File puptcrit/puptcrit.0808, message 155


Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:22:33 -0300
From: "Deborah Hunt" <maskhunt-AT-gmail.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Authoritarian Governments-China, Cuba, USSR,


Alan,
Thank you for you words. Would you give me permission to transalte into
Spanish and distribute to puppeteers here in Puerto Rico.
highest regards,
Deborah


On 8/11/08, Alan Cook <alangregorycook-AT-msn.com> wrote:
>
> Authoritarian governments have more in common than differences,
> although they end up competing for power at times. Joe Stalin was
> first an ally of Hitler, then an opponent.  Authoritarian religions
> echo goverment politics---still it is all about power first and
> foremost---at the expense of the individual thinker or artist. Right
> or wrong, it is about power. "My country, right or wrong" is about
> power.  Otherwise, without the desire for complete power, there would
> have been no Inquisition in Europe & Mexico, no witch-burning in
> Salem, Massachusetts.
>
> With 5,000 years of Chinese history, there have been many
> authoritarian governments there--more than once, there were absurd
> (and enforced) rules preventing individual families from owning
> kitchen knives---they had to share a knife with 4 or 5 other
> families. That's one way to stay in power.
>
> For two long, China was (as Napolean put it) "a Sleeping Giant". The
> Giant has awakened and is in process of shaking off drowsiness  Where
> it goes next remains to be seen. But the likelihood of breaking into
> pieces again does not seem likely, and the Opening Ceremony of the
> Beijing Olympics confirms that.
>
> In South America, oligarchs were entwined with reactionary church
> hierarchy. Not the first or last time religion has been abused to
> serve ignoble purposes, and this led to "liberation theology" which
> was influenced by Karl Marx and Soviet Communism. Early Christianity
> had aspects of communism, albeit an idealistic version. Jamestown,
> Virginia practiced shared wealth---each according to one's means.
> Same ideal.
>
> Soviet and Chinese Communism can be viewed as authoritarian,
> opportunistic religious heresies---an irony in view of their official
> "atheisms". But Stalin & Mao were treated as gods, their embalmed
> bodies were placed in the equivalent of  temples, and both assumed
> divine rights during their regimes and obliterated competitors. They
> were the "true religions" and all others were the equivalent of
> devil's work.  In the 1960s, behind the Iron Curtain of Sovietdom,
> one could see individual death notices pasted on poles and walls,
> with printed black mourning borders, topped either by a cross, or in
> the case of party members, topped with a hammer & sickle. Communism
> usurped religious traditions for its own purpose. Even the word
> "spiritual" appeared in Soviet art books.
>
> Hitler forbade the continuance of modern art. Perhaps some
> puptcritters are old enough to have seen exhibitions duplicating Nazi
> gallery shows of modern "DEGENERATE ART". Such an exhibit was shown
> at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and one of the points made
> was that Hitler demeaned art which we regard as modern.MASTERPIECES.
>
> When the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tzars, there was an explosion of
> modern art,  in graphics, posters, music,  theater (including
> puppetry by Efimov & Efimova's rod puppets.) but in time Stalin
> reined in his country's artists.
>
> In Spain, Lorca, who wrote puppet plays, was politically assasinated.
>
> In Los Angeles (late 1940s/early 1950s) our City Council got equally
> absurd, complaining about a seascape watercolor during the Joseph
> McCarthy hysteria  ---a picture of a sailboat was attacked as
> "communist" because it allegedly had a hammer & sickle at the top of
> a sail.. I think the artist was Rex Brandt. The "sickle" was actually
> a standard marking found on all sailboats.. Bad politicians of every
> stripe are capable of demogoguery. And the arts are often the victim.
>
> I think that was one point Charles Taylor was making---that the US is
> hardly in a superior moral position. In the past 8 years our
> Administration has been unyeildly arrogant, has divided our
> citizenry, played hardball politics domestically (made easier by
> wimpy Democrats), began an ill-advised Iraq war based on lies and
> deceptiions---it is all on record, and we are now in debt having
