the audience you know so I feel that you know we decided to move the reopening of the theater for later on in august uh where we are producing this major uh festival that is called the international puppet fringe festival it's the second edition um it's been tough it's a just hold on it's a tough it's called the puppet fringe festival I never heard of that of a french festival for puppets is that of the first it's the first one we had our first first edition in in 2018 it was very successful um then we planned it was it's a biennial festival so we planned it for 2020 but as you know everything was cancelled so this year we decided that we were going to do it and to re-invite everyone who apply and all that um and we decided to do a hybrid festival which is going to be half um a virtual and half pre-central um so it's going to be from august 11 to the 31st the pre-central part is going to be at the Lower East Side in our in our theater at the clement where is it located your theater exactly it's on the Lower East Side um and the Lower East Side da Mario uh it's on and Suffolk Street between the Lansing and Ribbentown it's at the center called the clemente which is a Puerto Rican cultural center that we have four theaters uh three galleries um and also it's the home of of more than 60 artists uh multicultural you know artists from any not only latinos and Puerto Rican sport from all over the world it's a wonderful place uh and the festival is a perfect place for the festival so what we decided to do this year is that we're going to have the international component uh being online because many of these companies obviously cannot travel and we have curated and put together an amazing festival for it's going to be like our real comeback to the theater um with more than 40 events uh during the first week of the festival and uh but i going back to the coronavirus and you know and the and the pandemic i i i wanted to mention that uh our company uh was hit pretty hard we lost actors and puppeteers in our company um i just lost their lives yes and also we lost families uh family members as well um it was it has been very devastating to say the least um very sad um also in the latino theater movement of the city also other companies were hit um with the same so the minority communities as you know you know were hit very bad uh with coronavirus especially the lower east side which is our immediate community community so um it's been you know not only dealing with the fact that you know financially has been devastating uh trying to maintain uh a theater that is not operating you know we lost 90 percent of our contracts we cannot we didn't do performances um that generated uh money for the theater but at the same time you know i had to make decisions with the staff you know some people lost their jobs because we couldn't you know we had to keep paying rent we had to keep paying paying utilities you had to keep paying insurance so it's it's really uh a tough time and even though we have applied and to many of the relief funds and the loans and all that uh it's still not enough uh when you lose 90 percent of your contracts when you're operating with 40 percent of your staff uh it's it's being uh challenging and on top of that all the emotional burden that the pandemic have put on all of us um i mean we have i have been even having workshops with my staff mean my immediate staff staff dealing with you know depression and you know and a lot of things that are that are difficult and that we need to to deal with now finally like three weeks ago we got back to rehearse and it was a very emotional moment for everybody to be outdoors rehearsing rehearse the whole production outdoors for three weeks uh and everybody with their mask and even though the majority of the people have been vaccinated we still you know having we have to continue with all the restrictions and all that uh taking care of everybody and and and it's been it was very emotional that first day everybody was like crying and even myself i when i talk to my cast for the first time in a half uh it was it was a happy moment but at the same time a very big i mean a sad moment at the same time that we have not seen each other for a year and a half and but i have great news we actually went back to the streets we did first of all we did a lot of things online um before before was talking you were talking about like you know you have good lighting and everything you know we're experts already with because we have been operating with Zoom you know all the time so i would say that we have done more than 200 uh programs during this uh this pandemic we open a YouTube channel that is called SEA Kids Network if you can check it out please it's SEA Kids Network and please subscribe we've been doing a lot of great things for the kids in Spanish and English and for the community and but then we decided to go back to the streets we went to the origin so you know of theater too you know so uh last Friday we premiered a new show that was conceived by me and written and and not only that i made the puppets which i have not done puppets in 30 years uh you know i it was kind of like therapeutic during the time of you know of the the pandemic i started you know taking some online courses and and and start working with new materials i learned about this material called warbler which i have never worked with with and i created many puppets and those are the puppets that premiered last friday um and now we're we're doing a tour a city tour a street tour of the proud new york uh for the whole summer what's the play about very shortly lost lost grises the gray ones and it's a homage to all the elderly people that we have lost so it's 18 yet with eight puppets uh they're all painted and dressed in gray uh that's why it's called you know the gray ones and and also it's because of many different things it's a great period you know the age everything you know so it's eight eight seniors uh and uh and the you know we have eight vignettes related to their common life you know prior to the pandemic and then so it's one of the first things that that came out and was shown to come back to you before we come to gloria how was they feeling how was the mood in atlanta and during the year puppet work uh you know um manuel did say you know that so many community members you know were lost in his uh field how how is it how is it there um i think that um our guild the atlanta puppetry guild kind of rallied during the pandemic we have had um we usually have a difficult time scheduling meetings because everyone is busy and often this and that in the other direction but uh people were really feeling the need to see each other and so we had several zoom meetings throughout the year that were very uplifting we've had some excellent speakers we had leslie karara rudolf at the last one and while things were looking bleak at the beginning of the pandemic because of course everyone lost all of their bookings um people have very resourceful and they found other ways to um to perform um and like manuel a lot of people um you know immerse themselves in making new puppets um or writing new shows and so um i think people are kind of ready to tentatively move forward yes did you research in the