Journal articles on the topic 'Glove-puppet'

This article reports the experience of a teacher and researcher who instituted a problem-posing component in her Grade 2/3 mathematics class with the help of a glove puppet, "Sylvester." The activities, based largely on the intuition of an expert teacher, are substantiated by the literature on problem posing. The authors describe what happened in the classroom and some of the benefits of the strategy. Among the most important of these benefits was what the teacher learned about the children and their understanding of mathematics by listening to what they were saying.

This article examines wayang potehi, a cloth glove puppet theatre of southern Fujian origin performed on Java. It outlines the genre's emergence in Fujian, its arrival in the archipelago, and historical and contemporary practice. This article seeks to respect potehi's Hokkien roots, Indonesian practice, and the place of its genre in a dynamic regional history as it traces the development, practice and uses of the genre. Contemporary potehi patronage often exhibits the strategies of the mixed-culture non-Chinese-speaking communities of East and Central Java to perform a streamlined, integrationist, and loyal Sino-Indonesian identity.

RESUMO: O mundo do teatro de bonecos em Portugal está envolto numa bruma, devido, em parte, a algum desinteresse da classe teatreira, mas principalmente, à escassa documentação sobre esta arte ancestral. O teatro de marionetas popular era pouco palavroso, em oposição ao teatro de atores de carne e osso, onde o verbo era fundamental. O repertório de texto diminuto, transmitido por via oral, levou à perda substancial de um entretenimento que fez os encantos de miúdos e graúdos ao longo dos séculos. Uma das lacunas é a génese dos próprios apodos pelos quais os bonifrates eram conhecidos. Atualmente encontra-se vulgarizado o cognome Dom Roberto (conhecido até 1962 por robertos) para designar os bonecos de luva populares portugueses. Este evoluiu a partir do drama de cordel adaptado da lenda medieval Roberto do diabo e que fez parte do repertório do teatro de bonecos populares portugueses.
 PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Teatro de bonecos, literatura de cordel, folhetos volantes.
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 ABSTRACT: The world of puppet theater in Portugal is shrouded in mist, partly due to some disinterest in theater professionals, but mainly due to the scarce documentation about this ancestral art. The popular puppet theater was of few text, as opposed to the actors theater, where the verb was fundamental. The diminutive repertoire of orally transmitted text has led to the substantial loss of entertainment that has made the charms of kids and adults over the centuries. One of the gaps is the genesis of the nicknames for which puppets were known. At the moment the name Dom Roberto (known until 1962 by robertos) is popularized to designate the Portuguese glove popular puppets. This evolved from the chapbook drama adapted from the medieval legend Robert the devil and that was part of the repertoire of Portuguese popular puppet theatre.
 KEYWORDS: Puppet theater, chapbooks.
 

Background and Aim: The Minnan Glove Puppetry, a pivotal element of traditional Chinese opera, boasts a rich costume culture that encapsulates the distinct folk characteristics and aesthetic sensibilities of the Minnan region in Fujian. Despite its cultural richness, the limited regional reach and outdated dissemination methods have significantly hampered its wider recognition and influence. This study is dedicated to a comprehensive exploration of the underexplored aspects of Minnan Glove Puppetry’s costume culture, particularly its intricate artistic expressions and profound cultural values within traditional drama contexts. It seeks to propose effective strategies for the protection and inheritance of this invaluable intangible cultural heritage, aiming to bolster its popularity and relevance both locally and globally. Materials and Methods: Employing a blend of comprehensive literature review and meticulous field investigations, this research delves deeply into the unique costume culture of Minnan Glove Puppetry. The team conducted field visits to the Jinjiang Puppet Art Protection and Inheritance Center in Quanzhou, where they employed specialized techniques in data collection, including observational studies and structured interviews, to gather primary data on costume design, production processes, and usage in performances. Concurrently, the study features targeted case analyses of costumes from three emblematic plays: "Da Ming Fu", "Nu Zhong Kui", and "Li Dong Jia Xun An", aiming to highlight their role in cultural narration and their artistic significance. Results: The investigation reveals that Minnan Glove Puppetry costumes transcend mere aesthetic roles, serving as vital conduits for the rich cultural essence of the Minnan region. The intricate patterns, vibrant colors, and distinctive shapes of these costumes do not merely adorn; they communicate deep-rooted historical narratives and cultural values, acting as non-verbal lexicons of Minnan’s heritage. Recognizing these costumes as dynamic cultural narrative tools, the study underscores their potential in offering modern audiences novel insights and a richer, more engaging cultural experience. Conclusion: To safeguard and perpetuate the costume culture of Minnan Glove Puppetry, it is imperative to adopt a more action-oriented and forward-looking approach. This includes the integration of costume culture into interdisciplinary research frameworks that meld art, anthropology, and technology, thus enriching the academic and practical understanding of these traditional costumes. Additionally, embedding Glove Puppetry into educational curricula will not only enlighten but also ignite the passion of younger generations for this traditional art. Leveraging digital technologies to preserve and showcase these costumes, coupled with encouraging designers to blend traditional elements into contemporary designs, will significantly enhance their market appeal and cultural resonance. Furthermore, fostering community engagement, international collaborations, and leveraging cultural assets for economic development are critical for amplifying the global presence and impact of Minnan Glove Puppetry.

