 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome again to the Fine Arts Building. My name is Blair Thomas. I'm the director of the Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival, and we are here for the final of our artist panel discussions, led by my colleague, Paulette Richards. It's been a fantastic journey, getting to the last day here. 11 days of work. We were in 26 different venues, over a hundred different events. Almost 12,000 people attended events, so it has been going very well. We're very happy. I said 12,000. So but this morning we have a chance to talk about materiality and puppetry, and I'm going to turn it over to Paulette. Okay, good morning. Thank you, Blair. Thank all of you for coming out. We've been having so much fun, and I know that we're kind of at the end of our endurance, but we promise to make it worth your while for having gotten up early on Sunday morning. What I will do is first introduce our panelists, and bear with me because I've got bios here, there, and yonder, and I'll be fumbling a bit to pull them up, but I do have them all. And then I have one question that I'll pass down the line to get the conversation rolling, and our panelists also have images, and some of them have puppets to share with you, and there will be time at the, in the last half hour for sure, for questions from the floor. Did I designate anyone to monitor the live stream and see if we have any questions there? No? Okay, well, we'll work it out. Yes, could you do that? Yeah, thank you so much, Tim. So go to HowlRound. Do you know how to get to HowlRound? And then you can find the live stream on their site. Okay, thank you. Last minute arrangements. All right, so without further ado, let me introduce the gentleman to my left, all the way from Kenya, Fidelis Chialo. So Fidelis Chialo is a puppeteer, director, and producer for a television. He is the co-founder of Crystal Puppet Theatre Company, and he authored Tears by the River, the show that's been playing all around town. I hope you have had a chance to see it, which has toured not only all around Chicago, but Belgium, Austria, Poland, Germany, Indonesia, South Africa, Ecuador, Argentina, Japan, Russia, and the United States. Fidelis has since written, directed, and performed short puppetry video shows, such as Ask Dr. Pomodja, Lockdown in the Village, Giraffe in the Honey Bag, Hare in the Honey Pot, Gone Fishing, Libendi's Backstory, and The Last Wildebeest. He is currently the head puppeteer at the famous Kenya's satirical puppetry TV show, The XYZ Show. Vice President Unima, he's also the vice president of the Unima Africa Commission. I'm very proud to be an honorary member of that commission, and he's secretary of Unima Kenya. He's the director of Puppet's 254, and a senior member at Kenya Institute of Puppet Theatre. We're very glad to have Fidelis Chiallo with us today, and then we have his colleague, whose bio I'll pull up in just a moment. Since they're here, they're in Yonder. Okay, that's the most recent email. Yes, so this is Crispin Moakidao, and he's a puppeteer, a storyteller, and author. Crispin is also the co-founder of the Crystal Puppet Theatre. So let's have a big welcome for him. Now back over to my Google Drive, where I have the bios for the other performers, and unfortunately I closed that folder when I shouldn't have. So here we come, yes, manipulation. So to my, to Crispin's left, that would be Dagmara, and let me find, they sent me like three paragraphs, so I have to distill this. Dagmara Soa, okay, who is the founder of Grupo Grupa Coincidencia, a freelance theater founded in 2009, and her colleague to her left is Paoel, Paoel, please help me. Comtric. Comtric, and they are both graduates of the Bialstok puppet art department of the Theatre Academy, which is where? It's a Warsaw Theatre Academy located, the department located in Bialstok. Okay, thank you. Okay, so Coincidencia shows have been presented in numerous festivals in Europe, Asia, and North America, and have been honored with many awards, including the Bank of Scotland, Herald Angel, Total Theatre Award, Edinburgh, the Grand Prix of the Context Festival in Poznan, the Grand Prix of the MFTL in Turun, the focus of Coincidencia's interest is contemporary theater of many means of expression with particular emphasis on puppet theater. Coincidencia collaborates on a permanent basis with the German independent scene Lindenfels, Westflügel in Leipzig, and the Figurin Theater, Wild and Vogel, and we had Michael Vogel on the panel. The first panel. Yes, so we're very glad that they came out to support their colleagues. Thank you so much. Let's give them a big round of applause. And then we have Federico Restrepo from, here we go, yes. From Locoseven, yes? Yes. Okay. Oh, it's torturing me, so. Federico Restrepo is the creator, director, choreographer. This is important. It's going to come up in the conversation. Puppet performer, light designer, was born in Bogota, Colombia, and he founded his company Locoseven at La Mama in 1986 to expand the use of puppetry in dance theater. With Locoseven, he has created over 20 original productions acting as creator, director, and designer. The undertaking of the ensemble is to deal with themes such as South and Central American culture and history, the immigrant experience, and New York City urban life. I hope you have a chance to see lunch with Sonja, and welcome Federico Restrepo. Okay, I got through that part. So the next part, what we're going to do is go down the line and I'm going to ask this one question and you all can take your shot at the question and then we'll evolve the conversation from there. So as I explained last panel, I had intended for the construction techniques panel to be the third one because we knew that Basil Twist was coming and he is the MacArthur genius puppet builder. However, when it went up on the website, I think they thought that there should be a nice alliteration of mechanisms, materials, and manipulation. And so manipulation came third. So what we're going to do is we promise construction techniques. We are going to talk about that, but we're going to talk about how construction supports manipulation and how manipulation influences construction. Sound good? Okay, here we go. So the question is how did your manipulation techniques evolve in negotiation with the materials and mechanisms of the puppet? So you can think about that over different puppets or you can hone in on just one that we may have an image of if you sent it to me. Do I need to repeat that? Once again. How did your manipulation techniques evolve in negotiation? And I'm saying negotiation because anyone who has picked up a puppet knows that I have the intention for the puppet to do this and that's not always what happens. So how did your manipulation techniques evolve in negotiation with the materials and mechanisms of the puppets? Sometimes to get into this you have to take the puppet apart. You might have to choose a different material to construct it from or you might have to, okay, it doesn't want to turn that way and so we just will block the show so it never has to turn that way. Okay, so that going down the line. I'll start with Fidelis. All right. This I will give one example to one character that we created. Last year we did a show. We created a show that we wanted it to be without words, non-verbal. And so it was kind of tricky. One was we don't need to make a puppet that has a mouth. That was the first thing. Then the other thing was how safe would it be for us to first use the right material because you're talking about environmental conservation. And it was kind of tricky because we had to use something which I'm not proud of. We had to use polystyrene because one, the puppet had to have a rod behind so that it's able to control. My idea was to use foam or something else or use paper mache. But again, the time was not enough for us to create, make puppets, rehearse, and then go and perform the show. And we had to perform the show in the after one month. So we had to do everything within that specific time. So we had to use polystyrene. And one thing I realized about that puppet is I think you can scroll. It's the one that I came with. One thing I realized about that puppet was one because it doesn't have to talk, which was good for us. The other thing was manipulation hard to work with the puppet because I had a similar one, which was smaller. But now I was creating a two meter puppet, which I had now to think about how does that puppet move from the floor to the table and make it work for both, for the table and down and have it able to be seen by everybody in the audience. So I had to start working with it. And I saw there's something the puppet can do. There's some things that the puppet cannot do. Actually, even working, I could not work like most people will do with the puppet. So I created a movement for