{"id":947,"date":"2019-06-15T07:10:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-15T07:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/?p=947"},"modified":"2023-03-19T09:55:19","modified_gmt":"2023-03-19T09:55:19","slug":"dance-and-puppet-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/dance-and-puppet-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Dance and Puppet Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Margareta S\u00f6renson<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Abstract:<\/strong> The article, which is also the introduction of a forthcoming book to be published in English and Swedish,[1]<\/sup><\/a> focuses on the close relation between puppetry and dance. It shows how these two artistic genres have developed from antiquity to the present and calls attention to their engaging intersections throughout their long history, referring also to the Commedia dell\u2019 Arte tradition as one such point of intersection. A large part of the article is devoted to the study of the Marionette Theatre in Stockholm, its history, development and unique aesthetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keywords:<\/strong> Mats Ek, Michail Fokin, Gordon Craig, Oskar Schlemmer, Commedia dell\u2019 Arte, E.T.A Hoffman, Mary Shelley, Ballets Russes, Ballets Su\u00e9dois<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Since the year 2000,\nthe Marionetteatern in Stockholm, Sweden (hence: MT), has oriented itself in\nthe same direction as theatre art, in general, and puppet theatre, in\nparticular; namely, toward more and more pronounced mixed genres. Three\nproductions for adults, August Strindberg\u2019s A Dream Play<\/em> (2007), Fr\u00f6ding<\/em>\nthe Love Buyer<\/em> (or Fr\u00f6ding<\/em> the Love Buyer<\/em>) (2008) and The\nGirls<\/em> (2013) made alloys of text and image\/\/aural and visual theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT\u2019s new stage in the\nStockholm House of Culture and City Theatre was inaugurated in 2014, with a\nproduction directed and conceived by a choreographer: The Tightrope Walkers<\/em>\nby Bernhard Cauchard. There, beautifully articulated puppets danced with their\nrespective human partners, whom they were, at the same time, portraying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paper <\/em>(Papper<\/em>), direction-choreography Bernard Cauchard, Marionetteatern, 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cauchard continued\nwith Paper<\/em> (2016), a break from\nregular puppet theatre, in that the figures were made of brown butcher paper\nwhich was folded, mushed, rumpled and shaped by the four female players\u2014dancing,\nmoving. In the production You and Me<\/em>, Cauchard himself danced with a\nhuman-size puppet. The same year as Paper<\/em>\nanother choreographer, Claire Parsons, created the choreography for puppets,\nobjects, one New Circus artist and one dancer in Grass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You and me<\/em> (Du och jag<\/em>) 2018, Marionetteatern. Choreography Bernard Cauchard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Claire Parsons was\ninvited to create a work for MT after having been noted for a series of\nchoreographies for children. In several works, she had been inspired by\npictorial artists like Pablo Picasso and Robert Rauschenberg, which probably\nshortened the distance from dance to rhythmic and visual puppet theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Da-da-da<\/em>, Marionetteatern, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But throughout MT\u2019s\n60-year existence and its repertoire runs a red thread, perhaps not exactly of\ndance but definitely of rhythm and\nmovement. Puppet theatre has a dancing quality and Mats Ek\u2019s first work, Kagekiyo <\/em>(1966), created during a couple\nof years at MT, was inspired by Japanese Noh theatre and performed by himself\nand the dancer Karin Thulin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following year,\nhe created a production of Georg B\u00fcchner\u2019s Woyzeck<\/em>,\nin which both he and his brother, later Royal Court\nDancer Niklas Ek, danced. Retitled The\nKalfaktor<\/em>, Woyzeck<\/em>,in 1978, became the first choreography created by Mats Ek for the Cullberg\nBallet. No named choreographer appears at MT after that until the twenty-first\ncentury, although the experiments with Bunraku-inspired puppet theatre in Antigone<\/em> (1977) was such a challenge in\nits tightly orchestrated work for the puppet players that one can actually\nspeak of choreography rather than theatrical direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nOrigin of Everything<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Dance and puppet\ntheatre are old dance partners, who have taken a turn together in most cultures\nand traditions. In the long history of scenic art, everything begins with feet\nstomping, hands clapping and drummed rhythms, music and dance\u2014and figurines. Since what we call \u201cdance\u201d and \u201ctheatre\u201d\nultimately