Chicago Sun-Times: Hamid Rahmanian is waging a war — one he started about 16 years ago.
His army: hundreds of shadow puppets, many brandishing shadow spears, bows and arrows, swords.
His battle strategy is plucked from the pages of “Shahnameh,” a 1,000-year-old, 55,000-verse epic poem that has, he says, “engulfed” his life. For Rahmanian, the ancient text, written in Persian, has become a way to fight the stark stereotypes of Iran so often seen in the West.
5 comments:
I thought that this article was really interesting. I feel like people always forget that puppetry is a form of theatre. You can get so incredibly creative with it and I think that there are so many ways for the design and production aspect to work together more directly with performers. I feel like the designers of the puppets would influence so much more about the character's personality and physical traits than they would normally. Also, the way that puppets are built should work well for an actor to manipulate on stage so it seems that they are almost one. There are also so many different types of puppets to choose from. The ones that immediately come to mind are sock puppets and other types of hand puppets. However, in so many different cultures, there are many different ones. When I was in first or second grade, I remember learning about Chinese shadow puppets. We made our own out of paper and popsicle sticks, but it was a really cool experience.
I love puppets. I think that they are such a cool performative art form. They are related to humans in the way that they are man-made as well as controlled by a person, something that an artist can control. Puppets also have been around for so long, as the article describes. One summer, when I worked at a sculpture garden, there was a puppet company that came in called ‘The Pollinators’ I got a chance to be a puppeteer and there is truly a beautiful craft to controlling these puppets. They are almost their person, one that a human simply holds, they can speak for themselves, we just have to pull a lever or tug a string. The job of the pollinators was to educate people about the importance of insects and bees in the ecosystem. Puppets are something that seems relatable to people, as well as a beautiful piece of art. So thank you to the ancient cultures that originated the art of puppet making.
I think that puppetry is one of the most underrated forms of live entertainment. It has a certain type of charm and beauty that does not really exist in other forms of theater. When I was a kid, there was a puppet theater a few minutes away from me that I would often go to with my mom and see almost every show there. While these were more simplistic shows made for children, I still look back on them very fondly and distinctly remember how fascinated I was with them. Puppetry is such an interesting art form because it often doesn't use human actors and instead solves the issue of having characters in a variety of ways. Puppetry is such an old art form, and I find it incredible how it has managed to progress technologically over the years, but still manages to keep much of what it originally had. I wish it was more common today because I think it is such a great art form.
I didn’t realize Chicago had a puppet festival - that’s awesome! And the fact that Rahmanian is working with an 1000 year old epic is so impressive, it would be incredible to see. The photos of his puppets look absolutely gorgeous. Puppets are so fascinating, and to act with a puppet must be so challenging as you are putting the focus away from yourself and are animating a creation to become the storyteller, or a series of shadows to line up a plot, and countless other opportunities. Like many things, puppetry has it’s constraints and abilities, but they seem so broad that you really can be so creative within the field. And the craftsmanship of puppetry is incredible, and so broad, depending on the type of puppet you create. In terms of the production that Rahmanian is creating, lighting is clearly incredibly important to enhance the silhouettes of the creations, and so better tell the story. I wonder how he and possible other puppeteers collaborated with the lighting designer, to best formulate a design that would uniquely assist and add to the the story.
Most of the freshman class knows that I struggle with puppets; It’s one of those childhood fears I can’t seem to shake. That being said, this article changed my perspective on what puppetry is and can be. The specific styles existing in Rahmanian’s designs are so detailed and ornate; I find it wildly impressive. One quote that stood out to me from this article was, “These people are losing their lives and livelihood. ... No one is going to come to help me make my puppet show.” I found it so illuminating to how art exists in our society right now. Entertainment, and subsequently art, can be viewed as frivolous. How as a “frivolous” industry can we exist when such tragedy exists in the world? Are we obliged to create “meaningful” art that connects to this world? Or, can our work simply exist as entertainment and distraction? I don’t have these answers, however, wish I had an opportunity to reason with this difficult balance more thoroughly.
Post a Comment