Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 14:35:09 -0700
From: Steve Axtell <steve-AT-axtell.com>
Subject: Re: didactic puppetry


>-malgosia wrote

>So here is how I see it: there is a distinction made here between the
>art of puppetry and the message that the performance is meant to convey.
>The message is perceived as a difficult or unpleasant one, and puppetry 
>is used to convey it more pleasingly and entertainingly.  Now to me, this
>seems to de-value both the message and the art.  The message is not perceived
>to have enough attraction in and of itself to not require the outside help
>of an unrelated artform, as "packaging".  The art, which is what grabs the
>audience's attention, is just a means towards something else, less pleasant;
>it serves as a lure or as suger-coating on an otherwise bitter pill.  
>BTW, my discomfort does not have to do specifically with Christian puppetry;
>I have the same problem when people see it as necessary to use "gimmicks"
>in teaching math, for instance.  If math is beautiful (as I think it is),
>why does one need gimmicks?  If it is not, why teach it?  If the gimmicks
>are "art", what statement is made about both art and math by using art
>as a set of gimmicks to disguise the fact that one is really teaching math?




I was never very good at math in fact I struggled greatly with it mostly
getting D's.  I would have given anything to have had a creative teacher
slip on a puppet and make the important concepts of math approachable and
fun - so that I could understand it.  How could that devalue anything?
What good is MATH if you don't understand it?  It's easy for me to see the
value of Sesame Street for improving pre-school learning, or the use of
puppetry to communicate the good stuff in the Bible.  That's not sugar
coating a bitter pill, that's helping build value in people.  But using the
"packaging" of a cool cartoon of a camel to sell cigarettes to children
really gets my goat!



Ax....but is it ART?








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