that particular puppet. It had to jump, like how the monkeys jump, but it was a human character. Did you want to elaborate on that? I just want to add that I think some of some of the experiences that we've had, I've had is also that as you mentioned, sometimes mistakes could actually help you discover things that the puppet can do that you didn't realize that the puppet can do in terms of manipulation, in terms of how they move. And one other illustration is we have a bat in our show, and it's made out of the material that we use. It's a very simple natural material from the coconut, which we weave. And so the movement is really nice, the wings flap very nicely. But how we did it is that we had a fabric on top of it. So you could hold the bat with one hand and then the head and then just flap the wings. But at some point, that fabric came out after a certain number of shows. And then Fidelis had to come up with another way of holding the bat, which then he holds it now on the tail. And it moves even better than when you did it on top with the fabric. And of course, then you don't see his hand also much. So I think sometimes the more time you spend with the puppet, the better you get to know it and then you can discover more possibilities. All right, thank you. So just we have a whole range of experience with puppetry in the audience. So just to clarify for people, puppeteers use many different kinds of synthetic foam to build puppets, but people may not be as familiar with polystyrene. I think that's the stuff that will be packed in a carton, like if you buy a flat screen TV and it's around the edges of the box. So it's usually white and kind of stiff and resistant, but very lightweight. And good for carving. Yeah, easy to carve. Yeah, so the advantage of the material is they had to do it fast so they can carve it quickly that way and it had to be lightweight. Okay, great. So Dagmara, same question. How did your manipulation techniques evolve in negotiation with materials and mechanisms of the puppet? Yeah, so in the beginning maybe I will say that we are like a group of coincidentia, we don't build our puppets sometimes, but in general. And we try to find some materials which in our mind are good to show what we really want to show on the stage. So sometimes we use not built puppets, but the materials like, I don't know, till dust or plastic foil and we wanted to try to find how the material can work with you and what this kind of material can give you on the stage and how you can work with that. So in general what I think it's really great to just go and look what this kind of thing can give you. And just, yeah, for me it's the really great way to find out on the stage. And sometimes the things can surprise you and it's really nice to take this all and look that it's just great to have it like that. Of course sometimes these things are not the same, they changed. And it's also for me very important to take them, to not try to make the things every time the same, but try to take the thing how they are. Did you want to add power? Yes, because you asked for a kind of a process. So from the historical point of view, I used to negotiate with puppets in a very specific way after I have graduated from the school because we were taught in the school that this is the puppet and you use it in a very particular way and I'm almost two meters tall and I have a screen like that and I'm not supposed to be visible. The puppets should be visible, right? So I needed, so the negotiation between me and puppet was, okay, you do your movement up there and the puppet says, yeah, but you have to go down like this in order not to be visible. So that was the negotiation. Now I negotiate in a different way. As Asha said, we very often use a kind of materials that have their own specific and energy and negotiation with the dust in the performance of invisible, for example, where we deal with all the invisible things. And we try to focus not only on processes, but on materials that are not really visible, but we have to do it in a way in a visible way. So we work with dust, for example. So negotiation with dust and this kind of mechanism is totally different. Okay, how about you turn a little bit to the right? No way. Dust would negotiate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's a violence. So in a matter of fact, this is a little bit of tricky and metaphorical, but what I really think is that if you take the material as it is, then it can lead you to a totally different level. So that would be my answer to your question. Thank you. That's beautiful. Do you have the question? You need to hear it again. No, I think I can navigate there. Well, I'd like to show, sometimes you make a puppet and then you make a show with the puppet, but sometimes you make the puppet for the show. So I like to show you the first image when I was starting to develop the show launched with Sonia. So if you can, that big picture. Do you want to go back to that? No, no, no. In the one there, I'll just send you, they have the other pictures. So basically the character Sonia, we see it bigger than life. So I was working with a very big Sonia. Hopefully it comes from this picture. So in that first section of the work, we found, yes, this was the first Sonia. So Sonia is a big marionette when she stand up is like 14 feet tall, something like that. And was very nice, but didn't allow us certain part when we start to develop the text and develop the story, was many things that was very difficult to really get her to give to the audience, not to really project that type of feelings. But we're still needing to have a very big Sonia. So that make me go in something that I didn't work before to do it in foam and is another pictures coming. So I just start to, this is another one of that. And then I start to develop to make this puppet in foam, trying to figure out if I can have two meters tall Sonia, that I can move around the space easily with not too many people and still being a person on the stage. So if you move a little bit and you show a little bit until the end of those pictures and appear the Sonia. So this is Sonia. So that was the way we got to build Sonia and the reason of the materials and the connection with the character. So that was one part of the process. If you move, I move, I show another character of the show, or this is Sonia. This is still Sonia. So it allowed us to dance with her and to move her. Then this is another character of the show. They used to be just an sculptor and I was looking to create a character that I can talk. And it's myself, but it's there, but it's not there. So I have this sculptor in the house that I did before. And then he say, well, you don't make a puppet of it. And that was the way I got this sculptor to turn into that little puppet. So it's just wire and allowed to be there and not be there because you can see through the material. So that was like the base of that idea. Another character important is the birds. There was a dream. So it needs to be something that is very soft and move easy. So those birds are made of paper and they flow and keep that illusion of something that is there, but it's still very delicate. And I think that was the process, building this show and the puppets for this show. I don't know if that works. That's great. Thank you. And also, if you have not discovered the puppet hub on the fourth floor, there's a cafe there where you can get something to drink and something to nibble on. And there are also three galleries exhibiting puppets and paintings and photographs of designs including Federico's designs for Sonja. So if you want to contemplate those images at your leisure, please go downstairs after this panel and have a look. Okay, thank you. So you two on the end helped us segue into the question of materials because you spoke about, actually you did too. So yeah, it's almost inseparable from the whole topic of the materiality of the puppet, but I wanted to see if you would reflect on advantages that specific materials have that make you choose them. You all talked about that a little bit with the fisherman puppet, but maybe you can talk. Actually, I want to know about the drums, the drums that you travel with, the special ones. So if you would talk about that, please. Okay, the choice of everything in our show was because of so many things. One was, is it easy to travel with? Is it easy to pocket? Even some of the puppets, if you've seen our show, we had zebras which are actually made out of a cardboard and we were also looking at how heavy our luggage would be. So that was a good choice because they look very nice visually, but they are just made out of them, something you can make within five minutes. And the drums that we call the water drums are actually made out of kalabash, kalabash in squad in another name, whereby you just remove the inside of it which seeds and