Featuring Tim Cusack and Claudia Orenstein discussing their book: Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects
Moderated by Erin B. Mee

Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects is a two-volume anthology of essays, which aims to explore the many types of relationships that exist between puppets, broadly speaking, and the immaterial world.

Join Hunter College professor Claudia Orenstein and Theatre Askew artistic director Tim Cusack for a lively conversation with This Is Not a Theatre Company's co-artistic director and NYU professor, Erin Mee, as they discuss their recently published two-volume collection of essays, Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects. Bringing together the writings and observations of more than 30 scholars and practitioners, this groundbreaking collection explores the many ways performing objects of all kinds around the world have and continue to connect humans with spiritual realms and the divine. Ranging from traditional puppetry forms long recognized for their ritual components, such as wayang kulit from Indonesia and sogo bò in Mali, to twentieth-century secular masters appreciated by Downtown audiences for decades like Peter Schumann and Tadeusz Kantor, these books engage with a wide spectrum of religious practices, from shamanism to Vodun to Islam. Volume 1, featuring articles by Laurel Kendall, Kathy Foley, Deepsikha Chatterjee, and Matthew Cohen, among others, deals with established religious practices and traditional forms, while Volume 2, including essays by Paulette Richards, John Bell, Jill Joubert, and Edna Bland, among others, looks at new models of spiritual engagement from contemporary artists. This promises to be a stimulating and wide-ranging exploration of our faith in the metaphysical power of material artifacts.

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