Background, problems and innovations of the study. The modern Puppet Theater in Poland is a phenomenon that is very difficult for definition and it opposes its own identification itself. Problems here start at the stage of fundamental definitions already. In English, the case is simpler: “doll” means a doll, a toy, and “puppet” is a theatrical puppet, as well as in French functions “poupée” and “marionette” respectively. In Polish, one word serves both semantic concepts, and it is the reason that most identify the theater of puppets with theater for children, that is a big mistake. Wanting to get out of this hassle, some theaters have thrown out their puppet signage by skipping their own names. Changes in names were intended only to convey information to viewers that in these theaters do not always operate with puppets and not always for the children’s audience. In view of the use of the word “animation” in Polish, that is, “vitalization”, and also the “animator”, that is, “actor who is animating the puppet”, the term “animant” is suggested, which logically, in our opinion, is used unlike from the word “puppet”. Every subject that is animated by animator can be called an animant, starting with classical puppets (glove puppets, cane puppets, excretory puppets, silhouette puppets, tantamarees, etc.) to various plastic shapes (animals, images of fantastic creatures or unrelated to any known), any finished products (such as chairs, umbrellas, cups), as well as immaterial, which are animated in the course of action directed by the actor, either visible to viewers or hidden. In short, the animator animates the animant. If the phenomenon of vitalization does not come, that is, the act of giving “the animant” the illusion of life does not occur, then objects on the stage remain only the requisite or elements of scenography. Synopsis of the main material of the study. In the past, puppet performances, whether fair or vernacular, were seen by everyone who wanted, regardless of age. At the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, the puppet theater got divided into two separate areas – theater for adults and the one for children. After the war, the professional puppet theater for adults became a branch of the puppet theater for children. In general, little has changed so far. The only puppet theater that plays exclusively for adults is “Theater – the Impossible Union”, under the direction of Mark Khodachinsky. In the Polish puppet theater the literary model still dominates, that is, the principle of starting to work on the performance from the choice of drama. There is no such literary work, old or modern, which could not be adapted for the puppet theater. The only important thing is how and why to do it, what significance carries the use of animants, and also, whether the applying of animation does the audience mislead, as it happens when under the name of the puppet theater at the festival shows performances that have nothing in common with puppets / animations. What special the puppet theater has to offer the adult audience? The possibilities are enormous, and in the historical perspective may be many significant achievements, but this does not mean that the masterpieces are born on the stones. The daily offer of theaters varies, and in reality the puppet theaters repertoire for adults is quite modest. The metaphorical potential of puppets equally well justifies themselves, both in the classics and in modern drama. The animants perfectly show themselves in a poetry theater, fairy-tale, conventional and surrealistic. The puppet theater has an exceptional ability to embody inhuman creatures. These can be figures of deities, angels, devils, spirits, envy, death. At the puppet scenes, also animals act; come alive ordinary household items – chairs, umbrellas, fruits and vegetables, whose animation gives not only an interesting comic effect or grotesque, but also demonstrates another, more empathic view of the whole world around us. In the theater of dolls there is no limit to the imagination of creators, because literally everything can became an animant. You need only puppeteers. The puppet theater in Poland, for both children and adults, has strong organizational foundations. There are about 30 institutional theaters (city or voivodship), as well as an increasing number of “independent theaters”. The POLUNIMA, that is, the Polish branch of the UNIMA International Union of Puppets, operates. The valuable, bilingual (Polish–English) quarterly magazine “Puppet Theater” is being issued. The number of puppet festivals is increasing rapidly, and three of them are devoted to the adult puppet theater: “Puppet is also a human” in Warsaw, “Materia Prima” in Krakow, “Metamorphoses of Puppets” in Bialystok. There is no shortage of good dramas for both adults and children (thanks to the periodical “New Art for Children and Youth” published by the Center for Children’s Arts in Poznan). Conclusions. One of the main problems is the lack of vocational education in the field of the scenography of the puppet theater. The next aspect – creative and now else financial – the puppet show is more difficult, in general more expensive and more time-consuming in preparation than the performance in the drama theater. Actor-puppeteer also gets a task those three times heavier: to play live (as an actor in a drama theater), while playing a puppet and with a puppet. Consequently, the narrative of dramatic story on the stage is triple: the actor in relation to the viewer, the puppet in relation to the viewer, the actor in relation to the puppet. The director also works double – both the actor and the puppet should be led. It is necessary to observe the effect that arises from the actions of both stage partners. So the second threat seems to be absurd, but, alas, it is very real – the escape of puppeteers from puppets. The art of the puppet theater requires hard work, and by its nature, it is more chamber. This art is important for gourmets, poets, admirers of animation skills, as well as the searchers for new artistic ways in the theater, in wide understanding. Fortunately, there are some real fans of the puppet theater, and their admiration for the miracle of animation is contagious.