everything. Then it's dried and then you make different sizes to get different sounds. You just put water and then cover with a smaller squad and you get sound out of it. And actually, when we came here, they actually cracked. I don't know why. It's cold. It's a cold. It has never happened. We had to fix them. We had Rohan, the guy who, the study manager that we travel with, is very good with the fixing things. So he had to fix them, hoping that we'll be able to finish these two up with them. So, yeah, Chris went on to answer. The thing is that it was important for us because we either had to carry two or three drums, or we go with this and they are very light. If you take care of them, they are also durable because we've had them for quite a number of years now. And yeah, it's something that anyone can do. You just grab them, like you say, get the inside out, dry it, maybe seal it with something that is waterproof, a varnish or any material that can at least protect the inside because you need to pour water inside of them. So obviously, the more time you pour water, then they will begin at some point to wear out. But if you seal them properly, then they are good to go for quite a number of years. That's why we picked them for our show. Actually, they are unique because we always feel happy that everybody likes them. They are unique in terms of the way they are and how they've been. And the sound. It's interesting because when you finish the show, that's one of the first things that people come to. Was the sound actually coming from these instruments? And they want to try them out. And sometimes they don't even want to see the puppets and you're like, ah, but we did a puppet show. I mean, don't you want to see the puppets as well? But it's always, it is part of their show in a way because they are props. And the same way we chose also to, for example, use a stool, a stool which is made of three wooden legs, but they are also tightened with some screws so you can actually fold them very nicely, pack them in a suitcase and then the top is just made from leather, which has been sewed together, you put it on top and then it's a stool. So all these considerations have to come into play when you're thinking of touring. Otherwise, you know, you go to a place where they either don't have stools or these stools don't really match your props and that might not bring the effect that you desire at the end of the day. So this is your own design. This is not traditional. It is a traditional instrument. So it's not just our design, but I think we have probably the only people who travel with them for shows, but you can find people playing them. As you can see on the picture, they kind of look like they're cracking, so that is a special glue that we had to put inside to protect it. I think they are kind of also wearing out because of, you know, water all the time. Great. Yeah, that was an excellent example. So, Tagmara and Paolo, a material that had advantages that worked well for your needs. Well, the thing is that for each and every production, we are trying to, we will try to figure out what could be the material or materials that somehow come along with the idea of the show and it's different. So we don't have kind of a favorite materials. So just to give an example, years ago we made a performance based on the tale of King Gnaf by Stanislaw Flann and the science fiction tale from the Mortal Engines book. And it was all about a paranoid king who was afraid of everything and in a matter of fact the whole story would appear in his brain. And once we got to the point that we can use the materials that would be associated with either water or electricity, that brought us to the point where we thought, okay, material-wise it makes sense because the brain works, the human brain works like that. Yeah, it's a kind of electricity. And the thing was that we already would find the way how he dies in the very end. Yeah, in the bathtub. The hair dryer in the bathtub. And this is a good example that whenever you find a kind of a way through the material to show or tell the story, it gives you a lot of inspiration. The other example also connected with the show that I've mentioned, Invisible, is how can you deal with invisible puppets or stuff. But once you realize that from a perspective of a modern physics things are not really monoliths, that there is a constant movement within this bottle because there are atoms and the spaces between it, they are in the movement and that this is energy inside of that. Yes, yes, yes. We have an inside joke going. I saw something that was going on between you guys. Yeah, there's Tim Kusak who is one of the authors speaking yesterday and he spoke a bit about what I call the metaphysics of object performance. But this is physics, this is not metaphysics. Yes, but when we get beyond, the question then is how do we apprehend these swirling atoms that we think are the bottle that you have in your hand. Is that really something that's outside of your own consciousness? Does it have a consciousness? When you're manipulating it as a puppet, are you engaging with another consciousness or are you imposing your will on a material form? That's where we went yesterday. From the perspective of the puppets here, it's absolutely fascinating that you're dealing with some energy that you manipulated or in Poland we would say animowacz, animate. And anima means soul. So it's got something to do with this metaphysics. My point of view is just, you know, it's countable, it's physics and no magic. Good, good. Did you want to add to that, Tatyana? Maybe only the thing that, when we think about the performance in the beginning, you have full, I mean puppets or materials, your head is open. And then because we are little independent theater and we travel, in general we travel with our shows, it's that moment that you need to think, you need to a little bit close, think about the sizes, heaviness of the stage and things, which is sometimes not so really nice, because you would like to do something really huge, like with your puppets in the beginning, it was, yeah. To be, yes. Yeah, that was a problem. It might be only that. Actually, always you got to check because they changed the size of the luggage in the aeroplanes. So you got to figure out how to change the size of the puppets in order to travel. In terms of technique, the way I, my hands and my head to work, because everything was designed to dance with, so trying to be very light and be able to control it with the body and dancing. I work with stockings, cotton, and I sew to make the shapes to be able to have these light puppets that I can dance with. And I use a lot of wire, modeling wire, aluminum wire to create shapes or other puppets that are made just by wire. So that's been the materials that I've been working for many years using it in different ways and mixing them, no, it's those materials. That's something to what you were saying. I think one of the key factors, at least for us, is always to see how easily accessible these materials are in our environment, in our community. And obviously it's a question of money. You can use the most expensive materials if you choose to. But then the question is whether that serves your purpose in your story. Because you also, you know, when you're doing a performance, you also want to relate that performance at least within your environment, first and foremost, whether it's a folk tale or contemporary. It doesn't really matter. I think the choice of the material that you decide to pick is also influenced by the cost and then at the end of the day, whether it is really serving your purpose. So if, I mean, Africa, as we know, is endowed with so many resources, but we can't just say, oh, we want to create a puppet from Coltan, for example, because it's beyond our means. So we will go for either for sponge or wood or something that we can easily find. And then even if something is broken, you can easily, again, recreate it inexpensively. Great. Great. So thank you, Federico, because you led us into the next question. I'm kind of going down our checklist on the Symposium series itself. Because you're a dancer and you're starting with how does the puppet move and how can we dance with it, that brings me into mechanisms. So if you can think about the way I phrased the question earlier is, what did the puppet need to do and what kind of mechanism did you have to design to enable the puppet to make the movement that it needed to make? Okay. I also still give an example to one of the characters that we use in the show. We are the elephants. What we were thinking when we were creating those characters was first, we can't have them big, because that's how elephants are. They are huge. But again, we need to have them in a way that they are also visible, able to be carried. And then we said, we don't need to make our whole body of an elephant. Why