Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 things to know about the virtual-museum exhibit Shadows, Strings & Other Things
Families homebound for the holidays can discover more than 230 hand-crafted puppets from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, via the UBC Museum of Anthropology
Photo by Alina Ilyasova
A dollhouse view of Shadows, Strings, and Other Things, in its new virtual form
VANCOUVERITES IN LOCKDOWN this holiday season can now visit an award-winning puppet exhibition without leaving home.
Shadows, Strings & Other Things: The Enchanting Theatre of Puppets was originally staged at the UBC Museum of Anthropology last year. Curated by Dr. Nicola Levell and boasting more than 230 exquisite handmade puppets from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, it went on to win the Canadian Museum Association’s 2020 award for outstanding exhibition of cultural heritage.
Here are five things you need to know before your digital experience of the exhibit, spread out over five theatrical stages.
Find the virtual show, which also includes videos, an image archive, booklets, and podcasts, here. Scroll to the bottom for a video preview.
The largest puppet in the exhibit is the 12-foot Coast Salish figure named Meh, created by the Coastal Wolf Pack and Mortal Coil. It takes five puppeteers to move the head and four limbs of Meh, who stands at the entrance of the exhibition to welcome visitors. His name means “Papa” in the Hən̓q̓əmin̓əm language.
Vancouver artist Amanda Strong’s haunting stop-motion animation Four Faces of the Moon screens as part of the virtual exhibit. Made in 2016 for CBC Short Docs, the film is autobiographical, following a photographer on a dreamlike journey back and forth through time that connects with her Cree, Metis, and Anishnaabe ancestors and history. It brings her into contact with the mass slaughter of buffalo, the residential-school system, and colonial land battles. The scale of the 2016 project was enormous; the exhibit includes Skull Mountain, the pile of 1,000 handmade bison and buffalo skulls that serves as one of the set pieces.
The show offers a rare close look at Vietnamese water puppets, whose history goes back to the 11th century when flooded rice paddies would turn into stages. Nowadays. the art form is performed mostly indoors in cities, using the same old rod mechanism. Phoenixes, dragons, ladies, farmers, and other characters splash around in videos here, but you can also take a closeup look at the magic that puppeteers use to operate them.
Amid the gorgeous selection of shadow puppets from Indonesia, look for Java’s Kalamarica. The sweet-looking deer is actually the evil henchman to the 10-headed demon king Rahwana (who’s a sight unto himself).
In your behind-the-scenes look at the Punch and Judy handpuppets from the U.K., you’ll find out that Mr. Punch’s infamously harsh and raspy voice is created by a “swazzle” or “Swatchel”. The device, made of two strips of metal bound around a cotton tape reed. It’s held in the mouth by the “professor”—the name traditionally used for the puppeteer.
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