This article examines the changes and continuities in the depiction of the violent relationship between the popular glove-puppets, Punch and Judy, over the course of the nineteenth century. While the puppet show emerged as a low-brow street entertainment during the first decades of the nineteenth century, by 1850 it had been hijacked by the middle and upper classes, and began to appear with increasing frequency in fashionable drawing rooms. At the same time, the relationship between the two central characters, Punch and Judy, was substantially modified. On the streets, during the first half of the century, the Punches’ marriage had both reflected the continuing popularity of the early modern theme of the ‘struggle for the breeches’ and encapsulated familial tensions that resulted from the pressures of industrialization and urbanization. However, from 1850 the middle classes attempted to reshape the relationship into a moral tale in order to teach their children valuable lessons about marital behaviour. Yet, at the same time, the maintenance of violence in the portrayal of the Punches’ conjugal life exposed crucial patterns of continuity in attitudes towards marriage, masculinity, and femininity in Victorian England.

The article is devoted to the coverage of the peculiarities of the application of art therapy in working with children, in particular, the disclosure of the characteristics of child development and consideration of the main art-therapeutic directions in working with children. The study of foreign and domestic literature on the study showed that art therapy is widely used in working with children, namely in psychodiagnostic, psychocorrectional and psychotherapeutic work, as it is the mildest method of working with various psychological problems and promotes creative development of cognitive and creative abilities of the child. establishing harmonious relations with the environment. Childhood is an important period of a child's development, during this period the child's cognitive mental processes and creative activity begin to develop rapidly, this is manifested in artistic creativity and constructive games. Summarizing the practical experience of psychologists working with children, it can be noted that among the variety of areas of art therapy in working with children are widely used: isotherapy, fairy tale therapy, puppet therapy and sand therapy. It was found that isotherapy - therapy with fine arts, namely drawing, is used in the process of psychological correction in working with children to harmonize the emotional state of the child, the development of interpersonal skills, the disclosure of creative abilities of the child. Drawing is an effective tool, because thanks to it the child can freely express their thoughts, feelings and experiences through the language of images, symbols and colors, as well as get rid of negative experiences and express their attitude to the surrounding reality. An effective way of psychological work with children is fairy tale therapy, namely fairy tale therapy, which uses a metaphor to create connections between fairy tale events and behavior in real life, as well as the process of transferring fairy tale meanings into reality. It should be noted that fairy tale therapy is used for therapeutic purposes, helps the child to actualize and realize his problems and see ways to solve them, promotes the development of imagination and creative thinking of the child. A fairy tale for a child is a special reality that allows you to expand the boundaries of ordinary life, to meet with complex phenomena and feelings in a form understandable to the child. Fairy tales teach children moral principles, norms of behavior, show the true values ​​of life. Puppet therapy is a therapeutic direction that uses as a main method of corrective action a doll, which is an intermediate object in the interaction of a child and an adult. In turn, puppet therapy as a method is based on the processes of identifying a child with a favorite cartoon character, fairy tale and favorite toy. The child, knowing the real world, its social connections and relationships, actively projects the perceived experience into a specific game situation. The main object of such a social projection for a long time are dolls. In puppet therapy different variants of dolls are used: puppet dolls, finger dolls, shadow dolls, rope dolls, plane dolls, glove dolls. Puppet therapy promotes the development of cognitive processes and improves children's social adaptation and communication skills. At the same time, sand therapy is a type of therapy associated with the use of natural materials, namely sand for psychotherapeutic purposes. Sand therapy is widely used in correctional, developmental and educational work with children. Sand games are one of the forms of a child's natural activity, interacting with which the child's creative abilities, imagination, spontaneity and originality of the child's worldview develop. In the course of sand therapy, a free and protected space is created, where the child can explore his own inner world, turning his own experiences and experiences into images that he understands. In addition, sand therapy helps to harmonize the inner state of the child and improve his social skills. Therefore, the use of art therapy is an effective way to work with children, which contributes to the comprehensive development and self-expression of the child.