time you know about the black puppetry i don't know enough about it maybe you share a little bit what did you discover anyway in that you said it took on a new meaning and urgency yes so um when we did the living objects african-american puppetry exhibit we were trying to fill a hole in knowledge of american puppetry in general and the first thing we did was oh let's see if we can find connections between african object performance and african-american um puppetry and we dig and we dig and we dig and we could not substantiate that in the material culture record and that is because slaveholders outlawed the creation of figurative objects that represented an african world view um so the kinds of masks and articulated figures that africans were performing with uh people would have been severely punished if they tried to create that um while they were enslaved the other reason that we couldn't find direct connections is that um puppetry is a community building practice in traditional african society and um slavery was a complete destruction of all social institutions so and then not only were they destroyed because people were removed from their societies but also when they arrived in the new world the last thing that the slaveholders wanted was for them to rebuild social networks because you use those to organize revolts so with the exception of places in the caribbean where syncretism with the catholic church enabled people to use you know the public rituals of the catholic calendar to participate in object performance trend uh traditions uh there there wasn't a direct connection through the material culture um but as I researched you know when I had my head down in that big pile of books during the shelter in place I started to see that there were connections in the storytelling performance complex some of the stories survived the middle passage because they were in people's heads um and also in the whole um just performance context when where how the way that you speak the way that you move um the the music those elements did survive and I could then start tracing the material culture practice not through things that we would call theater but through spirituality and so I'm currently digging deeper into traditions such as santeria and bodun and candomblé um and the kinds of private altars that people kept in their houses or their yards um that the larger society wasn't always aware of what the meaning was but those are places where I'm starting to find connections between the object performance of African-Americans and Africans in the material culture I hope that answers some of your questions no no no this is important and we all do not do not know enough that's why this exhibition is I think so important Claudia thanks thanks for waiting um you have one of the foremost researchers if not the foremost researcher in the world on puppetry the world on puppetry con contemporary um uh um you know theory and practice um and you have so many global collections tell us what has that year meant to puppeteers to the art form itself the year of corona and where are we now yeah um thank you for that I I guess I should say that there's a lot of really fabulous researchers out there and some of them are sitting here with me today um in the world of puppetry and actually that's what I find kind of exciting is that it's a growing field and there's just you know it's kind of opened up in a way that um there are a partly has to do with new scholarship on material culture and materiality um object oriented ontologies these kinds of critical discussions that have become kind of popular in um so many disciplines are bringing people to different perspectives on puppetry or things very close to related to an integral to puppetry like um what Paulette has just been describing um I think in terms of the fear um in relationship to puppetry in um this COVID year um at the very beginning what there was a real sense I mean obviously the disappointment um and the you know just sort of grief I think of everybody um who had lost you know their their art for so long um so there's been this this mix and a kind of journey I think um I guess I do uh I would say that you know Paulette and Manuel are all part of UNIMA this international organization of of puppetry arts which um is really important um and we've we also work with UNIMA USA the USA branch of that and there's also a group called puppeteers of America and all these organizations really came together to raise money for puppeteers to you know find ways of supporting them helping them transition to doing online kinds of work to have support groups um and although I'm not a performer I was really um inspired to be part of that and um you just felt like this really big community trying to find ways to come together and sometimes like there were even sessions uh the UNIMA organized a big online session for people like myself who teach um and I in fact taught a puppetry class at Hunter um in the fall online you know and um it was a real discussion of um I don't want to say completely but you found a lot of older puppeteers who have you know much more it was much more difficult for them to to um transition to online things really um feeling very uh dejected about the whole situation and then other people and they tended to be more younger puppeteers but not always you know saying you know well there are these other opportunities let's find where the opportunities are how you know what we can explore while we have this moment um and exploring new kinds of animation and um things online and people talking about the fact that you know um puppetry because it can you know use this idea of animation and um different kinds of scale or uh that it can be two-dimensional and still be interesting um had a kind of advantage over some forms of acting that were going on you know online on zoom and so there was a lot of exploration um and kind of things that had happened before more locally uh like puppet slams or puppet cabarets where lots of people just give short performances um there were international ones um and I think the first toy the the first one that happened was um Great Small Works organized this online toy theater festival and I remember what I remember about it was you know people are writing in the chat and everybody was just like you know so excited to feel like we were together in that moment and seeing everybody's work and all this and just you know that again that that sense it really underlined for me the way in which puppetry is also so much about creating community of people who are um invested in this uh work and um I always say that like people in puppetry are like the most wonderful people I've ever met you know maybe it has to do with being able to like you know give yourself over to something else in performance you know give yourself over to an object or another character but this sort of outpouring of um of support um and then a lot of investigation um into social justice issues and I think you know every organization that I know um you know giving online um uh panels and talks and discussions uh really supporting puppeteers of color and offering more opportunities and ways to you know to support them and make make uh puppetry feel you know hopefully