Schroeder Cherry And His Puppets: Playing With Puppets, From Childhood To Adulthood,
2019
University of Connecticut
Schroeder Cherry And His Puppets: Playing With Puppets, From Childhood To Adulthood, Schroeder Cherry
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
Schroeder Cherry relates his path into puppetry, from childhood television shows to his exposure to European puppetry in Switzerland; and later an apprenticeship with Chicago puppeteer Gary Jones. After earning a master’s degree in museum education at George Washington University, Cherry began developing puppet performances for the Smithsonian Institution and other museums. Travels in Africa furthered his appreciation of that continent’s puppetry, and influenced his creation of such shows as How the Sun Came to the Sky. Cherry has developed an array of rod-puppet characters (including DiAndre, Ms. Lily, and Tevin) which he incorporates into museum performances and such …
Storytelling And Puppetry,
2019
University of Connecticut
Storytelling And Puppetry, Susan Fulcher
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
Librarian Susan Fulcher recounts the creation of a storytelling with puppets program she developed with puppeteer Dave Herzog, in which kids create their own puppet characters to be incorporated into existing stories such as Stone Soup.
Teeth,
2019
University of Connecticut
Teeth, Tau Bennett
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
Brooklyn-based puppeteer Tau Bennett’s shooting script for a television puppet comedy employs dark humor and surreal slapstick to tell the story of a man whose offhand wish to lose his “pesky teeth” becomes unfortunately true, thanks to larger-than-life forces, two bumbling hoodlums, and a boss looking for teeth.
Living Objects: Introduction,
2019
University of Connecticut
Living Objects: Introduction, Paulette Richards
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
In her introduction to this collection of Living Objects: African American Puppetry online texts, co-curator Paulette Richards gives an overview of “the power of performing objects to disrupt dehumanizing views of blackness,” and the continuing history of African American object performance in relation to other aspects of popular culture and writing, despite the suppression of African figurative sculpture and object performance, and the persistence of racist stereotypes born of blackface minstrelsy. Relating W. E. B. DuBois’s sense of African American “double consciousness” to the inherent “double vision” of puppet and object performance, Richards proposes a “distinct lineage of African American …
Alma W. Thomas: “The Marionette Show As A Correlating Activity In The Public Schools”,
2019
University of Connecticut
Alma W. Thomas: “The Marionette Show As A Correlating Activity In The Public Schools”, Jonathan Frederick Walz
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
The wider world primarily knows Alma W. Thomas as an African American visual artist who, despite the challenges of race, gender, and age, produced a coherent body of brightly colored nature-based abstractions that made her world famous in the late 1970s. What remains virtually unknown, however, is the artist’s involvement with puppet theater and related professional activities. During the summers of 1925, 1930, and 1934, Thomas studied at Columbia University’s Teachers College, where she earned an M.A. in arts education; post-graduate coursework with acknowledged marionette expert Tony Sarg followed. The pedagogical theories of John Dewey, who taught at Columbia 1905–1930, …
“It’S Not Easy Bein’ Green”: Greenface And The Jazzy Frog Trope,
2019
University of Connecticut
“It’S Not Easy Bein’ Green”: Greenface And The Jazzy Frog Trope, Paulette Richards
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
One element of blackface minstrelsy was the representation of Black people as swamp characters, especially frogs. In her examination of the development of the “jazzy frog” as a transposition of greenface onto blackface, Richards traces the growth of the trope in popular film and cartoons of the early 20th century. She then considers Jim Henson’s creation of the popular puppet character Kermit as a variation on this trope, but with a different purpose: to represent Henson’s “vision of tolerance for difference and creative collaboration.” The “re-humanization” of the jazzy frog includes the 1967 hit song “I’m in Love with a …
Wear The Story Like A Jacket: Akbar Imhotep,
2019
University of Connecticut
Wear The Story Like A Jacket: Akbar Imhotep, Paulette Richards
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
This profile of Akbar Imhotep’s work as a puppeteer and storyteller in Atlanta in the late 20th century describes his connections to the Center for Puppetry Arts, the folk-art roots of his approach to puppetry, the unique puppet stage he made from old suitcases, and the process he uses to prepare for performances.
