ASIA-PACIFIC NEWS
June 18th, 2004:
Greg Methe attended the UNESCO –APPAN Symposium and Festival in Bangkok, 6-9 June. The topic:
Puppets - Facing the Interior Face - Memory, Recovery and Transposition: The Asian Experience.
I regret not being able to attend as it sounded like a fantastic event. We hope to hear more of the conference when Greg returns, but in brief - the conference was a combined symposium and series of discussions, and included workshops and masterclasses. The event worked towards an innovative experiment of cross-cultural exchange where a final presentation was devised, drawing on all of the information exchanged during the week, and to be performed in front of an audience.
The conference was to commence with a presentation by invited speakers from the seven participating East Asian countries, plus India and Australia, as to the present situation and status of puppetry in their respective countries. What followed was a swap-fest with information exchange on all matters of puppetry performance: styles, techniques, traditions, narration, puppet manipulation, choreography.
Masterclasses were scheduled, for example, Thai puppetry masters from the Joe Louis Theater and demonstrations such as the making of traditional Kathputli, string puppets.
On June 8 a session was scheduled for analytical and scholarly discussion of several topics:
Primitive Man: Formation and Transformation of Puppets, and Puppets as a Tool for Power over the Self and the World .
Finally, there was to be a session on the UNESCO Proclamation of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Living Human Treasure System and the new UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage. This included a Problem Identification and Needs Assessment which was to outline the reasons for frailty of some puppet traditions and a discussion that was to cover the best ways in which puppetry can be helped to survive and grow.I can’t wait to hear more about this.
We can also look forward to hearing of Andrew Hansen’s adventures in Delhi in the next issue of the Australian Puppeteer Magazine.
And I look forward to working with all of you, especially towards having a strong Asia-Pacific presence in the International Festival and Congress in Perth 2008.
-- Jennie Pfeiffer
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