be more inclusive um and diverse I mean it is diverse but you know to uh feel that way and feel supportive to to people in the art from all different kinds of backgrounds especially here in the US um one thing that has been happening there's something Unima does called the world encyclopedia of puppetry arts which was a book that originally that was started years ago and it took like Unima 20 years to put it together and by the time it came out it was huge and already like out of date because it took them 20 years to to put it together so um Karen Smith uh wonderful member of Unima USA who's now the new president of Unima uh she was put in charge of putting it all online and updating it so that's been a kind of ongoing process and you know really the Black Lives Matter movement and all of this discussion has kind of um jump started this sense of you know we need to look at what what what the USA entries are there and really make representation of the wonderful puppeteers of color who have been involved in the art for a long time like but where are where are they why are they not there and so that's really something uh important that's being uh worked on in in the sort of scholarly way well that's a quite an update I sense some some optimism and some you know kind of national and global connection you know that so you have a tight network in a way and that's proof to be important this time so my question to Manuel and Paulette did did something change or do you feel there is a change happening something in the field the attention that what Claudia talked about that kind of socially engaged out on paying a more attention to to who were do you both think that took place um I I think that you know people are starting to get away you know awareness about this issue um it's been I've been in this field for a while and I have uh as as loud as I am and as active as I am I have felt like I was invisible for you know or for many many years uh even though I was in the leadership I was the president of Unima USA I was the president of Unima International still you know it was like very uh it was like them and the little one of us here trying to say hello I'm here you know remember the the puppeteers of color or the you know and and this new you know social justice um it's not new it's being you know but at least if finally it took like the the the protagonist's role in media and all that I've really made aware uh of many people in the field that hey you know we've been here for a long time we need to be recognized we need to be included in you know in in the research we need to be you know history is important and and then all of the sudden you know we start you know I've been talking about Pura Belpre the first Puerto Rican librarian in the United States and the the first recorded Puerto Afro Puerto Rican in you know in puppetry in in the United States from the 1920s 1930s her work is unbelievable and finally some people are paying attention and including her name um in in some stuff so it's yes it's it's changing but we have a long way to go and I feel that now people you know it's trendy so let's talk about social justice it's that you know the whole thing about um you know the new administration which I applaud you know that they are putting this into the the the front page but uh one thing is to say it the other thing is to really be inclusive the other thing is to be to be really fair to bring equity to the whole um uh situation I could tell you tons of stories um throughout my career say tell us a story from from you know from people producers or you know shows that have been very successful of my shows and everything to tell me my audience is too American for this or uh or like that too American or or or you know I mean what does that mean I'm American you know so like so I can tell you many many different stories that I don't want to go into this right now but I mean it's like as a person of color as an artist of color as an activist because I believe that my theater and the work that I do on my writings and everything is very political it has been to bring some kind of uh visibility to to to my people and to our you know to you know to the Latino culture in my case you know who has been here forever you know and it's very political the work I do even the work I do for children I mean cultural preservation that's a political action and that's basically one of the things that I'm doing um so so yeah I I feel that there's a long way to go but finally um you know we hopefully we're gonna stop being the poster child or the poster boy or the token boy or the Latino you know it's being like that for many years and it's been like that because I've been like hey I'm here I'm doing like this you know doing so much in order for me to to you know to have a space so um yeah I'm sorry if I sound a little you know there's a lot of frustration I would like to hear that actually I would like to hear those stories you know what you want to experience you know if we have the time but um but how do you how do you feel the moment um well I feel like I came into puppetry at just the right time and I want to thank Manuel for being there uh leading the charge because I started in 2015 I went to the puppeteers of America festival for the first time in 2015 and I got to see Manuel perform his Pinocchio which is um it sat on the Mexican border and it uses the story to talk about all the immigration issues that we're still struggling with today and I was so blown away I went back to my dorm room and out of like plastic bottles and and plastic bags I made a little necklace this is also a recycled um this is paper bags and plastic bags braided together but I made a little necklace and I presented it to him just because I appreciated his work so much so he's been there in the vanguard all this time so when I walk into puppetry people were ready to receive me uplift me support me John Bell you know he has been such a phenomenal mentor um and I therefore like to focus on the successes and the tradition of openness that there has been in our puppetry organizations from the beginning so I did a little homework before this talk and I looked up um Joseph Scuba and Jen Malik uh who during the Nazi occupation um in what is the present is in present day Czech Republic they were using their puppet shows to critique the regime and to give their audience hope and scuba ended up being arrested in 1944 but um that shows how well puppetry lends itself to this kind of social justice activism scuba was also elected president of unima in 1933 and his career exemplifies the organization's mission of fostering international friendship through the art of puppetry um here again I appreciate um Manuel's leadership I took the opportunity to attend the recent unima world congress um which would have been in Bali last year and I had no hope of getting raising the money to travel that far but it was online and um Manuel did an excellent job of sort of herding all the cats who were new to the online format and managing the voting and everything I was not a voting counselor so I just got to sit back and observe but one of the benefits of doing it in that format is that for the first time a large number of delegates from Latin America and