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over six million lives worldwide (Ritchie, 2022). In Kenya, more than three hundred thousand lives have been lost (Ministry of Health, 2022). Prevention has been the main focus. This has necessitated behaviour change. The government, non-governmental organisations, and private agencies set out to find Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) strategies at the start of the pandemic. Different strategies received different types of feedback. One strategy that has been proven time and time again to be effective in mass communication and education while entertaining is puppetry. It was, however, only partially utilised. This research sought to explore communication for social and behaviour change communication and how it was applied to curb the spread of COVID 19 using a case study of puppetry in Kenya. It attempted to answer the following questions: What types of puppets were used in Kenya for social and behaviour change communication? Which advocacy messages were communicated for social and behaviour change using puppetry? How was puppetry used for social mobilisation for social and behaviour change communication? What factors hindered puppetry's use for social and behaviour change communication? The theoretical base of this research was informed by the health belief model, which provides a framework for designing messaging that targets perceived barriers, benefits, self-efficacy, and threats; the social learning theory, which explains how behaviour is learned through observation; and the social marketing theory, which provides a framework for how behaviour change messages are designed using marketing principles. This study used a qualitative research design. It analysed past studies to give a framework and then used interviews and observation to collect current data by observation and key informant interviews for thematic analysis. The population chosen for this study was all the puppet shows created, digitally recorded, and aired for SBCC to communicate behaviour change as a prevention measure against COVID-19. For this research, the Dr Pamoja show was purposely chosen as the sample as it met all the criteria for this study. Coding was used for thematic analysis of the collected puppetry video samples from the Dr Pamoja show produced by Project hand up to communicate SBCC against COVID-19. The codes were derived using the deductive approach, and the show analysed both the latent and the semantic. The gaps in the data were informed by Key informants, including the Dr Pamoja show’s director, an AMREF representative, sixteen (16) puppeteers, a community leader, a health representative, and ten (10) parents. After collecting and analysing the data, findings showed that the main types of puppets used are glove puppets, and puppetry remains an effective tool for social and behavioural change communication in Kenya. It was found to be efficient in communicating advocacy messages through influence, persuasion, and social marketing, and also in social mobilisation at both the community level and national level by promoting health messaging that is personalised, normative, and identity-relevant and relies on people’s connections and sense of accountability. The data also showed that episodes translated to Kiswahili and Kikuyu were more popular than the other languages. It is, however, faced with social challenges such as perception, motivation, cultural, psychological, and production challenges such as financing. The study recommends better utilisation of puppetry for SBCC and incorporation of puppetry in communication by the government, non-governmental organisations, and mainstream media. It further recommends that further research be conducted on memory retention of new behaviours learned from puppetry, gender issues in puppetry, and the use of puppetry in other areas such as therapy, play, and education.

Wayang Cina berkembang pesat di Indonesia. Beberapa legenda Cina berkembang mengikuti berkembangnyawayang tersebut, misalnya: Legenda Madame Li, legenda Chen Ping, dan legenda Yan. Beberapa lagenda tersebutdibawa oleh imigran Cina ke wilayah Indonesia, seperti Marionette, yang dikenal sebagai wayang gantung , yangdikembangkan di sekitar Pontianak dan Singkawang. Marionette disajikan dalam dialek Hakka dan menyajikanlegenda Cina. Sementara boneka sarung tangan yang dikenal adalah wayang Potehi, tumbuh di Jawa berasal dariFujian, awalnya dalam dialek Hokkian. Dalam perjalanannya, Potehi menggunakan bahasa Melayu Rendah yangmenjadi bahasa Indonesia. Potehi dan Boneka Gantung ( wayang gantung) telah menjadi bagian dari kebudayaanIndonesia. Mereka layak mendapat perhatian lebih dari pemerintah dan masyarakat, terutama pelaku dan pengamatseni.Kata kunci: Wayang Potehi, legenda Cina, marionette, wayang gantung.ABSTRACTThe Chinese Puppet Theatre Legend and Its Spreading in Nusantara. Chinese Puppet Theatre is growingrapidly. Some legends followed to rise Chinese Puppet, for example: Legend of Madame Li, legend of Chen Ping, andlegend of Yan. Some of them were brought by Chinese immigrants into Indonesian territory, such as Marionette, known ashanging puppet (Wayang gantung), which is developed around Pontianak and Singkawang , West Kalimantan Province.Marionette was performed in Hakka dialects and performed Chinese legend. While the glove puppet known is wayangPotehi, grown in Java, originated from Fujian, was originally in Hokkian dialect. In its journey, Potehi used Low Malaylanguage which became bahasa Indonesia. Potehi and Hanging Puppets( wayang gantung) have become parts of ourculture. They deserve more attention from the goverment and public, especially the actors and art observers.Key words: Chinese Puppet theatre, legend, marionette), Glove Puppet ( Potehi / 布袋戲))