harkens back to rites and ceremonies associated with religious\nbeliefs, we find performing puppets\u2014many of them dancing puppets\u2014in the oldest\ntraces of human culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is obvious that\ndance and puppets alternate in the repertoire of the Greek mimes. That puppets\nalso danced as a part of the shows offered by the entertainers of antiquity can\nbe deduced from preserved terracotta figurines: small figures with a thread or\nmetal rod in their head and moveable arms and sometimes even movable legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fertility and\nsexuality are among the oldest themes of puppet theatre. A couple dancing or a\ncouple in a loving embrace can be found in several early cultures, like the\nYoruba in Africa. It is believed that, to them, puppets having intercourse\nreplaced a human couple embracing in public to invoke the Gods to grant good\nharvest or some other favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a simple type of entertainment,\nit is also relatively easy to let puppets dance with no particular call for the\nfinely articulated gestures and facial expressions demanded by spoken drama. In\nstreet theatre or tourist shows in Rajasthan, India, puppets dance alone or in\na group. A thread in a puppet\u2019s head and one thread in each hip, strategically\nanchored, make the puppet do \u201cIndian dancing,\u201d that is, move their torso in\ncharacteristic \u201csexy\u201d gyrations. These dancing puppets can, in addition, be\noperated by one single human puppeteer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The connection\nbetween dance and puppets can be observed at several levels, historically and\nglobally. Often, there is a direct connection, where the same or similar dance\nis executed by puppets or dancers, depending on circumstances. The connection\ncan also be indirect, where puppet players try to copy or parody the dancers.\nAnd erotic themes can of course be more exaggerated when using puppets. They\nare, after all, only puppets!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aesthetics of\npuppets and figures has also inspired dance and plays with human bodies.\nBunraku, the Japanese almost hyper-realistic puppet theatre, provided the\nfoundation for the popular Kabuki, which has elaborated on the restrained\nmovement pattern of the puppets with the addition of dance, acrobatics,\nstartling showstoppers and celebrity stars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Puppet theatre\ndemands rhythmic execution and great plastic ability on the part of the puppet\nhandler; this is a fact no matter which puppet theatre technique you speak of.\nIn Bunraku, there are usually three\npuppet handlers who jointly hold and move a finely articulated puppet, and they\nmust be so well coordinated that one might as well speak of them being jointly\nchoreographed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Indian\nshadow plays one can see from behind the white cotton fabric of the \u201cscreen,\u201d\nhow the players tuck up their long white hip cloths into shorts of a kind,\nenabling them to freely \u201cdance\u201d their big shadow play figures with good effect\nagainst the white screen. Thus, the more graceful South East Asian puppets of\nIndonesia or Thailand resemble dancers, and, perhaps, their movement patterns\nhave in turn influenced dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business\nand Entertainment<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Puppet players have most\noften worked alone or in small travelling, itinerant family entities.\nMarionettes \u00e0 la planchette<\/em> (jigging\npuppets), dating back at least to the Middle Ages, can still be seen sometimes.\nAnd the principle is the same as for the neurospasto\n<\/em>of Antiquity, puppets moved by twitching on strings. The player sits on a\nstool with one foot on a board in which a vertical thin pin is fixed. That is\nwhere the puppets\u2019 one thread is attached, the other one is attached to the\nplayer\u2019s knee\u2014the puppet \u201cdances\u201d when the thread is twitched. The puppet\nplayer\u2019s arms are free to play the fiddle or some other musical instrument. \u201cJig\ndolls,\u201d used in England, the American Colonies and, later, the U.S., in the eighteenth\nand nineteenth centuries, were puppets \u201cstanding\u201d on a wooden board being\nwiggled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Langeleik, the Norwegian long, narrow 8-string instrument. Photo: Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An itinerant female\njuggler, Berit of Pynte, was active in nineteenth-century Norway. She played\nthe langeleik<\/em>, the Norwegian long,\nnarrow 8-string droned zither and had\npuppets in a frame connected to her fingers by horsehair strings. The frame was\nset up in front of the musical instrument on a table, and when she\ntwitched\/tugged the strings, the puppets \u201cdanced\u201d to her songs and music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inclined to be\npractically oriented and financially squeezed, theatre artists and dancers have\npragmatically combined human actors with puppets. In the Commedia dell\u2019 Arte\ntradition, a company would often work with double teams, adjusting to existing\nconditions, which could vary dramatically from street shows to command\nperformances at royal or ducal courts. Commedia, largely mimed, was a kind of\ndance theatre with elements of added acrobatics and juggling. The main\ncharacters\u2014Harlequin, Polcinella, Pantalone and Colombine\u2014were puppets, initially\nstring puppets (marionettes). In the nineteenth century, hand puppets became more\ncommon, and, perhaps, dance is not the best event\/activity for hand puppets.