Corps mécanique et pensée-mouvement : les marionnettes animales de la Handspring Puppet Company
The Handspring Puppet Company is famous for its animal-shaped puppets. Exposed mechanisms, artificial life, animated objects: this paper aims to question the specificity of the medium at the heart of two performances: The chimp project (2000) and War Horse (2007). What does the staging of puppets en...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Centre de Recherche "Texte et Critique de Texte"
2016-07-01
|
| Series: | Sillages Critiques |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/4496 |
| Summary: | The Handspring Puppet Company is famous for its animal-shaped puppets. Exposed mechanisms, artificial life, animated objects: this paper aims to question the specificity of the medium at the heart of two performances: The chimp project (2000) and War Horse (2007). What does the staging of puppets entail regarding the question of porosity between the animal and the human? Discarding any attempt to create automotion, the new conventions in contemporary puppetry imply meaningful interactions between the puppet and the (visible) puppeteer: the contact zone between them opens a space that questions the animality of humans, animal sensitivity and the inertia towards which humans and animals alike are bound. Pushing against Descartes’ concept of the « Animal Machine », the Handspring’s puppets direct our attention towards the micro-movements which constitute the true drama of life, inviting us to redefine thought as movement. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1272-3819 1969-6302 |