don't we be the bodies of the elephant and have the head? So it was even easier for us to move around with the puppets. So we are having the puppet, the elephant. And us as puppeteers are the body of the elephant, whereby we are now able to be able to move around easily. And we employ the same with some of the characters, the zebras, also the lions. So we used ourselves as bodies of the puppets. And there is also a part of the elephant where we, in the story, where the elephant had to climb a tree. And as we know, that's totally impossible, but anything can happen. So we made it. We thought of how we can make this elephant climb a tree. So what we opted for is to have a silhouette like a flat puppet. And it's a two-dimensional. So from the audience view, you only see the legs. And then we joined the four legs with a string and then with a mechanism that you can pull and then you give the impression that the elephant is climbing the tree. So that was a bit tricky initially, but with time, we perfected it. That particular puppet is a real favorite of mine because I've spent some time studying pantons. It's a panton. So if you can see here, a panton is a string puppet. You pull the string and the arms and legs go like this. It doesn't really do much more than that. But these were extremely popular in the 18th century in France. And so here's a classical Harlequin string puppet. I'd never seen an elephant one to begin with. And also while they were sort of like a high fashion item in 18th century France, subsequently they just became children's toys. And so this was the first time I had seen one being used in performance as part of the story. So I was really interested in that tree climbing elephant. Thank you for that. Yes. So your example of a puppet mechanism that served a movement purpose. So as Agnara said, we don't construct puppets very often, but there's one example there in our pictures that we have seen. Yes. If we can find that, maybe it would be Turandos. Okay. So this is the puppet that we have constructed. So that was the show that would tell the story of Puccini working on his very last opera Turandot. And he was dying on throat cancer during that. And that was based on the opera and on his diaries while he was dying. And so in this show Puccini was represented by both by the living character. Our friend Mariusz is there. And the kind of puppet that was already representing a body that can be alive through the movement or close to death or even death. So the idea behind the puppet and the mechanism was that it should be heavy to deal with gravity. We would operate it either like this or with this rod that you can see there. There were magnets attached to that. And like three to four people would be able to adjust the magnets and putting a lot of strength to put it up and operate it. So in that case, again, the idea of having somebody close to the border, close to death, could be represented by mechanism and material that would be suitable for that. And from a technical point of view, we took a mannequin and we cut that in parts, covered it with a special material, I don't know the name in English, at some wires and so each part would move in a way separately. So that was the thing here. That's a really wonderful example because usually puppeteers are trying to make the puppet as light as possible. It gets very hard to do this for an hour. But this one's the opposite. But this heaviness was really great in this puppet. I had a little scene with this puppet, very close. For me it was really heavy and it was also because of this heaviness, this puppet was moving, you don't need to move so much. Sometimes it's only you change the balance and the puppet will make the movement. So you need to follow the movement of the puppets and this was really nice. You never know which way this puppet will lead you. Yes, this is beautiful. So when Hamid was on the panel, the director of Song of the North, I realized that he's actually puppeteering the light because his show is a shadow puppet show and the construction of his puppets is all about how is the light going to come through. And so the puppet is actually a way for him to place light where he wants it. And here you all are working with gravity. So puppeteers actually work with materials that we would consider to be intangible and yet we find ways to manipulate. That's very interesting. Yes, okay, Federico. Well, if we go back to that puppet, that was the first time I carved in foam and I have to go back there and try to figure out how I could break it. You need to take it. Oh, sorry. So, yeah, that was the first time. If you put the picture before, I have another one. There's just the whole body on the table. So I finished to carve the body and then tried to figure out how I'm going to make it to move and how I cut it and tried to keep the foam as the base and not add more things on it. So if you go to the next picture, the other one, that one. So the first problem was how she's going to see. So I was trying to figure out how to make that happen. So I decided to cut it in pieces, the butt, just small cuts. And then everything is covered with stockings, which is what keep together the foam after the cut. And that was the way I was making the joints. And in the end, that was the same for elbows, knees, and that was the process, just discovering through building it. Yes, yes. And I've been downstairs studying this picture because knees are really hard joints and I thought that was an ingenious solution. So that worked for some time, but then after many, many rehearsals. On the beginning, she can stand up and was incredible, was easy. But then after moving it and dancing for a long time, the knees start to wibble in. Well that happens to all dancers, right? Yeah, exactly. And then I have to introduce wire because between the leg and connecting the knee to give more support to the foam because it was getting impossible to hold for so long. The cartilage degraded. Yeah. Right. I don't know, yeah, that's, I don't know, an experience of that. Thank you. So we're getting into some really interesting things here in a roundabout way. I asked that, I asked that. I'm going to go down the line and see if any of the artists have anything they want to say about the shows or their puppets because Fidelis and Crispin have to leave in about five minutes because they are doing a show. Go ahead, so I'll get into your slides. Maybe I'll talk a little bit about our show. And this is something that we've been taking over and over. One was how do we blend the show in everything that we are, the culture being an artist and what we can do as puppeteers. This is how we came up with having the show, being a storytelling. Second thing was blending it with music, playing instruments. The good thing is we're coming from a background where we can all sing, we can all play instruments, not all, but some of them. We are able to dance because that is at least, it is in our culture whereby we sing, everything according to events or anything that happens. So that's how we blended the show and using our experience as puppeteers. And then having different styles of puppets. In our show we combine five styles of puppets. We have a mask, we have silhouettes, a cardboard, then we have a marionette, then we have also a mouth puppet, and then we have a table puppet, a very small table puppet. So we blended all this so that we can give variety. Have the show more interesting, cover the places where we can bring in our culture. Singing songs that relate to that particular event or something. So all these songs are also not just songs, but they fit into that particular scene or moment. Yeah, I just want to add that, of course this show has evolved over time. And I think one of the learning curves or some of the lessons that we've learned along the way is to push the boundaries, always to push the boundaries and not to be comfortable. And so we, for example, we all know how difficult it is to play with marionettes and make marionettes share feelings or emotions. Because they usually are fun to watch when you have a good marionette player. But it's hard when they have to share emotions to really be gentle. You can easily get that with materials or sponge, that you can create expressions, but marionettes is a bit hard. But I think, like I said, when you spend more time with your puppet, you create that bond, they can surprise you. They can really give you sometimes movements or emotions that you would be surprised. So I think when, as puppeteers or artists, you try to go beyond what you've already put down and try to just continue growing and evolving. That's the key to really having a better storytelling outcome. Thank you. And let's give Fidelis and Kristen our thanks. Attempt this maneuver. And hope I don't mess up the tech. So back to you all. Is there anything you wanted to say about your show