File puptcrit/puptcrit.0904, message 359


Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:06:51 -0700
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
From: The Independent Eye <eye-AT-independenteye.org>
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] UNIMA-USA's 40 under 40


>I'm for that!
>Monica (or maybe 60 over 60...)


I second the motion.

I think the issue was excellent, though I very much missed seeing 
more photos of their work.  A half-page photo that has some badly 
exposed puppets, the puppeteer, and a bunch of empty theatre seats 
doesn't tell us much.  Not to pick on that one particularly, but I'd 
just be more interested in these people's work than what they look 
like.  What I'm going to rant about here is no reflection on the 
people profiled.

But this age thing...

Every subculture I've been a part of - theatre, public radio, etc., 
and the funding sources that feed it - is enormously concerned with 
grooming the Next Generation, as if the whole field is about to 
become extinct.  In a way that's ok: there are infinitely more 
youth-oriented resources out there - grants, training, competitions, 
& other modes of recognition - than there were when I would've been 
eligible for'em.  Likewise a necessary concern, in live theatre 
especially, to engage a youth audience.  I've heard any number of 
artistic & managing directors at conferences decry the preponderance 
of geezers & blue-haired ladies (not always in those terms, but with 
that flavor) in their audiences and talk about their experiments in 
developing hip-hop Shakespeare, rock'n'roll Sophocles, etc., not to 
mention the ubiquitous video screens that have bedecked the 
"experimental" theatre for the past thirty years.

Well, as a still-sentient geezer, I've slowly begun to get pissed.  I 
agree totally with the need for bringing new blood into the flow. 
But I also see this, more darkly, in the context of our culture's 
market-driven youth-mania, which in puppetry I guess is worst 
manifest in that category of YouTube videos that aren't just stupid 
but STOOPID - where the positive value is in being juvenile and 
flatulent.  "Youth" as an intrinsic value is no more to be idolized 
than virginity, ignorance, or shrink-wrap.

There's good art by young people and lousy art by young people - no 
news there.  What I'm concerned with... well, lots, but just one 
thought and then I'll stop this and cook dinner.

First, the idea that Youth = Innovation and Innovation = Ultimate 
Value.  Just as often, Youth = Apprentice-level work and Innovation 
often means something they were doing in Europe 70 years ago, only 
digitized.  In fact I think innovation is just dandy, but it's not a 
value in and of itself, nor is it any more likely to come from a 
20-year-old than from a 67-year-old.  Gets down to the fact that I'm 
sick of grant applications that ask you to state, "How is this 
project innovative?"  Better they should ask, "How does it integrate 
the whole gargantuan century-long expansion of your art form's 
expressive vocabulary into something worth an adult's attention?"

End of curmudgeon rant.  Yes, I'd like to see something about the 
artists over 60, whether "emerging" or "emerged," or sinking fast.

Peace & joy-
Conrad B.

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