Bodies of Enchantment: Puppets from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas
Nicola Levell
For millennia, puppets have enthralled audiences with their unique charm, not just telling stories but enacting history, sharing knowledge, and transmitting cultural practices.
In this dazzling and immersive volume based on an award-winning exhibition, puppetry from all corners of the globe is shared in striking photographs alongside texts from ten scholars and puppeteers. The contributors highlight still-vital traditional puppetry practices, as well as modern adaptations of the form: exquisite leather shadow puppets depict ancient Indian epics in modern-day Indonesia; Taiwan’s long-running Pili glove puppetry show thrives in the digital era and Indigenous filmmaker Amanda Strong uses stop-motion animation to create entrancing new realms.
Bodies of Enchantment features over 150 photographs among chapters by ten contributors:
Nicola Levell offers a behind-the-scenes look at the exhibition and describes the museum’s role as an Imaginarium; Anthony Alan Shelton reflects on the alluring uncanniness of puppets; Annie Katsura Rollins explores Chinese shadow puppetry; Sutrisno Setya Hartana introduces us to Indonesian wayang; Jo Ann Cavallo unpacks the archetypes of Sicilian opera dei pupi; Mary Jo Arnoldi encounters the Sogobò masquerade in Malí; Izabela Brochado shows the continued vibrancy of mamulengo in Brazil; Kathy Foley and Catherine Ries uncover the significance of clothing in Javanese (Indonesian) wayang golak cepak, and Jill Baird shares the history of puppetry at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. A companion to the 2019 MOA exhibition Shadows, Strings and Other Things.
For millennia, puppets have enthralled audiences with their unique charm, not just telling stories but enacting history, sharing knowledge, and transmitting cultural practices.
In this dazzling and immersive volume based on an award-winning exhibition, puppetry from all corners of the globe is shared in striking photographs alongside texts from ten scholars and puppeteers. The contributors highlight still-vital traditional puppetry practices, as well as modern adaptations of the form: exquisite leather shadow puppets depict ancient Indian epics in modern-day Indonesia; Taiwan’s long-running Pili glove puppetry show thrives in the digital era and Indigenous filmmaker Amanda Strong uses stop-motion animation to create entrancing new realms.
Bodies of Enchantment features over 150 photographs among chapters by ten contributors:
Nicola Levell offers a behind-the-scenes look at the exhibition and describes the museum’s role as an Imaginarium; Anthony Alan Shelton reflects on the alluring uncanniness of puppets; Annie Katsura Rollins explores Chinese shadow puppetry; Sutrisno Setya Hartana introduces us to Indonesian wayang; Jo Ann Cavallo unpacks the archetypes of Sicilian opera dei pupi; Mary Jo Arnoldi encounters the Sogobò masquerade in Malí; Izabela Brochado shows the continued vibrancy of mamulengo in Brazil; Kathy Foley and Catherine Ries uncover the significance of clothing in Javanese (Indonesian) wayang golak cepak, and Jill Baird shares the history of puppetry at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. A companion to the 2019 MOA exhibition Shadows, Strings and Other Things.
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Nicola Levell is an Associate Professor of Museum and Visual Anthropology at UBC and an independent curator. Her research and publications focus on exhibitions, collections history, public and performing arts, and storytelling. She has curated exhibitions and art installations in the United Kingdom, Portugal, the United States and Canada.
- Hardcover, 256 pages
- Figure 1 Publishing, 2021
- 10 x 12"
- 2021 Michael Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology
