Puppetry

Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performance is also known as a puppet production. The script for a puppet production is called a puppet play. Puppeteers use movements from hands and arms to control devices such as rods or strings to move the body, head, limbs, and in some cases the mouth and eyes of the puppet. The puppeteer sometimes speaks in the voice of the character of the puppet, while at other times they perform to a recorded soundtrack.Puppetry is a very ancient art form, thought to have originated about 4000 years ago. Puppets have been used since the earliest times to animate and communicate the ideas and needs of human societies. Some historians claim that they pre-date actors in theatre. There is evidence that they were used in Egypt as early as 2000 BCE when string-operated figures of wood were manipulated to perform the action of kneading bread. Wire controlled, articulated puppets made of clay and ivory have also been found in Egyptian tombs. Hieroglyphs also describe 'walking statues' being used in ancient Egyptian religious dramas. Puppetry was practiced in ancient Greece and the oldest written records of puppetry can be found in the works of Herodotus and Xenophon, dating from the 5th century BCE.Chinese shadow puppet (Beijing style)Chinese stick puppetsHanuman and Ravana in Togalu Gombeyaata, a shadow puppet tradition in the southern part of IndiaSanbaso bunraku puppet, Tonda Puppet Troupe, JapanThe character Osono from the play Hade Sugata Onna MaiginuBurmese puppet theatre with musicians in the foreground (19th-century watercolour)Traditional Indonesian puppets and puppeteerWayang puppet from Bali, IndonesiaPolichinelle caricature, FrancePuppet theater with Gioppino and Brighella, Bergamo ItalyTraditional puppets from Liège, BelgiumEdgar Bergen and his puppet Charlie McCarthyPuppets in the Bread and Puppet Theater Museum in Glover, Vermont, USAMallory Lewis and Lamb ChopLeslie Madeline Fleming and Bleeckie, a character from a series of web videos.From early in the 19th century, puppetry began to inspire artists from the 'high-art' traditions. In 1810, Heinrich von Kleist wrote an essay 'On the Marionette Theatre', admiring the 'lack of self-consciousness' of the puppet. Puppetry developed throughout the 20th century in a variety of ways. Supported by the parallel development of cinema, television and other filmed media it now reaches a larger audience than ever. Another development, starting at the beginning of the century, was the belief that puppet theatre, despite its popular and folk roots, could speak to adult audiences with an adult, and experimental voice, and reinvigorate the high art tradition of actors' theatre.