Shape-Shifter,
2019
University of Connecticut
Shape-Shifter, Tarish Pipkins
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
Tarish Pipkins’s early experiences with the “shape-shifting beast” of racism as he grew up near Pittsburgh, and later his growing awareness of African American history, have influenced his poetry, visual art, and puppetry: a “weapon of mass destruction to fight the beast.” His work with puppets and special-needs children led him to create larger puppet productions such as Just Another Lynching and 5P1N0K10: The Android Who Wants to be Real b boy, which allow him to “[fight] back using puppets as my swords.”
Five-Star Review And Other Responses,
2019
University of Connecticut
Five-Star Review And Other Responses, Sheila Gaskins, Tau Bennett, Nate Puppets, Akbar Imhotep
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
Living Objects Festival and Symposium attendees Sheila Gaskins, Tau Bennett, Nate Puppets, and Akbar Imhotep offer their appreciation of the events, illustrated with photographs by Gaskins.
Black: :Body: :Gesture: From Puppetry To Performance & Design,
2019
University of Connecticut
Black: :Body: :Gesture: From Puppetry To Performance & Design, Gabrielle Civil, Kelly Walters
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
In this visual document, Gabrielle Civil and Kelly Walters distill and recreate key aspects of their live dialogue on African-American puppetry, black performance art, material and digital design. What are examples of African American living objects in the 21st century? What does it mean to animate objects when, as a people, we were once considered to be living objects ourselves? Drawing on their own practice, these artists engaged these questions, activated audience discussion, and transformed the results into a new source text for further activation.
Black And Blackface In The Performing Object: Bullock, Chessé, Paris, The Jubilee Singers, And The Burdens Of … Everything,
2019
University of Connecticut
Black And Blackface In The Performing Object: Bullock, Chessé, Paris, The Jubilee Singers, And The Burdens Of … Everything, Ben Fisler
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
The representation of Black identity through puppetry ranges from “grotesque exaggeration to near pictorial realism,” and engagement not only with racial stereotyping, but also the possibility of positive racial representation. Fisler details the extensive degree to which puppeteers in the early 20th century depended upon Black and blackface characters for their livelihood, and points out the complexities of such representations involving Black puppeteers of Federal Theater Project puppet companies, and the work of Creole puppet artist Ralph Chessé. Fisler argues that some white puppeteers, including Frank Paris, sought to portray such Black characters as Josephine Baker in a “potentially more …
Tar Baby: The Performance Of Object,
2019
University of Connecticut
Tar Baby: The Performance Of Object, Ra Malika Imhotep
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
This essay engages the figure of the “Tar Baby” as a guide through the theoretical terrain of Afro-Diasporic storytelling culture. Thinking about the role of gesture and voice in the repertoire of global Black performance, this presentation sets out to offer a nuanced Black feminist analysis of the sticky character and the impact of her diasporic flight. Calling in both theoretical work on Black performance and personal reflections on an engagement with the Tar Baby through storyteller and puppeteer Akbar Imhotep’s rendition of the story performed at the Wren’s Nest in Atlanta Georgia, the essay explores the ways Afro-Diasporic storytelling …
The Appropriation Of Blackness,
2019
University of Connecticut
The Appropriation Of Blackness, Nehprii Amenii
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
The continuing appropriation of Black culture in the U.S. is closely tied to the trauma and injustice of the African diaspora and the history of slavery. Black people, Amenii argues, need to re-appropriate themselves, through the “excavating and re-articulating of our intellectual heritage and knowledge systems.” Citing Ahmad Azzahir’s description of African modes of thinking as “based on spirituality, symbol, mythos, and harmonium,” she sees her own work as “creative anthropology” that draws on storytelling and image-making to create self-study. Her production Food for the Gods, “a multi-media performance installation created in response to the killings of Black Men by …
Itsy,
2019
University of Connecticut
Itsy, Dirk Joseph
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
The famed Itsy Bitsy Spider realizes that climbing up the spout only leads to a rain gutter, and so goes off on a sidewalk journey to find a better life. After encountering two men arguing about money, a fraudulent salesman, and a girl afraid of spiders, Itsy finds a tree in a meadow where it can build a web and catch flies.