that we didn't get to yet? It's a very, also, specific situation. For us, this happens also a lot with this show that we are here with, Krabat, that we are operating materials and puppets, mostly puppets, constructed by Michel, who's sitting over there. And it's always a kind of very interesting approach that we make when we are introduced to a puppet that was constructed by someone else. That you first need to figure out what was the story behind that, what is the idea, what is the place of the puppet, how can it be moved. And most important, what kind of your own story you can tell through that means of expression. So in a way, I think it's totally different for a puppet constructor who makes things from scratch. And I have also a little bit of experience like this. And it's a totally different process, of course, because you think of something, you have your fantasies, then it appears. Usually it looks different than in your fantasies. And on the other hand, you have a process where you get something and you have to make fantasies on the top of that, what you have in your hands already. Both processes are very interesting for me. And then to find how it can really work in this particular piece. Like you have puppets and then for me it was also in Krabat. It was very important to have these puppets, materials, but also music. Charlotte Abilde is sitting here, she is doing the live music During the rehearsals it was also very important how the music came to this piece and how we could make it together. Materials, puppets, actors like us, not only animators but also actors with the music, with the songs and so that was the trip for me also very important. Could you say a little bit more about your collaboration with Michael in that does he just give you a puppet and then you build the show around that or do you ask him to build a puppet specifically for your show? Well, I think we could go back in history to 2002 where we first met when we were students and again I told you about the education in Bialystok that time. You would have a couple of so to say traditional and unconventional techniques and you would try to figure out what can you do with this hand puppet, with this marionette, with this rod puppet or something else and now these two guys appear there for workshop and they bring you soil, water and plastic foil. And they say okay now we improvise for four hours. So, you know, that changes the perspective, right? So you start dealing, I mean it's kind of, this kind of, is there such a word holistic, yeah? You have the kind of mystery of everything and it's very essential and it's there and you create a kind of a different world using these three materials and yourselves and you use also the music that is around there but this is the beginning of this collaboration. The change of perspective is the beginning of this collaboration and then for some reasons the energies that they brought and we had somehow got together, got along and there was this idea to make a show, the first show, yeah, and it's till today, it lasts. Okay, so for you all it's the relationship, the creative relationship that's important, not the puppets per se. The puppets come out of the relationship. They are something, I don't want to talk to anybody. I have the feeling that maybe puppets are something different for me and something different for Michel because for me puppets are the means of expression and sometimes I would need them and sometimes not. So the puppet itself is not the point where I start thinking about the performance. So there's some kind of a wider picture idea and then things start appearing and maybe for some of you it's the different way of thinking about making a performance but there's this puppet and then what can you create around that, which is beautiful of course as well. Great, did you want to add Dagmar? No? Okay, so the first question when we open the floor will be Michael because we're going to give you the mic so that you can respond. Wakey, wakey! Yeah, but I'm going to move down to Federico now. Is there anything that you wanted to say about your show or your processes that you haven't had a chance to say yet? Well, I don't know who had the opportunity to see the show and there are different type of puppets and different techniques of puppets in the show. Some of them are made specific for the show, other ones they got cast for the show. So sometimes you start to develop an idea and start to work and then I go and check in the room all the other things I have done and what could be that puppet that came coming to the show. So that's another casting process, not everything is made specific for the show, they come, depends. So using some of those other puppets which is nice when you elbow to use them in something else and bring them back alive. So that's part of at the working launch with Sonya. I'm not sure, I don't know what else to say right now. Well, I have a follow on there then because this idea of casting a puppet instead of crafting a purpose built for the role, I do that because I have a whole agency with my figures. Do you find that when you cast a puppet that you've already developed as a character in another show is they puppet an actor that can become a different character or is the puppet a personality that plays itself in each show? The idea is to play a different character and try to figure out sometimes I even change the way the puppet is going to be manipulated. So I change completely the technique of the puppet, which in Sonya, I don't know, maybe in the website is a picture of the nephews and the grandsons, they used to be extreme puppets and I just redesigned the way to manipulate them and bring them alive in a different way. Yeah, I think the idea is that they play a different character, completely. Recast as an actor, not as a puppet already made for something specific. Give it the chance for the puppet to be able to be something else. Don't see, is that one of the nephews? No, that's the grandsons. That's the same technique. There must be another one. No more? Well, no nephews? Wow, they didn't make it to the website. So sorry. Okay, they need to talk to their agent about that. Now I'm going to have problems. Okay, thank you. So this gives us actually a good bit of time to take questions from the audience if I could have that microphone. Oh, okay, it goes over here to Michael in the green shirt. Yes, so what I'm asking about is the insight that Pawel brought out about his perspective on your collaboration and that for him it doesn't begin with the puppet, yes, but since you are the builder, is the process of developing the show more rooted in constructing the puppets or in some other phase of the development? I have to speak into here, yes? Yes. So with the show, what we are here, it started with the impulse to do it with Krabat with his story and at the same time with the people and I have to start always with puppets. But when there's a collaboration with other people or when people ask me to build a puppet for them, I have to be 100% in love with these actors or puppeteers. But don't misunderstand me. It needs a very strong connection. If there's 1% missing, I tried that, then the result is not good. So it's already in the building process, it's on the table, the people who will play with this puppet or are connected with this puppet. And I don't make any sketches or anything, so it is what it is then, what comes out there. So there's no idea it could be big like this or small like that, it is what it is. And that's connected then to Pavel and Dasha when we did the show together, we did the Salome thing together and there was also only one puppet, really one puppet in I think, I remember. And that was connected to this group and to these people from the beginning on, yeah. It's more the opposite when it doesn't work, when I'm not, when these connections, if it's a city theater, just can you build some puppets for us? And I said yes, because I like the director a little bit, yeah. The result is not, maybe other people don't see it, but for me I see there's something missing. I also can't sell the puppets, I only rent them. That's interesting too. So do they ever receive the puppets, start to rehearse and say, oh no, this is not working, can you adjust this or that? And that's on both sides. I would say it's rather the situation where we say everything is perfect and Dasha is not very happy. Okay, that must mean that he's an excellent pilter. Yeah, so he keeps on making things better and better in terms of that. When you are in the rehearsals and you have this puppet or this material, you can just check it and you have time to, Michel is always there in his workshop also and it's before the rehearsal, I'm absolutely sure that he is there and he's looking on the things and checking and we sometimes, yeah. It's a whole process and it can change during the rehearsals and even