\nThe characters of Commedia, however, were often pleased to take a turn in the\nworld of dance, and the \u201cHarlequinades\u201d of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth\ncenturies developed into a whole new genre of brief ballets playing variations\non the scenarios of Commedia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Norwegian lady, Berit of Pynte, who played langeleik and showed puppets. Photo: K.Knudsen, Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Romantics\u2019\ninterest in nature mysticism and in the duality and spiritual longing of man\nalso led to the theme of a mechanized human being and the idea that one might\nbe able to construct a perfect man-made being; or that a mechanically\nproduced\/created human figure might turn out to be alive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We recognize toys who\ncome alive at night, most likely on Christmas Night, from E. T. A. Hoffman\u2019s\ntale The Nutcracker<\/em> and the Rat King<\/em>\u2014a well-loved Christmas ballet. Authors\nlike Mary Shelley and her Dr.\nFrankenstein<\/em> with his monster, or\nSwedish Carl Jonas Love Almqvist with his \u201cmannequin\u201d in The Queen\u2019s Tiara<\/em>\nare examples of man-made creatures, as is Coppelia<\/em>,\nbased on two short stories by that same horror-loving Romantic Hoffman\n(1776-1822). In Coppelia,<\/em> Dr.\nCoppelius has constructed a doll, so beautiful and lovely that young Franz, who\nis about to marry his fianc\u00e9e, hesitates and falls for Coppelia instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modernism<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By the time of Modernism\u2019s\nbreakthrough, the fascination with the borderland between mechanical and human\nbeings has perhaps abated. It is rather images that fascinate and enthrall when\nDiaghilev\u2019s company, Ballets Russes, in the 1910s, and Rolf De Mar\u00e9\u2019s Ballets\nSu\u00e9dois (Swedish Ballet), in the 1920s, elaborate on the dancers\u2019 bodies and\nremodel them into dancing, almost doll-like, figures. As choreographed by Fokin,\nfor Ballets Russes, the theatre doll Petroushka, the Russian version of\nPulcinella-Polichinelle-Kasper, is a living tragicomical figure. In a colorful\nmarketplace, a toy theatre director sets up his stage and Petroushka, Columbine\nand The Moor\u2014an African character\u2014begin by dancing jerkily, like puppets, but\nthen come alive as real human beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Swedish Ballet\ndressed its dancers in puffy body masks in Les\nMari\u00e9s de la Tour Eiffel<\/em> and recreated them as Africa-inspired figures in La Cr\u00e9ation du Monde<\/em>. The dancers, we\nare told, hated being reduced to sculptural shapes and hidden in costumes\nmaking them ugly and clumsy. Theoretically, the idea of a marionette as the\nideal actor on stage was developed by scene\ndesigner and theatre artist Gordon Craig, long the partner of Isadora\nDuncan and the father of two of her children. Most of Craig\u2019s ideas became\nlittle more than thought experiments, inspiration for the modernists of scenic art;\nfor instance, the idea of the \n\u201c\u00dcber-Marionette,\u201d that is, an actor or dancer free from any personal\nfeelings and desires influencing and shaping his\/her character, which is\nsupposed to be no more than a small part of a Gesamtkunstwerk.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lindansarna<\/em>. The Tight Rope Dancers. Marionetteatern 2014,
choreography Bernard Cauchard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The most extreme\nreshaper of the human body, however, was probably the German Bauhaus architect\nOscar Schlemmer, who made the dancers into near-geometric shapes in his Triadic\nBallet. He designed a stage which was completely flexible and in keeping with\nthe work of theatre art that was to be performed there. The costumes for his\nTriadic Ballet were in glowing colors and transformed the dancers to a kind of\ngeometric puppets with conical skirts and cubic heads. To develop the dance\nitself, that is, any human movement, was\ndifficult with such \u201cbodies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video\n1<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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