Puppet Nation, Andrea Perkins, Metro Santa Cruz
In an effort to dispel the image of the unhinged puppeteer, (i.e. John Cusack in Being John Malkovich) Andrea Perkins highlights a professor who talks of the vastly different role of puppets in other cultures. In the alt weekly Metro Santa Cruz, Perkins introduces us to Kathy Foley, a UC-Santa Cruz professor who studied puppetry in Indonesia, where puppeteers are revered as shamans and priests. In her classes, Foley introduces artists to puppetry as a medium to communicate ideas. 'If you want to smash all divides of gender, race, age, etc.,' she says, 'one of the best ways is through masks and puppets. It is a way to really liberate yourself as a performer.'
--Sara V. Buckwitz
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