after doing the performances if you are not satisfied with something and you have the idea to make something better. Okay, that's great. But it also can be the other way around that I build something very quickly and Dasha or Pavel take this puppet in Kukulka. We had some of these puppets that also traveled to Chicago and were suspended to perform but we didn't find the time now. But maybe tonight there's a puppet, a huge puppet and it's just brilliant that it's half good and Pavel took it and improvised a beautiful scene with that and that's it. So it only came together by you playing with it. Actually we both play with it in this scene but from a different perspective here because the energy match is very important in this constellation. Okay, thank you. So Blair returned just in time to be the mic runner. And so there's a lady right back here where you were sitting who has a question. Hi. I think someone had mentioned that they're bonded with the puppet over time and it's a little bit more real like in your imagination and familiar with that character that you're building and creative and how you can pass and not care so much about the show. The rules around the show and instead you let the character from your fantasy become in a real, higher conco. Maybe I can add. So I think that ventriloquists develop a very close relationship with their figures and over time those characters become very whole persons to them but I'm not sure if puppeteers form the same kind of relationship with certain puppets. Is that what you're getting to? Well no, I'm very close to the puppets. I have a very big relation, a very clear connection with each of the puppets that plays on the show. The warrior puppet is really the character that I talk to all the time and is myself and he has many secrets. Even though he's transparent. I think we get very close to the puppets that we develop and when we play with them we get very connected. Yeah but it also has something to do with this kind of trust and faith that some things that are done by puppets are way better than done by humans. For example our common friend Florian Feisel made a very nice show once which was called Puppet Steben Bessa which is Puppet Die Better. And the conclusion of couple of scenes there were that in a matter of fact when the puppet is dead is dead. Like really, literally. And actor we don't need to move on stage for people to believe that we are alive because I'm a live person even though I'm not moving now. And puppets live only through the movement actually, you know. And from my perspective this kind of those little things that build a kind of a trust we are different and we do different things better. That builds a kind of a bond and a kind of a trust. So I never, I mean I've heard about many wonderful artists who would sleep with their puppets and to create a kind of a bond. Well I never heard that. And I don't feel I need that. But seeing that like with this mentioned cuckoo puppet that was roughly done by Michel and it's not finished till today. But once I got it in my hands and I saw this person talking to me I went like oh what the hell I mean I have somebody sitting on my lap and talking to me. It's just those things that happen when you and puppet. I don't know if it's got something to do with a trust or a bond or just coincidence or energies. I don't have any idea to be honest how it happens. But it just happens. I think we grow up playing with things and giving life to things since we kids. So I think it's an exercise that we've been developing since we are babies. So it's believing to take something called play and make a life. So it's a relation that we grow up with the object and giving life to an object and taking care of the object. When you say about the yesterday that my choice about dying with dignity and the main character Sonia. Yesterday someone asked us why we didn't show the moment when she's going to die because basically what we do is she walks out to her death and didn't make sense to try to... One of the reasons was to put the puppet to die in front of everyone when we were trying the puppet to be alive to tell this story and we know in the moment we drop it it's going to be dead. Which is what you just said. Yesterday we were answering the question and yeah that's the reality. I mean the puppet needs to walk away to let you know he's dying because he's dead already. He's not alive. So that connection is... And this brings me now to this image. Somebody told me about a buto dancer master who made the death scene perfectly. Step by step his face would become dead and all the people sitting on the audience would go like... And now I can imagine the puppet audience watching that saying what is the big deal? What's the big deal? Everyone can do that. So it's a matter of perspective. Thank you. So do we have... I hope yes. More questions. We do some kind of show in the spring and we've always just made up our own stuff. We try to reason out how could we make an articulated hand. But I'm thinking more... I'm sitting here thinking there must be some manufactured hands out there that already have all the mechanisms built into them to be able to pull the strings and do that kind of thing. So is there a great resource place to find this kind of technical knowledge? And how much do you use of that pre-built world? You know, in Polish language you can find maybe one book that gives you a kind of a knowledge about puppet building techniques. Like literally one. And I talked recently to my new friend, Rafał Budnik, who is an absolute master in making building puppets. And he said that his idea is now to sit down and work on putting his knowledge and all his skills to write down a book because it's really needed because there's not much of it. So I don't know how is it in other languages. I think I know the book you're referring to. The author begins with an F. It's like a Holy Grail book that puppeteers try to find and it's extremely expensive. Anybody in the house can feed me the name so I could... On the screen? Yes. But this is a website devoted to preserving this book and the mechanisms. Okay, so here we have it on Amazon. You can get it for $500. So did that satisfy your question, sir? Okay, yes. I have this book. Figures in the Fourth Dimension. Yes. Okay, back to materials. I'm definitely in my trash collection phase where I feel like I just collect and never throw away anything. So I was wondering if throughout your careers there was a very surprising or exciting found object or recycled material that through discovery you found made a really good puppet. I think we are thinking about the same thing. You mean what? Murdas. Oh, yeah. That's also something. That was the beginning of our career and we were working on this performance I mentioned about the King Gnaw, Krull Murdas, in Polish. And we had a very little support, I think, from the Wyszehrad Foundation because it was made with artists from Slovakia and Czech Republic and Poland. And we, in order to bring all these materials that were connected with electricity we went to each and every construction place and buildings that were renovated in Białystok and we would ask, do you have anything that you would throw away? Any cables, any stuff like that. So that was the trashy period of our career that we would collect things that were really, that found their way on stage eventually. So we needed a lot of that. So we kept on collecting, collecting, collecting and that was all used, yeah. Great. Yes. Riko? Yeah, I pick things. They look, they have future. But then you get to a place where you have too many things and nothing is happening. You have to clean it again. And then start, but yeah, I mean, it's, the way the brain works on how it's seeing things and then seeing, okay, I can do this and that can allow me to get to this. So, yeah, I mean, it's a habit. But you know what? I have a friend who's a composer and not in terms of materials, but he has a lot of songs and music written somewhere that he collects there. And his other friend, when we would work on one piece, would say, oh, this is the recycled piece that you're using. Another, another recycle piece. I know this one. Wonderful panel. Thank you so much. And the Crobat people, I just want to say, your piece is not my top 20 list of the greatest pieces of theater I've ever seen in my life. So thank you so much. I saw it last night and it's absolutely magnificent. And so to that point, I have two questions for you about not the puppets, actually, but two of the other materials that we haven't really talked about yet today. One was that amazing sequence when you had those very long things. I don't know what they were, and I wonder what they were made out of. And you were kind of doing this and creating these incredible oscillating waves of energy that were happening. What was that material? And then did you have to explore with