IntroductionWhat can we learn about anomaly from the strangeness of a puppet, a lifeless object, that can both bleed and die? How does the filming process of a puppet’s death engage across media and produce a new media genre that is not easily classified within traditional conventions? Why do these fighting and bleeding puppets’ scenes consistently attract audiences? This study examines how Pili puppetry (1984-present), a popular TV series depicting martial arts-based narratives and fight sequences, interacts with digital technologies and constructs a new media genre. The transmedia constitution of a virtual world not only challenges the stereotype of puppetry’s target audience but also expands the audience’s bodily imagination and desires through the visual component of death scenes. Hence, the show does not merely represent or signify an anomaly, but even creates anomalous desires and imaginary bodies.Cultural commodification and advancing technologies have motivated the convergence and displacement of traditional boundaries, genres, and media, changing the very fabric of textuality itself. By exploring how new media affect the audience’s visual reception of fighting and death, this article sheds light on understanding the metamorphoses of Taiwanese puppetry and articulates a theoretical argument regarding the show’s artistic practice to explain how its form transverses traditional boundaries. This critical exploration focusses on how the form represents bleeding puppets, and in doing so, explicates the politics of transmedia performing and viewing. Pili is an example of an anomalous media form that proliferates anomalous media viewing experiences and desires in turn.Beyond a Media Genre: Taiwanese Pili PuppetryConverging the craft technique of puppeteering and digital technology of filmmaking and animation, Pili puppetry creates a new media genre that exceeds any conventional idea of a puppet show or digital puppet, as it is something in-between. Glove puppetry is a popular traditional theatre in Taiwan, often known as “theatre in the palm” because a traditional puppet was roughly the same size as an adult’s palm. The size enabled the puppeteer to easily manipulate a puppet in one hand and be close to the audience. Traditionally, puppet shows occurred to celebrate the local deities’ birthday. Despite its popularity, the form was limited by available technology. For instance, although stories with vigorous battles were particularly popular, bleeding scenes in such an auspicious occasion were inappropriate and rare. As a live theatrical event featuring immediate interaction between the performer and the spectator, realistic bleeding scenes were rare because it is hard to immediately clean the stage during the performance. Distinct from the traditional puppet show, digital puppetry features semi-animated puppets in a virtual world. Digital puppetry is not a new concept by any means in the Western film industry. Animating a 3D puppet is closely associated with motion capture technologies and animation that are manipulated in a digitalised virtual setting (Ferguson). Commonly, the target audience of the Western digital puppetry is children, so educators sometimes use digital puppetry as a pedagogical tool (Potter; Wohlwend). With these young target audience in mind, the producers often avoid violent and bleeding scenes.Pili puppetry differs from digital puppetry in several ways. For instance, instead of targeting a young audience, Pili puppetry consistently extends the traditional martial-arts performance to include bloody fight sequences that enrich the expressiveness of traditional puppetry as a performing art. Moreover, Pili puppetry does not apply the motion capture technologies to manipulate the puppet’s movement, thus retaining the puppeteers’ puppeteering craft (clips of Pili puppetry can be seen on Pili’s official YouTube page). Hence, Pili is a unique hybrid form, creating its own anomalous space in puppetry. Among over a thousand characters across the series, the realistic “human-like” puppet is one of Pili’s most popular selling points. The new media considerably intervene in the puppet design, as close-up shots and high-resolution images can accurately project details of a puppet’s face and body movements on the screen. Consequently, Pili’s puppet modelling becomes increasingly intricate and attractive and arguably makes its virtual figures more epic yet also more “human” (Chen). Figure 1: Su Huan-Jen in the TV series Pili Killing Blade (1993). His facial expressions were relatively flat and rigid then. Reproduced with permission of Pili International Multimedia Company.Figure 2: Su Huan-Jen in the TV series Pili Nine Thrones (2003). The puppet’s facial design and costume became more delicate and complex. Reproduced with permission of Pili International Multimedia Company.Figure 3: Su Huan-Jen in the TV series Pili Fantasy: War of Dragons (2019). His facial lines softened due to more precise design technologies. The new lightweight chiffon yarn costumes made him look more elegant. The