Africa were able to attend and make their voices heard and so in fact they raised the proposal and we all voted to make the conference accessible virtually in the future so that those who cannot travel physically can still participate um I also want to talk a little bit about p of a's work in um what we're calling equity diversity and inclusion because these conversations were arising in the organization before 2020 um and in 2019 uh at the national festival which happened to be in Minneapolis that year uh they brought in an outside consultant to conduct a conversation with anybody any member who wanted to attend about equity diversity and inclusion issues and then from that conversation the organization um you know began to formulate some plans for addressing those issues so they created a diversity equity and inclusion um commission which I'm part of and then because I was elected to the board of Unima USA in 2020 now I am Unima's liaison to the EDI committee so p of a and Unima work on that together we've done a number of programs this past year um including uh panel that Edna bland and I did at the um joint world puppetry day celebration and so like I said thanks to people like Manuel I walked into puppetry at just the right moment so that um the organizations were already moving in this direction and unlike maybe some other arts organizations I know of that have just kind of jumped on the bandwagon because of the incidents of the past year these questions were already on the table in p of a so that's great the puppeteers were you know in the way ahead of the curve and Claudia um worldwide it seems puppetry is gaining attention uh by theater makers um you know whether it's avant-garde or um or the established uh classical you know theater world um why why do you think oh well I have a lot of thoughts about that I mean I think um you know we're I've been a couple of reasons one of them is that I think we're living right now in such a time of visual culture you know that we're so visually inundated my sister I always mentioned like I mentioned her today she's a head of drawings and prints at the metropolitan uh but her her field is 17th century Dutch prints and one of the things I always admire is that she's able to look at a print and she can sort of say where this artist went and what they saw because there were so few images around like if you went to Rome and you saw you know some gorgeous sculpture by you know one of the famous artists at the time you know you would sketch it and then those kind of forms would you know end up in your in your imagery um but we are just like inundated with imagery all the time and with video and um internet and computers and so I feel like one reason that puppetry is really uh becoming an art that's like in so many different forms of performance is because when people go to the theater now like they sort of are so conditioned by all this other you know animated you know things that we we want to see you know something that's you know that's our expectation and and so much about art you know our art world in general um so I think that's a really strong reason I think our uh international exposure to cultures around the world where puppetry has maybe had a more central um uh place uh and other kinds of forms of performance that are you know have masks and objects or very stylized performance I think that tunes us to that um and I also think you know we're at a moment of well there's there's also this you know uh uh explosion of things and you know robotics and things like that other ways of thinking about or cyber you know a character's thinking about our bodies and you know um created bodies and you know what that means so I think it's a it's a place that people are investigating they're using puppetry or uh in some ways to investigate what it means to be human right now um and also I would say finally our relationship to the natural world because we're creating so many you know built constructed things you know that are piling up on our everywhere in all of our natural environment and so we have to deal with these things so we're so um used to dealing with things and objects all the time um and our you know cell phones and things are objects that we kind of carry around with us that sort of like become part of us you know and put our extra brains we carry and um you know so we're so inundated in a world that is um resonant with ideas of puppetry but I guess I also want to say that there have been other moments historical moments like the turn of the 19th 20th century where artists have been very interested in puppetry and the culture has but I think the underlying cultural issues and ideas that were being wrestled with and discussed were different you know and and puppets because of their place to be you know sort of akin to humans but also reflecting technology having materiality you know they they form a nexus of ideas or a nexus of materials and associations that you can use to explore ideas you know different sets of ideas so I think our cultural moment is interested in puppets for a different reason uh but it's because puppetry you know can offer all of these different things but but I actually want to can I add something because you know when uh Paulette was talking before about looking into um uh you know ritual objects and use of puppets in that one of the you mentioned at the beginning that I'm co-editing with Tim Cusack this two-volume set of anthologies on it's called puppet and spirit ritual religion and performing objects and Paulette has something in there and we're just starting to get these essays in and it's really exciting I mean some of the essays are you know about traditional forms that have a long history of using puppets and object performing objects as a way of negotiating with the divine in variety of ways but also what we're finding and I think it's also part of my inspiration for wanting to do this book to begin with is especially academics wanting a way to talk about and a place to talk about something like uh you know a spiritual experience in the theater or with objects or um other kinds of uncanny-ness and you know what is a good theoretical way to do that um and it's a whole part of puppetry that has always been a part of puppetry but I also feel hasn't been given enough attention and yet when you start to talk to puppeteers they get really excited because you know they're dealing with their their characters that feel like living objects and that there's a spirit there and there's all this world of association and reference and experience um that we're trying to give some articulation to and make make that you know and under like that's also uh it's not just something that they do in a particular tradition somewhere you know far away um but it's something that really imbues the art in so many different ways and we've got like both you know talking about traditional forms contemporary forms so I um I just also think that in terms of like why we might be interested in puppetry that this is also something uh that needs to be discussed and especially I at a time when there's really a lot of religious conflict in the world right now and uh so this is maybe another way of thinking through that. Yeah wow that's uh