length? I'm curious about, did you have to experiment with how long they were to create that effect? And then we haven't talked about the flower in the piece. And what was the process of that like? I mean, the way, all of the different ways in which flower was used, I imagine in rehearsals, I mean, flower you get on the, it can be very slippery and very dangerous. So how did you navigate that and negotiate that? First of all, there's no flower in the piece. Oh, what is it? It's haze. It's the Kryolan fancy powder on our faces. But it's also a baby. It's also a baby powder. And what did you use, Stefan? And? There's a new material. Yes, I used pressure in the US material now and we've performed here. I'm trying a lot with the thing that comes out of the real new. And so I also usually try to buy stuff from the area and combine it with stuff to bring it to create a local effect. What was the local thing brought here? It's called cornmeal. Great. It's a little bit of a chibi about the long stick. I think that it's also connected very much with Florian. Yes? I think so, the sticks. He's not with us now. Florian Faisal. I know what they are made of, but I don't know the Polish name. Wóchno szklane. It's a kind of a glass, I think. What? It's fiberglass. Okay, yeah. And they are extremely flexible and very strong at the same time. Yes. And did you have to experiment with how long in order to get that effect? I don't remember this. So we get the maximum, yeah. And then it was thinking how to take it into the car. I think so, because it's always like that. Yeah. But this size was just great, the movement. We recognized that it's moving so beautifully. And, yeah. Great. Thank you. Next question. I've got a question actually. I'm curious, you've talked about that the fabrication, both of your teams are working with building the puppets and then getting into the rehearsal after the puppets have been fabricated. Am I correct about that, or did I mishear that? Sometimes things are in the process, but you use only half of the puppet. And it gets back to a little bit what Paulette was asking earlier, just sort of understanding how fabrication leads the vision of the work by arriving at its limitations that then dictate the show. And in a way that hopefully it's strength. So on the other night, Federico, you mentioned that originally, and Sonia was very tall, a giant puppet, right? And so the understanding of that change. And so that came from working. And so there's always this tension between the person who makes the puppet and how they're establishing this primary thing on the stage and then the conception of the idea and the story and the narrative and the performance and all these other practices making that exchange back and forth. So my question has to do with when, so that you've made, Michael, you're in your studio and you make your crazy puppet and then you bring it into the rehearsal hall, when does there a kind of a realization that oh, we can now actually do a different construction technique so that the puppet can advance this other way that we didn't even understand we needed to do? Do you understand this question? If I understood right, so my answer would be it's a matter of any expectations that you have toward the puppets or you are checking the possibilities. From one side, I mean, when it happens to me or us that we construct the puppet which is not often, we have the expectations and then it's either there during the rehearsal process or you change the concept of the scene or of the show to adjust to the possibilities of the puppets and on the other hand when you get the ready made puppet made by Michael, for example that's the first thing, you don't have expectations I don't have expectations I'm checking the possibilities first and what can it do and how I am able to control it and usually when in Krabat it was like I wouldn't even notice the changes all the time in this and that because it was Michel's fantasies that probably it wouldn't work the way he wanted but if there is a particular expectation like with the Turandot puppet that it needs to be heavy and it needs to be hanged at one point and operated in a very specific way then we would adjust and change the mechanisms due to fulfill this kind of expectations I don't know if it would be the answer to your question but it's also different in Krabat because Michel is also on the stage he's also animating the puppets so it's the best situation because he is building the puppets and he also can check them together with us on the stage and decide to change something Okay, we have a question down front from Jackie Thank you Rodrigo, as you know I saw your piece at La Mama and I saw it last night and each time it grows even more beautifully Curious, did you, when you were creating the smaller version of Sonya did you use a rehearsal puppet? One, and two, I'm very curious because I used like a lot of non-toxic things how did you put her together and you said you use wire where was the wire and how did you string it through the body and did you cut the joints and put it through and how was that all done? Oh, okay, so the... No, I didn't rehearse we have the big puppet we did that workshop with that big Sonya and then Denise will collaborate together we start seeing how the text was growing and the story was growing and we start to understand that that huge puppet is going to create too many problems and that we need to make a big Sonya but not that big I was like, I have to make another puppet? That's a hard work to do and take time but it was very important to focus so first I built the puppet before we went to rehearse for the second part of the process of launch with Sonya so basically the puppet was ready and I bring the two to rehearse the way is connected actually it's one piece of... I never cut one block and I never cut completely in pieces still the foam is still connected in every place so I just make cuts and then I make the layer of the skin with the stockings and... Stockings? Stockings? The ones that you have Yeah, tendrils Yeah and so I just start sewing it and make it like the pieces together and then I saw many layers of the stockings goes together connecting one piece to the other piece but the inside is... the foam is still together and then when the knee problem starts to happen honestly I just took a long steel pipe and I put it through the leg in both sides and then I connected in the center to help to support the weight when she's walking and to the bone like a bone Okay It's very new for me what I did so all the time is learning how to... I'm making new things trying to figure out how to... You create that technique Yeah, I just have to make a new puppet I have this piece of foam and it was very hard on my bed and I said, okay, it's time to change the bed like a puppet and so I took it and I start to draw on top of it and cut it really was my first time I do something like that and then when I have the whole body I start thinking how I break it in a way that is going to be able to move because everything that I do is sewing So that's what came out Okay, there's another question up front here Thank you Thank you very much So it strikes me that like the gentleman here asked about you know, is there something that a book or a resource you can go to how to construct a hand and whether it exists or it doesn't exist but there's something that's very exciting about creating something always in the moment so it's saying this is what I'm trying to solve or this is what I'm trying to create and what are the possibilities to do that and the way that you did it may be very different from the way someone else would do it but it comes out of how am I experiencing the puppet how am I, what do I want it to be able to do and what's my imagination and is that you know, one can say is it a limitation because maybe if I could go to a source and say to do this you do that but would you be losing something by that because there's things that get created because they came out of my imagination and my situation and what I was trying to create and actually having a source that was a go-to source limits the possibilities because it becomes a dependency rather than just letting everyone's experience drive the experience and drive the creativity and that is really exciting to hear That challenge is what makes you do things and I think that's what keep me making puppets I just try to figure out how the bird is going to fly and just looking at birds flying and trying to figure out how I can make this bird and how many pieces I cut it how I connect it and that exercise helped me to develop the scenes too probably because I'm coming from the dance so I play with my body and try to understand that movement with my body and then I start to make the puppet based on how I feel that movement should portray it on the stage so I love that and sometimes it gets too