multiple-layer costumes also created more space for puppeteers to hide behind the puppet and enact more complicated manipulations. Reproduced with permission of Pili International Multimedia Company.The design of the most well-known Pili swordsman, Su Huan-Jen, demonstrates how the Pili puppet modelling became more refined and intricate in the past 20 years. In 1993, the standard design was a TV puppet with the size and body proportion slightly enlarged from the traditional puppet. Su Huan-Jen’s costumes were made from heavy fabrics, and his facial expressions were relatively flat and rigid (fig. 1). Pili produced its first puppetry film Legend of the Sacred Stone in 2000; considering the visual quality of a big screen, Pili refined the puppet design including replacing wooden eyeballs and plastic hair with real hair and glass eyeballs (Chen). The filmmaking experience inspired Pili to dramatically improve the facial design for all puppets. In 2003, Su’s modelling in Pili Nine Thrones (TV series) became noticeably much more delicate. The puppet’s size was considerably enlarged by almost three times, so a puppeteer had to use two hands to manipulate a puppet. The complex costumes and props made more space for puppeteers to hide behind the puppet and enrich the performance of the fighting movements (fig. 2). In 2019, Su’s new modelling further included new layers of lightweight fabrics, and his makeup and props became more delicate and complex (fig. 3). Such a refined aesthetic design also lends to Pili’s novelty among puppetry performances.Through the transformation of Pili in the context of puppetry history, we see how the handicraft-like puppet itself gradually commercialised into an artistic object that the audience would yearn to collect and project their bodily imagination. Anthropologist Teri Silvio notices that, for some fans, Pili puppets are similar to worship icons through which they project their affection and imaginary identity (Silvio, “Pop Culture Icons”). Intermediating with the new media, the change in the refined puppet design also comes from the audience’s expectations. Pili’s senior puppet designer Fan Shih-Ching mentioned that Pili fans are very involved, so their preferences affect the design of puppets. The complexity, particularly the layer of costumes, most clearly differentiates the aesthetics of traditional and Pili puppets. Due to the “idolisation” of some famous Pili characters, Shih-Ching has had to design more and more gaudy costumes. Each resurgence of a well-known Pili swordsman, such as Su Huan-Jen, Yi Ye Shu, and Ye Hsiao-Chai, means he has to remodel the puppet.Pili fans represent their infatuation for puppet characters through cosplay (literally “costume play”), which is when fans dress up and pretend to be a Pili character. Their cosplay, in particular, reflects the bodily practice of imaginary identity. Silvio observes that most cosplayers choose to dress as characters that are the most visually appealing rather than characters that best suit their body type. They even avoid moving too “naturally” and mainly move from pose-to-pose, similar to the frame-to-frame techne of animation. Thus, we can understand this “cosplay more as reanimating the character using the body as a kind of puppet rather than as an embodied performance of some aspect of self-identity” (Silvio 2019, 167). Hence, Pili fans’ cosplay is indicative of an anomalous desire to become the puppet-like human, which helps them transcend their social roles in their everyday life. It turns out that not only fans’ preference drives the (re)modelling of puppets but also fans attempt to model themselves in the image of their beloved puppets. The reversible dialectic between fan-star and flesh-object further provokes an “anomaly” in terms of the relationship between the viewers and the puppets. Precisely because fans have such an intimate relationship with Pili, it is important to consider how the series’ content and form configure fans’ viewing experience.Filming Bleeding PuppetsDespite its intricate aesthetics, Pili is still a series with frequent fighting-to-the-death scenes, which creates, and is the result of, extraordinary transmedia production and viewing experiences. Due to the market demand of producing episodes around 500 minutes long every month, Pili constantly creates new characters to maintain the audience’s attention and retain its novelty. So far, Pili has released thousands of characters. To ensure that new characters supersede the old ones, numerous old characters have to die within the plot.The adoption of new media allows the fighting scenes in Pili to render as more delicate, rather than consisting of loud, intense action movements. Instead, the leading swordsmen’s death inevitably takes place in a pathetic and romantic setting and consummates with a bloody sacrifice. Fighting scenes in early Pili puppetry created in the late 1980s were still based on puppets’ body movements, as the knowledge and technology of animation were still nascent and underdeveloped. At that time, the prestigious swordsman mainly relied on the fast speed of brandishing his sword. Since the early 1990s, as animation technology matured, it has become very common to see Pili use CGI animation to create a damaging sword beam for puppets to kill target enemies far away. The sword beam can fly much faster than the puppets can move, so almost every fighting scene employs CGI to