that's quite a big concept to to think through it and uh I think we mentioned earlier Henry von Kleis who wrote this essay on the marionette theater he said perhaps puppetry who is a way a backdoor to get back into that garden of Eden that state of innocence that paradise for that moment while you look at it and you experience something you know in that sense of divine and as you said so but um Manuel please start with you why puppetry we read your bio you did so much why do you believe through puppets you can express the world or give meaning to for you or others? I actually think that the objects the animated objects are magical or creative kind of relationship with the audience um I mean my work mostly is for for young audiences but also I do puppetry for for adults for seniors for goodness sake the seniors they react to the puppets they you know amazing amazing way and they there's kind of like a connection and I believe it's because it breaks down barriers uh like uh there's you know people could the puppet it's what it is you know a special thing uh that that we breathe life to it and then the audience or the you know connects with that and it's kind of like you know breaking because it feels that there's like a new reality that they are living I mean this is my own theory based on being a practitioner for so many years uh that that I just see and it was actually my own experience I always tell this that you know my first contact with puppetry with live puppetry was when I was in third grade back in Vega Baja Puerto Rico my hometown in my schoolyard when a troupe like mine came to perform a show that included puppets actors live musicians it was a beautiful set and everything I remember vividly because it was what really changed my life it gave a purpose to my life um and I that was very I mean I was like mesmerized uh and it was kind of like this personal uh relationship with that I had with what was happening on stage and what those objects that were being animated so that passion or that or what changed in me at that moment that I knew exactly at when I was in third grade what I wanted to do um and I told my mom you know and she thank god I have a wonderful mom that helped me make puppets and you know encouraging me and and you know and all that um but that that moment I still feel it and pressure it and I am hoping and I believe that I've been provoking the same thing in many many people not only in kids but also in adults and I believe it's because the puppet being one of the major elements in that and I'm a theater person I do you know like theater without puppets you know musicals everything you know but as a creator I always like to include the object because I believe the experience is more complete I don't know I don't know if I'm making sense but I know that that that theme that provokes the puppetry between the audience and the object it's it's something that you cannot achieve um with just an actor I believe that I mean that's my own theory anyway that's that's what I think I'm trying to achieve every day and actually that's basically what my company is called SEA SEA is a Spanish verb it means it's an invitation to be I I want to you know to provoke change in society I want to you know empower kids I want them to I want to invite them to be whatever they want to be you know and and so even from the name of the company reflects the mission of what I'm trying to do with my puppets with my singing with my acting with my writing and so yes I think puppetry that's why it's so important for the work that I do thank you Paulette what what comes to your mind oh boy okay um since Claudia opened the door I'm going to walk through and I'm going to say that for me puppetry is a healing art um and that particularly as with a spiritual power so as I was saying this thread about puppetry and social justice was bubbling up before the events of this past year um even before we began planning the living objects exhibit um there were African-American artists using puppetry to draw attention to violence against black bodies so Tarish Pipkins had developed a show called just another lynching and nefria many had done a piece called food for the gods um and the image of one of the masks from that show became the image on most of the promotional materials for the living objects exhibit so I had been engaged to co-curate the show with Dr John Bell and when they made the decision to put that image on the promotional materials I understood what I was doing in a completely different way because um our conception of violence against black bodies in the present moment has mostly to do with police violence against black bodies but um my own experience connects with something that is not frequently addressed which is the rate of missing persons in the black community we are 13% of the US population and I think around 30% of the reported missing persons a lot of our people who go missing also are not reported missing because our communities have difficult relationships with police and so they don't want to talk to the police when something like this happens uh children that I played with as a child went missing um I grew up in not in Atlanta but Atlanta is another site of a deep tragedy of missing children and so for me when this mask showed up on the promotional materials for the living objects exhibit um it was I'm like okay this whole show is then I can make this a devotion for all of those missing bodies and the puppets in that gallery space for me became effigies um because when people go missing then there's no closure you don't have a funeral you can't celebrate their life because you don't know whether they're dead or not yet but when we did the show and we had the festival in conjunction with the show there was singing there was dancing there was storytelling um and for me that laid to rest a whole group of sort of wandering souls and I meant that not just at the level of the children that I knew but at the level of all across the country all across African-American experience in this country um it was a way of laying those spirits to rest so yes puppetry for me is a it's a spiritual healing. Yeah it's a very powerful statement just yesterday we had Sasabin Srivani from from Thailand from Bangkok and she said her motivation to have created bipam organization of 10 11 countries from the south east Asia region was you know the missing people missing bodies you know also that um so there there is a theme here and she also talked about you know the the objects and also and puppet puppet theater could you all give us a bit some information we do not know enough about the puppetry but who do you look up to what a theater artist puppet artists so they have influenced you maybe about shows or scenes how they have something connected so can you tell us um you know what are your points of references well I guess I go first yeah uh well like I mentioned the work of Puravel Pre which you know it's really even being from Puerto Rico and born and raised in Puerto Rico I didn't know about Puravel Pre until I moved to New York to come to school here which is another big thing that you know how can we do not know about our own people um so I was performing at a school in the city and a teacher and told