Month: July 2020

Summer Online Puppet Forum #10: “Present at the Creation: the Notion of ‘Performing Objects’,” with Frank Proschan on 8/6

Join the Ballard Institute for our tenth Summer 2020 Online Puppet Forum Series event on Facebook Live! These forums, hosted by Ballard Institute director and puppet historian John Bell, will consist of discussions with notable scholars and practitioners around the world about the past, present, and future of puppetry and puppetry studies.  

On August 6 at 4 p.m. ET, join Ballard Institute director John Bell in a discussion with anthropologist Frank Proschan, editor of the ground-breaking 1983 issue of Semiotica, devoted to “puppets, masks, and performing objects”–the first time these forms received a cohesive scholarly analysis. They will discuss the legacy of this initial study of performing objects, as well as Dr. Proschan’s work as an ethnologist and folklorist in Southeast Asia, and his work helping implement UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage programs across the globe. 

Frank Proschan is an anthropologist and folklorist who has worked as a curator at the Smithsonian Institution and a research professor at Indiana University. In 1983 he edited a special issue of Semiotica titled “Puppets, Masks, and Performing Objects from Semiotic Perspectives,” the first scholarly study of puppetry and object performance, which included essays by semioticians, puppet historians, anthropologists, and linguists. He has worked for decades with colleagues in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia in collaborative research on languages, folklore, and ethnology, as well as conducting capacity building for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and for museum development. In 2006, he took up a position at UNESCO, assisting in the global implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage until his retirement in 2015. In 2019-20, Proschan was a Fulbright Scholar and visiting lecturer at the Department of Anthropology, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University of Hanoi. 

Forums will be available afterwards on our Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Summer Online Puppet Forum #9: “The Aesthetics of the Puppet” with Steve Tillis on 7/30

Join the Ballard Institute for our ninth Summer 2020 Online Puppet Forum Series event on Facebook Live! These forums, hosted by Ballard Institute director and puppet historian John Bell, will consist of discussions with notable scholars and practitioners around the world about the past, present, and future of puppetry and puppetry studies.  

On July 30 at 4 p.m. ET, in a forum entitled “The Aesthetics of the Puppet,” Steve Tillis, author of the ground-breaking book Toward an Aesthetics of the Puppet , will speak with John Bell about the ways we understand puppetry’s relationships with actors theater, mass media, and other contemporary cultural phenomena​; and how we have developed our understanding of puppetry as a theater art.

Steve Tillis began his career in puppet theatre with Dr. Edison’s Travelling Medicine Show, the “sole purveyors of Dr. Edison’s Electric Elixir, the great melancholia remedy.” Over the years he has worked with numerous puppet companies and found himself singing opera in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and dancing ballet in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. He received his Ph.D. in Dramatic Arts from the University of California, Berkeley, and, in addition to Toward an Aesthetics of the Puppet, is the author of Rethinking Folk Drama and the forthcoming The Challenge of World Theatre History. ​Professor Tillis teaches at Saint Mary’s College of California.

Forums will be available afterwards on our Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Summer Online Puppet Forum #8: “Puppetry, Anthropology, and Animation” with Teri Silvio on 7/23 (pre-recorded)

Join the Ballard Institute for our eighth Summer 2020 Online Puppet Forum Series event on Facebook. These forums, hosted by Ballard Institute director and puppet historian John Bell, will consist of discussions with notable scholars and practitioners around the world about the past, present, and future of puppetry and puppetry studies.  

In a pre-recorded forum released on July 23 at 4 p.m. ET entitled “Puppetry, Anthropology, and Animation” Teri Silvio will speak with John Bell about the intersections of Chinese hand-puppet traditions, Japanese manga and anime, cosplay, religion, fan culture, and Pili Multimedia Company’s globally popular Thunderbolt Fantasy series.

Teri Silvio is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. She has conducted ethnographic research on puppetry, animation, design, fandoms, theater, and gender and sexuality in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, and Southeast Asia. Her most recent book is Puppets, Gods, and Brands: Theorizing the Age of Animation from Taiwan.

Forums will be available afterwards on our Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Summer Online Puppet Forum #7: “A Long and Unexpected Love Affair (with Puppetry)” with Penny Francis on 7/16

Join the Ballard Institute for our sixth Summer 2020 Online Puppet Forum Series event on Facebook Live! These forums, hosted by Ballard Institute director and puppet historian John Bell, will consist of discussions with notable scholars and practitioners around the world about the past, present, and future of puppetry and puppetry studies.  

On July 16 at 4 p.m. ET, in a forum entitled “A Long and Unexpected Love Affair (with Puppetry),” puppeteer and scholar Penny Francis will speak with John Bell about her work creating the Puppet Centre Trust in London, her book Puppetry, a Reader in Theatre Practice; her translation of Henryk Jurkowski’s ground-breaking History of European Puppetry; her puppetry teaching at London’s famed Central School of Speech and Drama; and her long-standing work with the international puppetry organization UNIMA.

Penny Francis is England’s pre-eminent figure in the international world of puppetry. A longtime teacher at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama puppet program, she is also the author, editor, and translator of many acclaimed books and publications about puppetry, and has played an essential role in the work of UNIMA, the world puppetry organization. Queen Elizabeth II decorated her as a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (M.B.E.) for her services to puppetry in 1998.

Forums will be available afterwards on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. 

Summer Online Puppet Forum #6: “Woman Behind the Shadows: My Journey with Puppets and Tradition in Bali and Beyond” with Jennifer Goodlander on 7/9

Join the Ballard Institute for our sixth Summer 2020 Online Puppet Forum Series event on Facebook Live! These forums, hosted by Ballard Institute director and puppet historian John Bell, will consist of discussions with notable scholars and practitioners around the world about the past, present, and future of puppetry and puppetry studies.  

On July 9 at 4 p.m. ET, in a forum entitled “Woman Behind the Shadows: My Journey with Puppets and Tradition in Bali and Beyond,” Professor Jennifer Goodlander of Indiana University will speak with John Bell about her research on traditional and contemporary puppetry in Bali, including the roles of women in the form, and how puppetry in helps define cultural and national identity in Southeast Asia.

Jennifer Goodlander is an Associate Professor at Indiana University in the Department of Comparative Literature, where she teaches classes on Indonesian and global theater, literature, and other arts. Jennifer has published numerous articles and two books: Women in the Shadows: Gender, Puppets, and the Power of Tradition in Bali (Ohio University Press, 2016), and Puppets and Cities: Articulating Identities in Southeast Asia (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018). Her current research looks at transnational Southeast Asian identities as expressed in performance, literature, and art. Jennifer is also the current President for the Association of Asian Performance.

Forums will be available afterwards on our Facebook page and YouTube channel.