Puppetry And Inside Change,
2019
University of Connecticut
Puppetry And Inside Change, Al Tony Simon, Tychist Baker
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
Al Tony Simon and Tychist Baker describe their experiences as formerly incarcerated individuals, and their work with puppetry through the group Inside Change. Simon became involved in theater in prison, and then with prison activism through RAPP (Release Aging People from Prison), and Milk Not Jails’ efforts to reform New York State parole boards. Great Small Works theater company introduced Simon to puppetry, which he has used in his work with young people in youth detention centers, schools, and at-risk communities through the One Foot In and One Foot Out program, and later the creation of Inside Change. During his …
African Puppetry And Brazilian Mamulengo: Possible Links Between Symbolic And Material Representations,
2019
University of Connecticut
African Puppetry And Brazilian Mamulengo: Possible Links Between Symbolic And Material Representations, Izabela Brochado
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays
Although Brazil’s popular Mamulengo hand-puppet tradition is often considered to have primarily European roots, Brochado argues that “the primary source of the Mamulengo lies with African slaves.” Citing sources including puppeteers and folklorists explaining the origins of Mamulengo in northeast Brazil, Brochado argues for the African roots of the form, citing the relation of Mamulengo performance to Afro-Brazilian cult rituals; the commonality of often-comic sexual content in Mamulengo and in Yoruba puppetry of Nigeria and Benin; as well as the similar mechanics of puppets from both traditions which display work activities. She concludes that “even if African puppets were not …
Rosana Paulino And The Art Of Refazimento: Reconfigurations Of The Black Female Body In The Land Of Racial Democracy,
2019
Smith College
Rosana Paulino And The Art Of Refazimento: Reconfigurations Of The Black Female Body In The Land Of Racial Democracy, Flávia Santos De Araújo
Africana Studies: Faculty Publications
This essay analyzes the historical and aesthetic significance of the visual art project Assentamento(s) (2012-2013) by Rosana Paulino. Her work reinscribes the black female body into the historical narrative of Brazil, complicating long-established notions of “Brazilianness”. By using art techniques and materials that combine lithography, digital printing, drawing, sewing, video, and sculpting, Paulino develops a multi-layered artistic assembly that she describes as a process of refazimento (“remaking”). Paulino pushes the boundaries of the historical archives, highlighting both the struggles and agency of black women within Brazilian society. I argue that, as a contemporary black woman visual artist, Paulino engages in …
The Diversion Of Diversity: Uncovering The Antiblackness Of Diversity Initiatives,
2019
Bucknell University
The Diversion Of Diversity: Uncovering The Antiblackness Of Diversity Initiatives, M. Jordan Alexander
Honors Theses
In more recent years, Diversity has been a driving force in universities across the country. As underrepresented groups in the United States have gained more traction in the political and legal realms, they have gained the agency and the ability to advocate for their inclusion in institutions and structures that previously denied their access. This gaining of agency within these public realms is what has fueled higher education institutions across the country to really push for diversity, in both their faculty and student populations. The ideology behind this push is multiculturalism or multiracialism; this idea by its premise, the inclusion …
Black Space And Branding The Afrofuture: The Rippling Effect Of Schaffer Library’S Afrofuturist Exhibitions:,
2019
Union College - Schenectady, NY
Black Space And Branding The Afrofuture: The Rippling Effect Of Schaffer Library’S Afrofuturist Exhibitions:, Julie Lohnes, Robyn Reed
2019 Diversity and Inclusion Certification Course
Leveraging the library space to help realize the college's goals of diversity, the Access Services Librarian and the Director and Curator of Art Collections and Exhibitions sought to address the lack of racial/ethnic representation on campus through a multimedia exhibit and art installation that brought our diverse collections to the forefront. The exhibit Black Space: Reading (and writing) Ourselves into the Future highlighted our library's speculative book, film and music collections, while the art installation Branding the Afrofuture featured political and celebratory digital print collages with graffiti wall drawings to present black cultural production through an Afrofuturist lens.
We used …
Women's Legal Rights, In Oxford Research Encyclopedia Of African History (2019),
2019
Washington and Lee University School of Law
Women's Legal Rights, In Oxford Research Encyclopedia Of African History (2019), Johanna E. Bond
Books and Chapters
In the colonial and postcolonial period, African women have advocated for legal reforms that would improve the status of women across the continent. During the colonial period, European common and civil law systems greatly influenced African indigenous legal systems and further entrenched patriarchal aspects of the law. In the years since independence, women’s rights advocates have fought, with varying degrees of success, for women’s equality within the constitution, the family, the political arena, property rights, rights to inheritance, rights to be free from gender-based violence, rights to control their reproductive lives and health, rights to education, and many other aspects …