me oh you are the new Puravel Pre and that's how I I said the new Puravel Pre who was Puravel Pre and then if you don't know please look google it right now uh this amazing Afro Latina uh pioneer she's actually part of my documentary I have a three piece a three episode documentary called uh puppetry in the Hispanic Caribbean and her story is fantastic and and at the same time you know when I started learning about her I mean there's the national award for a children's publication in the United States called Puravel Pre I mean there's a lot of things so her work uh doing puppet storytelling with puppetry it's really one of my you know I started researching her and and and I think it's one of my inspirations especially for the work that I do here in New York um another big inspiration and of course I'm a scholar my dissertation was about about him is Leopoldo Santiago Lavandero which was like the father of theater education in Puerto Rico he was the founder of the department of dramas in the University of Puerto Rico he was the founder of the theater program and and the arts program in the school system in Puerto Rico and he was actually he taught at Yale University um you know last century you know and in the theater school he was a and then he went back to Puerto Rico it's a Puerto Rican pioneer as well he was the teacher of Paul Newman I mean things like that that people do not know uh so the work that he did and I had the pleasure uh like he was on 90 something he was suffering already from Alzheimer but I was able to uh interview um when I was in my 20s and I have that you know and that was a special moment because I was able to you know hear from him you know uh here and there when he would remember things and and meet this amazing man uh and he definitely has been my inspiration my work if you see the work that I do is based on the work that he did uh at large scale in in obviously in the schools and in in the educational system in Puerto Rico um uh for years you know I would say obviously say obviously you know the the great Gene Henson uh was uh also a very big inspiration for for me because as a kid the only the puppetry that I will see in television you know which was basically uh the Muppets and you know the Sesame Street even the Spanish version plus a sesame all that so I think that was very uh inspiring and of course all the the pioneers of the Puerto Rican puppetry movement in Puerto Rico they also had a big influence in me and it's all that part of my documentary as well yes that's my inspiration for that okay um well I will follow Manuel and say that Jim Henson is one of my biggest inspirations um I have been a docent in the worlds of Puppetry Museum at the Center for Puppetry Arts since it opened the new wing in 2015 um the museum has a global gallery and Henson Gallery and I always start the tour in the Henson Gallery by asking people if they know when and where Jim Henson was born and then I raised the question of how coming from Mississippi in the 1930s he developed a career that emphasized tolerance for all kinds of people everything that he did was about that and so I have deepest admiration for him. Claudia what companies what artists do you follow also globally who are you know if you wrote this great book with many other stuff with your colleagues of course but who are artists? I'm looking at um like maybe I should also say a little bit how I came to Puppetry you know because it's um I guess it's you know I loved you know the puppets growing up and all but I think what really inspired me I was um well I did a lot of street theater when I was a kid I did street theater with the theater for the new city downtown in New York I was one of the few kids performing there were a lot of masks and you know very stylized theater I wrote my dissertation um which got published as a book on the San Francisco Mime Troop that used not only stylized theater but they also had a whole political puppetry wing of their their political performance using kind of a radical punch puppet you know who went around telling you how you could you know not have to pay the parking meters and things like that um and um uh and I also have always been writing about Asian theater and Asian theater has a lot of puppetry and so I've been inspired by all of those uh but I think what really got me kind of plunged into the world of puppetry were the Henson festivals that went on down in downtown New York uh in the late uh in the early 2000s and they were really puppetry from all over the world so companies like Hanspring puppet company um you've interviewed um puppet there were some check companies and doing work that was um uh not for uh children uh necessarily there were some children companies but you know seeing what I just thought was the most inspiring theater to me at the time um a company from I guess Argentina El Periferico de Objetos if I say that right um you know and things that made me stop and question uh like how am I watching this or as I say how am I being asked to watch this and that we're showing things um you know that tools that I had for scholarly analysis were not you know applying here you know you could have gorgeous language but it didn't fit with the puppet and you know puppets were doing things that were interesting in their own right and I was really trying to search for you know ways to talk about this so I think that the puppetry that really inspires me and I think there I see it in a lot of companies um you know manual cinema of course is wonderful Tori Bend is an artist I like a lot um are people who are in the work they're doing also exploring the form and showing how materiality can be expressive on stage in uh different ways and where the surprises are uh and the plots are also expressing something about puppetry and material performance so actually in that other book I'm writing hopefully uh on the essays on puppetry I'm trying to sort of offer things that I've been thinking about for a while seeing over a large range of puppetry um uh even a puppeteer like Hank Borwinkel Dutch puppeteer uh who used to perform a lot um there's a wonderful moment in us he's a fabulous puppet work um he's not performing anymore I think his son is uh but of this um these small vignettes that are accompanied by music um and very visual and surreal uh and poetic and um in this one there's like a big head and it's the top of the head opens up and there's a little puppet that comes out of the head and it starts to churn his brain and it takes off the bandage around the head and wraps it on this pole and then there's this moment where we just watch the bandage unravel off the pole and to me like that's so expressive it's not of what we think of when we think of a puppet um but it's in a world of puppetry where we're understanding that material can be alive and express something on stage and so we're watching it differently so I guess rather than so there I think there are a lot of puppeteers exploring this uh these ideas right now in fact it's become almost vernacular in the puppetry world and that's why I feel like it's an exciting world of performance um so there are there are a lot of companies but I said a few of them I love Paper Moon company puppet theater um and I think what's