visualise both sword beams and flame. The change in fighting manners provokes different representations of the bleeding and death scenes. Open wounds replace puncture wounds caused by a traditional weapon; bleeding scenes become typical, and a special feature in Pili’s transmedia puppetry.In addition to CGI animation, the use of fake blood in the Pili studio makes the performance even more realistic. Pili puppet master Ting Chen-Ching recalled that exploded puppets in traditional puppetry were commonly made by styrofoam blocks. The white styrofoam chips that sprayed everywhere after the explosion inevitably made the performance seem less realistic. By contrast, in the Pili studio, the scene of a puppet spurting blood after the explosion usually applies the technology of editing several shots. The typical procedure would be a short take that captures a puppet being injured. In its injury location, puppeteers sprinkle red confetti to represent scattered blood clots in the following shot. Sometimes the fake blood was splashed with the red confetti to make it further three-dimensional (Ting). Bloody scenes can also be filmed through multiple layers of arranged performance conducted at the same time by a group of puppeteers. Ting describes the practice of filming a bleeding puppet. Usually, some puppeteers sprinkle fake blood in front of the camera, while other puppeteers blasted the puppets toward various directions behind the blood to make the visual effects match. If the puppeteers need to show how a puppet becomes injured and vomits blood during the fight, they can install tiny pipes in the puppet in advance. During the filming, the puppeteer slowly squeezes the pipe to make the fake blood flow out from the puppet’s mouth. Such a bloody scene sometimes accompanies tears dropping from the puppet’s eyes. In some cases, the puppeteer drops the blood on the puppet’s mouth prior to the filming and then uses a powerful electric fan to blow the blood drops (Ting). Such techniques direct the blood to flow laterally against the wind, which makes the puppet’s death more aesthetically tragic. Because it is not a live performance, the puppeteer can try repeatedly until the camera captures the most ideal blood drop pattern and bleeding speed. Puppeteers have to adjust the camera distance for different bleeding scenes, which creates new modes of viewing, sensing, and representing virtual life and death. One of the most representative examples of Pili’s bleeding scenes is when Su’s best friend, Ching Yang-Zi, fights with alien devils in Legend of the Sacred Stone. (The clip of how Ching Yang-Zi fights and bleeds to death can be seen on YouTube.) Ting described how Pili prepared three different puppets of Ching for the non-fighting, fighting, and bleeding scenes (Ting). The main fighting scene starts from a low-angle medium shot that shows how Ching Yang-Zi got injured and began bleeding from the corner of his mouth. Then, a sharp weapon flies across the screen; the following close-up shows that the weapon hits Ching and he begins bleeding immediately. The successive shots move back and forth between his face and the wound in medium shot and close-up. Next, a close-up shows him stepping back with blood dripping on the ground. He then pushes the weapon out of his body to defend enemies; a final close-up follows a medium take and a long take shows the massive hemorrhage. The eruption of fluid plasma creates a natural effect that is difficult to achieve, even with 3D animation. Beyond this impressive technicality, the exceptional production and design emphasise how Pili fully embraces the ethos of transmedia: to play with multiple media forms and thereby create a new form. In the case of Pili, its form is interactive, transcending the boundaries of what we might consider the “living” and the “dead”.Epilogue: Viewing Bleeding Puppets on the ScreenThe simulated, high-quality, realistic-looking puppet designs accompanying the Pili’s featured bloody fighting sequence draw another question: What is the effect of watching human-like puppets die? What does this do to viewer-fans? Violence is prevalent throughout the historical record of human behaviour, especially in art and entertainment because these serve as outlets to fulfill a basic human need to indulge in “taboo fantasies” and escape into “realms of forbidden experience” (Schechter). When discussing the visual representations of violence and the spectacle of the sufferings of others, Susan Sontag notes, “if we consider what emotions would be desirable” (102), viewing the pain of others may not simply evoke sympathy. She argues that “[no] moral charge attaches to the representation of these cruelties. Just the provocation: can you look at this? There is the satisfaction of being able to look at the image without flinching. There is the pleasure of flinching” (41). For viewers, the boldness of watching the bloody scenes can be very inviting. Watching human-like puppets die in the action scenes similarly validates the viewer’s need for pleasure and entertainment. Although different from a human body, the puppets still bears the materiality of being-object. Therefore, watching the puppets bleeding and die as distinctly “human-like’ puppets further prevent viewers’ from feeling guilty or morally involved. The conceptual distance of being aware of the puppet’s materiality acts as a moral buffer; audiences are intimately involved through the