File puptcrit/puptcrit.0706, message 151


Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:18:09 -0400
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
From: MIRJANA HEATH <miryana-AT-shaw.ca>
Subject: [Puptcrit] Apathy in puppetry organizations


I guess every region has its own reasons for a certain lack of 
interest in puppetry organizations. Vancouver is another specific 
situation.

The Vancouver Guild of Puppetry (chapter of PoF) has been in 
existence for 45 years, and 95% of the current members are the same 
people who started it 45 years ago. When I joined the Guild, I found 
myself surrounded with members who, for the most part, did not 
actively pursue puppetry, but got together regularly for pot lucks 
and social activities. They formed a tight community based on 
friendships they've build, not as much on puppetry activities, and 
that turned off all the new, potential members. Younger people would 
show up once, see there is not much puppetry going on (particularly 
not much of the "modern style" puppetry, whatever that may mean), and 
they would leave never to return.

That was 3 years ago when I thought there are no puppeteers left in 
Vancouver Lower Mainland.

Then I started running into them, one at the time, only to learn 
there are many people interested in puppetry, they just have a 
different way of getting together. Life happens on-line these days, 
and having meetings and going over the notes and voting on issues 
does not seem to be the way younger artists want to spend their time. 
They seem to be more interested in learning as much as possible about 
puppetry, discussing these issues on-line, and perhaps every now and 
then having a project where they can gather in some "mini festival" 
form .

Lately we?ve been having a slight increase in activities, thanks to 
some of the new volunteers. Workshops seem to be very popular, as I 
mentioned, since there are no other sources of information and 
hands-on training in Vancouver, so there are more plans to bring 
lecturers and instructors who can offer interesting topics.

Overall, in Vancouver at least, there seems to be a generational gap 
that caused this "demise" of puppetry. Older generations got too old 
to continue, and younger ones did not get organized yet, not to 
mention that the puppetry styles they prefer are significantly 
different, and that means of communication and forms of organizing 
are also very different for each generation (as an editor of the 
newsletter, I face that every issue, since older members want a hard 
copy mailed to them, with only few who have and read their e-mails 
regularly).

The plans are to improve Guild's web site and offer more interactive 
pages for discussions and information on local level (no one knows 
what's going on in town!), and then to get workshops going on more 
continuous bases. A little survey wouldn?t heart to find out what 
topics would be most interesting, so that could be the next step.

Times are changing and with them must our means of communicating, 
organizing and cooperating.







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