so lovely about that company too is the um great spirit personal spirit in which she uh they do work and create unity so I think that's also a strong part of it um so I don't know if that that not completely pointing to a number of like here's no no we are just no we are we are she was here from Paper Moon and she said to on corona they people could give $50 or something to and ask the company to create a short puppet play for someone they would interview the person talk to create something for the person very radical idea actually that you know someone from the audience is gives a little bit of money ask the company not to fulfill their ideas and say you know um I say who would you like to give the show to let's talk call that person into a nurse or a grandfather and then they created something they also did a project where they sent I think a puppet building material in a box to a home and then give it like instruction how to do it and then they asked them to do a little story and then they would put up the video they by the way also did a big talk series a little bit like ours was puppeteers um from from around the world so um we at the seagull often also do talk about dramaturgy and the importance um of dramaturgical thinking and the art form of theater performance and puppetry is part of that world and not just the entertainment but they also of course has to be but is there kind of a new dramaturgy evolving do you guys notice something where you say you know um the the the puppet theater is moving into fields we had a hotel modern here um and they did you know a show where they had on a they built a model of a concentration camps with little puppets and tiny cameras moved through the camp and it was projected on a big screen as a very innovative incredible um shul carol martin introduced us and to them so um are you are you feeling or even that year now in corona are there new things emerging are you are you observing new forms or um new engagements that that are surprising well I think not too surprising but is certainly happening I mean so many puppeteers spent this year exploring uh digital technology and other kind of technological ways they can create things and um are you know I are interested in integrating that in their work there was already I think you know a lot of it happening and I would say you know for me like animation is within the world of the you know animation and you know CGI and those kind of things you know that they're so related to the world of puppetry that there's an automatic kind of connection and you saw a lot of puppet shows where there'd be then projections even handspring puppet companies early work with um William Kentridge or their projections and animations and live puppets and so there's this whole sort of landscape um but it will be interesting I think I don't know exactly which direction it's going but it will be interesting to see where that goes in the future now that people have spent so much time uh and I think you know a lot of like I say not not just on being online but exploring what can I do with this new tool Manuel are you seeing things for your festival for your upcoming that's different there's um there's obviously the use and the integration of technology is something big that is happening in puppetry um and of course the pandemic and the time you know being at home have added to that because that's you know that's our tool to use it right now I am actually uh encouraging people to do that and also you know when I'm curating a festival I'm trying to find a combination of both I mean puppetry is still a traditional art form and for me a preservation of the art form is also very important the development of it too and you know like the the the evolution of it is important but I also think that the new generations should be exposed to the wonders of the past as well you know so I I want to create and this is what's happening also in my own work a balance in the you know in the you know some shows that I do are very heavy technology you know like projections with you know like cameras and all that kind of thing and amazing like LED lighting and all that kind of thing and then other ones I really want the essence of what it was before or to show people to recreate a period um I I remember just doing you know we do some some of our shows are uh Latinized uh European children's stories you know like so we did a a little red writing hood uh a Latina little red writing hood and it was very interesting the great actors puppets and everything but I wanted to do it in the in the way that I saw children's theater when I was a kid with you know with the backdrops and the forest you know very very very classical and everybody some people say Manuel that's very old style and I say yes and and that was the that was my purpose as an artist to recreate a very old style you know in a new time you know so and I believe especially being a repertory theater company like we are that would you know add in new shows or just you know revamping old shows and all that I I really as a as a creator try to balance uh the the new stuff which is fantastic and I love it you know and I'm trying to to learn every day and to include it in my my work but at the same time to preserve and to do things in the traditional way and I think that the artist should try to find that balance because it's very important because things in you know not not everything new it's good always you know it's like the bad the old things you know are not bad either so it has to be a balance and that's what I am using when I'm curating or when I'm creating okay yeah so um I'm glad that Claudia brought up the word dramaturgy I'm still relatively young in puppetry and still figuring out what I want to do I'm not really a performer yet but as I said in the beginning this year has made my research seem more relevant and necessary than ever and as I've been working on my book about object performance in the black Atlantic it seems like as soon as I dig something up I find myself in a conversation with an artist who's like I need that and they take it right away and I've never felt that in academic research before so an example there is a lot of discussion and attempt to deal with the legacy of blackface um and so I had been working with an artist named Garland Farwell who did several shows in the Henson festivals in years of yore and he had received a grant to do a documentary on jig dolls and if you don't know what a jig doll is um it's a figure a jointed figure like this and then um it usually stands on a board and you make it dance by tapping the board unfortunately a great many of these um in the 19th and first half of the 20th century were blackface figures and so um Garland was trying to come to terms with that legacy and yet another part of the dramaturgy um is how do you construct the figure so that it moves the way that you want it to move um and so I made another set because I'd been researching African figures these are toe puppets so the string goes around your big toe and then you sit on the ground and manipulate them like this and I was looking for um you know any evidence that these types of objects might have been created in African American communities couldn't find it but