> squandered our budget surplus. We are not better off than 8 years
> ago, and anyone who thinks that this does not affect PUPPETRY or the
> other arts is asleep.
> The offenses of the Bush-Cheneys are all legally impeachable (moreso
> than the Monica mess was) but there are no signs that justice will be
> served.
>
> The Orange County Performing Arts Center as reported last week, found
> their AAA-rated construction Insurance policy to be essentially
> worthless This, a result of our faltering economy and real estate
> foreclosures.. Puppets have performed at the O.C. Performing Arts
> Center (Salzburg Marionettes & others)..
>
> Until we mend our own fences, how can we complain about our neighbors'
> fences?
>
> The question has been raised---what are puppeteers to do under an
> authoritarian regime?
>
> Well, there were underground puppet shows in Czechoslovakia durng
> Nazi & Soviet occupation, in Indonesia there have been underground
> Chinese puppet shows (a friend of mine attended one in recent years),
> and in the USA we have "Puppet Slams" which might have subversive
> qualities.
>
> When I was in Bucharest in 1965, interviewed for the daily UNIMA
> Puppetry Festival's daily news sheet handed out to all participants,
> I was asked "what was the purpose of the puppeteer?'
>
> My answer was "To be subversive in the eyes of whatever government
> the puppeteer lived under". I am afraid that still holds true and may
> always hold true, at least in the foreseeable future.
>
> Since Rumania was under the Soviet heel then, my words were first
> translated into Rumanian, French, Russian and probably German, and
> ultimately back into English--the daily news sheets appeared in
> multiple language versions. In the final English version my statement
> was totally mistranslated into meaningless garble, not unlike much
> current "artspeak", another way to avoid honesty in cultural
> communicatiion.
>
> Authoritarian governments fear truth in any form. But many puppeteers
> and other artists have found ways to communicate in spite of
> restrictions. It can be along the lines of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, Harry
> Potter stories, fairy tales or Punch & Judy, or in the case of the
> fall of the Soviet Bloc through youth culture of Coca Cola, Levis &
> Rock & Roll. Charlie Chaplin as Little Tramp (everyman) did it in
> silent film.
>
> In 1965, puppeteers from the Soviet Bloc told me they envied our
> right to express ourselves through puppetry. I told them we envied
> them that they got regular paychecks. We shared in common that the
> life of a puppeteer had built-in problems.
>
> While a lot of Communist-supported shows were propaganda on behalf of
> the State, there were also cultural statements based on folk art
> traditions of costume and art styles which helped keep hopes alive.
>
> When a puppeteer is under authoritarian regmes, the job is to see
> just how to work around restrictions. It has been done many times
> before.
>
> A good example was The Athens Puppet Theatre, formed by artists in
> Greece under brutal Nazii occupation. They existed simply to provide
> something for Greek children, since the usual trappings of childhood
> did not exist at that time. Tales of the Old Man of the Woods, or
> little mice
> with puppets from papier mache, and a grayish color pallette and
> recycled fabrics, made a simple, important statement. Their culture
> was under oppression but was still alive. The very magic & heart of
> puppetry is the illusiion of life.
>
> The Athens Puppet Theatre celebrated a 25th anniversary, and I don't
> know when they ceased operations nor do I know if their puppets
> survive today (I have 2 mice and the Old Man of the Woods) but they
> were  there when the world really needed them. That is success in my
> book.
>
> ALAN COOK
>
>
>
> of the body of the reply.
> _______________________________________________
> List address: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
> Admin interface: http://lists.puptcrit.org/mailman/listinfo/puptcrit
> Archives: http://www.driftline.org
>



-- 
Deborah Hunt
MASKHUNT
www.myspace.com/maskhunt
_______________________________________________
List address: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Admin interface: http://lists.puptcrit.org/mailman/listinfo/puptcrit
Archives: http://www.driftline.org

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005