http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Commodore%20Skahill/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2003-29-2011.mp3
Before we begin, Clarence, the WNPR puppet, would like to address the New Britain puppet thieves.
You probably think an International Puppetry Conference at UConn -- there is one this weekend -- would be full of cute stuff, right?
Let me share some of the presentation topics:
- “Metaphor and Hierarchy in Burmese Puppetry"
- “Stillness and Fracture/Making Space for Disaster—Puppetry & Genocide"
- "What a Piece of Work is Punch: Distortion of Appearance and Palatability of Distorted Behavior in Puppets”
- "Death to Life!: A Phenomenological and Cognitive Look at Performance Perception”
The presenters are from Finland, Brazil, Japan, Algeria.
The topics are even broader in scope than the few I've sampled. Everything we as humans look at -- life, death, sex, science, philosophy -- are also being looked at by puppets.
And although we may think of puppetry and kind of a self-limiting field, the conference suggests the opposite. Puppets can tackle subjects we humans fear.
Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