um this is the kind of exploration that I've been doing and feeding to other artists as soon it's literally every seems like every week I dig something up I'm in a phone conversation with somebody and they're like oh I need that so um that's been a very interesting time in that way so you said you know you're you're open for articles and for research maybe say a little bit people how people can contact you okay can I put my email address in the chat sure okay um I am currently co-editing an anthology on race gender and disability in object performance with Alyssa Mello and Laura Purcell Gates that volume will be forthcoming from Routledge everything's coming from Routledge in 2022 everything's coming out in 2022 we hope and we're still taking submissions or proposals for that topic through July 1st so if anyone out there thinks they have something that would be appropriate please contact me and I will send you the full call for proposals thank you good good and it's Paulette Richards number three oh gmail gmail sorry let me do that again yes gmail yeah trying to talk and type at the same time I'm impressed that you that you got it done so um yeah so this is ongoing research if you have any suggestions also for Paulette or anyone you let us know at the Segal Center or how Ron can forward or contact them um directly so this is important what we heard you know that I think Ron Scher the great philosopher said new work new breakthroughs come appear on stages on the world when you have a traditional art form and a new technology exactly what Manuel talked about you know that there's something a meeting of these things and something new will come out and and I think this is something we are seeing at the moment and Paulette who says you know let's look at the history let's look at these objects what did they mean at that time and what do they mean now and let's help to change imagination the great Edouard Glissant who also taught at the Grand Center said um the problems the racism the sexism homophobia or hate of the foreigners and refugees it's a problem of or a lack of imagination people cannot imagine they're not able to and if there's anything that helps us to imagine different worlds different possibilities you know it is actually theater performance and also yes through puppets handspring basal john said in South Africa I said my puppets could say stuff on a stage and didn't have to go to jail or people accepted it you know it was a puppet it was ridiculous to sew a puppet but it made a change you know it changed something you know and he said the example of a the trinity like god father and holy spirit you know how do you paint it how do you do it looks so odd on these oil paintings but you know you have a puppeteer who moves a puppet and the second puppeteer helps and the puppet looks alive but they are not alive but they are the people who are like to this moment of confusion like very complex philosophical context even you know it's shown in it what we say what you guys would say so that's a simple way to move a bunraku puppet or whatever you know but there is something in there that helps us to understand the world we are in and to create meaning and I think a puppetry uh it's great time I think is coming and will be forthcoming as I do think the work of circus as a great popular art form will also come back and and I think it's shameful how little theater is offered for youth for kids small kids even under three four five teens the greatest audience you can imagine you know how little is out there and offered to them or supported by this even a director in Sweden who is actually in her normal life the director of the national theater in Stockholm after Bergman and she does work for infants under 12 months I mean it's incredible a concept they're sitting in around a carpet and um and actors move in a way that little babies can see them you know just because you help and she believes not only is it important for her research for theater but she will have make an imprint so the work and children are drawn to this as they are drawn to good theater instinctively you know and and so I think there is something so important in it and on all levels and so this is a the important subject we could only touch the top of the iceberg of the top of the iceberg you know so I want everybody to know that this is a big universe as we heard from all the organizations and meetings what you're involved in we don't know about it sounds great sounds you're like in Star Trek when you hear all these things and we don't understand exactly but you know it's a world out there a really good one so um and so really all our respect for for the work you're doing I feel it's pioneering work it's work a bit more in the shadows but it will emerge it has such a great history and a significant present but I think it has an even greater future and it's a big honor you know to to have you with us and that all three of you came to to to talk to us I know we have a little bit less time but we felt that to represent that global world also we are moving in and you guys are so pioneering also that you have you know these global organizations and puppetry and that there is something to to be said for for this so and I hope you will be able the listeners to join us again tomorrow we completely switch as multi pysons at now to something completely different it will be a playwright to playwrights and the directors from from France um and your french-african penda diop and marine bashello new yen and will talk to us about their work about what's happening in france at the moment and and how they are experiencing this time what they're working on what they are planning so it's a great great change also what is happening but theaters are slowly reopening and I hear in july festivals in germany also will have performances against those things over there are very different because of the subsidized structure so I hope um everybody um got as much inspiration and also in a way joy from this this conversation it was a great one it's a 150th talk again for us it was a big day uh unimaginable we never thought that would happen and we started large march last march we thought it might go on for a couple of months because our center was closed all my programming was canceled everything I had carefully put together said no you can't get into the building and so I said well then instead of showing all reruns of our talks which we actually have about 500 to 600 programs with that we should you know really um um interview archive the moment and it ended up maybe the most closest portrait of a profession in the world around the world and how it reacted you know to to the corona crisis and so it's something also for future audiences which might be of interest so thank you all goodbye and thanks to howl around for everything and I hope you will hear more and learn us which are join us for the 24 hour india reading and then with the literature festival goal and we will do readings in new york city for the death of corona maybe we can collaborate you know with the puppeteers and others to make that happen thank you all paulette manuel and claudia especially for help making that happen this wasn't really important thank you bye bye stay safe bye