particular aesthetic arrangement, yet morally detached. The transmedia filming of puppetry adds another layer of mediation over the human-like “living” puppets that allows such a particular experience. Sontag notices that the media generates an inevitable distance between object and subject, between witness and victim. For Sontag, although images constitute “the imaginary proximity” because it makes the “faraway sufferers” be “seen close-up on the television screen”, it is a mystification to assume that images serve as a direct link between sufferers and viewers. Rather, Sontag insists: the distance makes the viewers feel “we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence” (102). Echoing Sontag’s argument, Jeffrey Goldstein points out that “distancing” oneself from the mayhem represented in media makes it tolerable. Media creates an “almost real” visuality of violence, so the audience feels relatively safe in their surroundings when exposed to threatening images. Thus, “violent imagery must carry cues to its unreality or it loses appeal” (280). Pili puppets that are human-like, thus not human, more easily enable the audience to seek sensational excitement through viewing puppets’ bloody violence and eventual death on the screen and still feel emotionally secure. Due to the distance granted by the medium, viewers gain a sense of power by excitedly viewing the violence with an accompanying sense of moral exemption. Thus, viewers can easily excuse the limits of their personal responsibility while still being captivated by Pili’s boundary-transgressing aesthetic.The anomalous power of Pili fans’ cosplay differentiates the viewing experience of puppets’ deaths from that of other violent entertainment productions. Cosplayers physically bridge viewing/acting and life/death by dressing up as the puppet characters, bringing them to life, as flesh. Cosplay allows fans to compensate for the helplessness they experience when watching the puppets’ deaths on the screen. They can both “enjoy” the innocent pleasure of watching bleeding puppets and bring their adored dead idols “back to life” through cosplay. The onscreen violence and death thus provide an additional layer of pleasure for such cosplayers. They not only take pleasure in watching the puppets—which are an idealized version of their bodily imagination—die, but also feel empowered to revitalise their loved idols. Therefore, Pili cosplayers’ desires incite a cycle of life, pleasure, and death, in which the company responds to their consumers’ demands in kind. The intertwining of social, economic, and political factors thus collectively thrives upon media violence as entertainment. Pili creates the potential for new cross-media genre configurations that transcend the traditional/digital puppetry binary. On the one hand, the design of swordsman puppets become a simulation of a “living object” responding to the camera distance. On the other hand, the fighting and death scenes heavily rely on the puppeteers’ cooperation with animation and editing. Therefore, Pili puppetry enriches existing discourse on both puppetry and animation as life-giving processes. What is animated by Pili puppetry is not simply the swordsmen characters themselves, but new potentials for media genres and violent entertainment. AcknowledgmentMy hearty gratitude to Amy Gaeta for sharing her insights with me on the early stage of this study.ReferencesChen, Jasmine Yu-Hsing. “Transmuting Tradition: The Transformation of Taiwanese Glove Puppetry in Pili Productions.” Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 51 (2019): 26-46.Ferguson, Jeffrey. “Lessons from Digital Puppetry: Updating a Design Framework for a Perceptual User Interface.” IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology, 2015.Goldstein, Jeffrey. “The Attractions of Violent Entertainment.” Media Psychology 1.3 (1999): 271-282.Potter, Anna. “Funding Contemporary Children’s Television: How Digital Convergence Encourages Retro Reboot.” International Journal on Communications Management 19.2 (2017): 108-112.Schechter, Harold. Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment. New York: St. Martin’s, 2005.Silvio, Teri. “Pop Culture Icons: Religious Inflections of the Character Toy in Taiwan.” Mechademia 3.1 (2010): 200-220.———. Puppets, Gods, and Brands: Theorizing the Age of Animation from Taiwan. Honolulu: U Hawaii P, 2019. Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004.Ting, Chen-Ching. Interview by the author. Yunlin, Taiwan. 24 June 2019.Wohlwend, Karen E. “One Screen, Many Fingers: Young Children's Collaborative Literacy Play with Digital Puppetry Apps and Touchscreen Technologies.” Theory into Practice 54.2 (2015): 154-162.

Gigio Brunello, auteur et marionnettiste italien contemporain, dépasse dans son œuvre les traditions et caractères des masques de la marionnette à gaine traditionnelle (Arlecchino, Balanzone, Brighella,...) afin de donner à ses personnages une personnalité propre, une autonomie et une filiation imaginaire jouant avec le réel, les caractérisant indépendamment du bagage culturel qu'ils portent et représentent. Au gré des pièces, les personnages traversent des phases de vie dans lesquels ils deviennent les protagonistes de leurs propres histoires. Cet article, publié initialement dans la revue À l'Épreuve, a été écrit par Francesca di Fazio dans le cadre du projet ERC PuppetPlays (GA 835193) sous le programme Horizon 2020.