File puptcrit/puptcrit.0808, message 157


From: "Alan Cook" <alangregorycook-AT-msn.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:21:13 GMT
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Authoritarian Governments-China, Cuba, USSR,


Deborah--

You are welcome to translate my posting into Spanish.

ALAN


-----Original Message-----
From: Deborah Hunt
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 6:22 PM
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Authoritarian Governments-China, Cuba, USSR, Latin American Oligarchies, Nazi Germany, Mussolii's Italy etc.

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.
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>



-- 
Deborah Hunt
MASKHUNT
www.myspace.com/maskhunt
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