complicated and maybe you call some friend, hey, how do you do that? but I like the challenge of creating a system that is comfortable for you and make it happen I think it's a nice process of building Great, thank you We have more time, we have more questions Yes, William Hello, this is also a question for you With the images that were shown as you were talking about Sonya and the larger version versus the smaller version not only did the size change but also the entire style that Sonya was depicted in and yes, the way that the size of the puppet is going to affect how people experience a performance with them but also a move to a more realistic style is going to open up more possibility for the audience to connect with the puppet on a personal level and I was just wondering what the thought process was of not only do we have to make her smaller but we have to change her style completely Yes, that was part of the conversation besides that she was too big when we start to develop the story we start to realize we have different relations with her, the actor and the puppet and even we feel that she had to be bigger because she was bigger than us in the way she decided her death and the way she explained to us so we see her as a bigger figure so we want to keep that proportion but giving, trying to create a puppet is going to give a more human connection to be able to tell the rest of the story so yeah, that was a very important point for Denise to convince me to make another puppet was we have to find a way that the character can connect with the audience and the audience see the character as a human being there and they are bigger but it's not that big because it's always going to create something so to break that wall, that was very important Someone else? Oh yes, go ahead Oh wait, no there was Oh sorry I noticed for a lot of these performances there's like a mix of puppets and actors and of course physically who the actor is interacting with is the puppet but I wondered, especially in these performances where the puppeteer is visible alongside the puppet if it feels like as an actor you're collaborating and interacting with more the puppet itself as another actor or like you're collaborating with the puppeteer playing the puppet So in Krabat we have this situation that we are like actors we are also puppeteers in my head I feel that me is also the I'm also the person the character from Krabat I can change because of puppets and materials I can change myself to the person to character taking from Krabat's story but I also feel that I'm the character so it's mixed and it's floating somehow in my head it's not borders between these two things they are living together For me it works both ways so obviously every puppeteer starts moving the puppet so it could be alive but the puppet influences the puppeteer as well the way the puppet needs to talk you adjust your voice to the movement of the puppet so it works both ways and on the other hand what is very interesting for me each time I see a puppet show and I see a puppeteer operating puppet there's always two stories that I see the story of the character of the puppet and the story of the puppeteer and even if I watch the performance the puppeteers are invisible you can see only the puppets I can get out of my head thinking what's happening behind the screen and how it influences what I see yesterday we saw an exhibition in the Field Museum with our kids in this China puppet shadow puppet show a digital exhibition you can see it from both sides the screen you see what audience would see and you go on the other side of the screen and you see the backstage so even if I'm there to see the show and I only see the screen I always think about the story of the puppeteer so in my head it's something that is very connected I think puppet theatre is something more I'm from a little city in Poland and I've never been in the puppet theatre before when I was adult I found out that puppetry can really give you more so my first time was I don't know, I went to Bielsko Biało it's a huge international festival and then in Poland and then I watched a lot of really great puppet theatre shows it was also Charlotte and Michelle there so it was my first meeting with them also and my head was like I opened my head because I thought before that something like that not exist and puppet theatre show me that you can make things really more that it's so open and you can choose, you can mix the things it's not only one way of thinking and for me it's just the best I feel the same way that relation but one thing is funny that I'm working with dancers and actors and when you're casting and trying to get the right person to work with you immediately the person you give the puppet you know if it's going to be a good relation or not because you see the actor he wants to act and the puppet goes down and he's acting for you all the dancer is like a, this is a program he's dancing, she's dancing right and it's not a connection and it's incredible how fast you can say oh this is the right person to work with and it's someone that really doesn't have that connection and I think that comes very natural so in the casting process it's like oh that one is perfect like if you feel someone they have that possibility to give life to something and share life with something so yeah great, so Jackie's been waiting for a bit two things crobat, am I saying it correctly? that was the little puppet I was sitting right in the front so at a point it almost looked like it came he came to life okay and I think it was I'm not sure what you used for the hair but the hair work work with hair and puppets and just puppets in general but the hair on those you had a bunch of puppets everybody had two puppets in their hands you know it was just amazing for me and this also for Frederico lunch with Sonia to me how important is it that these puppets have spirits because your puppet really came to life it was like at a point it looked like it was just moving you know and I know that someone was pulling it but it just had a life on its own and Sonia she came to life also so the spiritual aspect of the puppetry I don't know, you tell me we've talked about it I'm very happy that that happened that people hate it because it's something that you don't know if you're doing it it just happened to you so that means it's happening so it's nothing that we can really control it's something that when you manage to make it happen it happens I think that theater is something that is really that happens in the viewer's head only a little bit of theater happens on stage this is only the impulse and the spiritual aspects they appear in the head or hearts or souls of the viewers so we are only we go on stage in order to give this kind of impulse for the spiritual things that can happen there okay I think that's a really one more was that a question you had back there okay we'll bring you the mic you get the last word that's okay we're out of okay so my question has to do with I guess it's a theme creativity and the possibilities for it but with technology being in corporate a part of the process thinking of what's not maybe possible now but could be so they're different is it possible to get to a general same idea of what sad or will it always be different because that's the beauty in times that's part of that you do now directing I wonder if the only way to show and program something to be sad and you put in a be sad and then it like shows the puppet to be sad but maybe it's not possible because what one things the display of sadness could be very different is it possible I wish to keep it life theater for some reason I'm pretty calm about that so I don't think that artificial intelligence or any other technology can could replace life theater anytime the thing is that you have to be you have to have the consciousness as an artist and artificial intelligence can learn can have a very can be very knowledgeable but the consciousness is not there we think and the thing is that's the thing about going to the theater that each and every show is different right and you you cannot program the audience to receive impulses that you're sending every time the same so and that's the beauty of the thing that we are three hours to the show and we don't really know what is going to happen today because yesterday was yesterday you say yesterday was nice but we are afraid each time that today is not going to be life so and that's also an impulse for us to to be creative each time and do it new and I think that Fieta is also to for meeting people you want to meet people and pandemic time when we were closed at our house it was hard time for us because we did some things we perform somehow it was streamed but without people it's just set somehow so I think that's the main thing to meet people. That's a wonderful ending for the Ellen Van Volfenberg Public Free Symposium