Description
Book SynopsisThis study analyses the history of puppet, mask, and performing object theatre in the United States over the past 150 years to understand how a peculiarly American mixture of global cultures, commercial theatre, modern-art idealism, and mechanical innovation reinvented the ancient art of puppetry.
Trade Review'In American Puppet Modernism, Bell presents a wide-ranging history of puppets and performing objects within a US socio-political context, contributing new insight into, and detailed analysis of, their roles in US society and theatre history. He simultaneously investigates and re-thinks the role of material objects on stage and in popular culture.' - Alissa Mello, Platform
Table of ContentsIntroductions The Sioux War Panorama and American Mythic History Masks and Shalako Puppets: Anthropology meets Indigenous Mask and Puppet Theater The Little Theater Movement and the Birth of the American Puppeteer Jane Heap and the International Theater Exhibition of 1926 Puppets and Propaganda Identity: Gertrude Stein's Puppet Show From Sorcery to Science: Remo Bufano and the 1939 World's Fair American Puppets and Television Kustom Kulture and Detroit Industrials: Cars as Performing Objects Landscape and Teeth Masks ACT-UP and the Puppetista Movement: Reinventing Activist Performance as Object Theater Mass Media and Motion Capture
