Gestures of re-animation: caring for puppets

Gestures and processes in Puppetry

Part 3 – November 12-14, 2025 – Université de Poitiers

“Gestures of re-animation: caring for puppets”

Issues addressed in the three-part conference

In performing arts, aesthetics, criticism, and historical research focus primarily on the figure of the artist-creator, whether they are a performer, director, playwright, or dramaturge. Creative work and technical work are subject to distinct issues, particularly in terms of training—where there is a clear division between technical studies and studies on acting or dramaturgy—as well as in terms of remuneration and recognition. Artists and workers belong to two distinct categories, one in the spotlight, the other in the shadows.

This division seems less clear in the puppetry arts, where technical skill and its dramaturgical implications are often performed by the same person in front of the audience. In most current aesthetics, manipulation is visible, with the wings seemingly displaced onto the stage: technical gestures, character construction, and the arrangement of the performance space, which are usually invisible, become visible. The performer is at once character, technician, creator of forms, editor, and showman. It is precisely this technical aspect that interests us, the persistence of these gestures, their visibility during the performance. How can we consider the artisanal dimension of puppetry?

It is not so much a question of understanding how puppets represent a particular gesture (this gesture in puppetry) but rather of looking at the performer and the craft, of systematically exploring a gesture through exchanges with practitioners, builders, and artists.

What happens behind the scenes of a show: around and behind the stage as well as before the performance?

The aim will be to understand, on the one hand, the gestures common to puppet creation, such as construction gestures, gestures that unfold in the workshop, or exploratory gestures during the creative process, and, on the other hand, the unique gestures specific to a technique or aesthetic: “surveying” for Les Mains Sales cie., “gleaning, gathering, piling up” for the Turak company, “tinkering” for the Théâtre de la Licorne, etc. This exploration will also examine the places where creation takes place (from the poetic influence of what can be seen through the workshop window to economic influences: how many set designs and material choices were made based on the size of the truck the company owned?) and its timing (from the moment of creation to the moment it hits the stage, what persists?).

What remains of the dream gesture when confronted with the material or the audience? How are creative gestures transmitted? How can we consider the persistence or disappearance of the hand in contemporary puppetry practices?

Summary of part 1 in Arras, April 18 & 19, 2024

The first part of the conference was entitled “Working gestures: making, creating, transmitting” and focused on construction gestures, their transmission in training venues and in the revival of a company's repertoire, the notion of gestural heritage in contemporary and historical forms from different traditions, and the place of builders in the process of creating performances. It was structured around four themes, giving a voice to artists and researchers alike: 1) “Work gestures, craftsmanship, and manufacturing on stage” questioned the exhibition of backstage areas, the workshop as part of the dramaturgy, and the place of the hand on stage. 2) “Creators and matrimoine,” focusing on the work of Claire Dancoisne and Noémie Géron's film Les marionnettes naissent aussi (Puppets Are Born Too). 3) “Manufacturing gestures, animation gestures: what is being passed on?” and 4) “International training and transmission” explored educational practices in Germany, France, and Ukraine.

Summary of part 2 in Strasbourg - January 29 & 30, 2025

Following the two days of part 1, part 2 of Gestures and Processes in Puppetry Arts examined the place of scenography in puppetry arts from a broad perspective: from models in the workshop to traditional puppet theaters, from huge or infinitely small stages to light projections and mapping.

How can puppetry be scenographied? What specific issues does puppetry raise for scenographers and builders? And how is the place of puppeteers in these spaces conceived? Drawing on the definition of gesture in dance studies (Christine Roquet) and anthropology (Marcel Jousse), where gesture is presented as meaningful, intentional, and charged, as opposed to movement, which is essentially functional, what are the gestures of the contemporary scenographer for the puppetry arts? Box, magnifying glass, forest of ropes, puppet theater, screen...... scenographic spaces for puppets bring together the issues of objects and bodies to be animated, lit, set in motion, as well as the interplay of revelation and concealment. Through scenographic gestures, the puppet space is inhabited or even haunted by real or induced, material or imagined presences.

Part 3 in Poitiers – November 12-14, 2025

Finally, the third part of this exploration of Gestures and Processes in Puppetry will focus more specifically on the post-performance period: how to care for puppets, how to preserve them, what re-animation techniques to use? And what bridges can be built between the puppet figure and its still image?

Starting with archiving gestures, which already evoke the dimensions of conservation and care, we will also look at what, in the act of capturing the photographic image, amounts to a form of reanimation. From the doll portraits presented in 2003 by Gisèle Vienne to the experiments in staging reified child bodies by Alice Laloy and her team, contemporary puppetry practices create striking back-and-forth movements between the object and its image. Serial practices, such as publishing, editing, and exhibiting, are part of these new gestures to be described and considered in this third section.

How can we situate this gesture? What does the act of photographing puppets imply? What fascination does the figure of inert matter hold for artists who are not necessarily puppeteers? How can we find new modes of conservation that go beyond the object itself? And how can we think about preserving, or even highlighting, the technical gesture of manipulation once the piece is finished?

Papers may fall into one of the following three categories:

1: Archiving. Sometimes in poor condition or fragile, puppets can be all that remains of a performance. They often bear signs of wear and tear that bear witness to repeated handling, the moving imprint of a puppeteer's hand. Here, we will consider the conservation techniques required for puppets. Restoration, tissue paper, boxes... How can we preserve and then make these treasures accessible? What place can the technical gestures and creative processes that gave rise to the puppet find in archiving? What care and time frames are needed for conservation?

2: Exhibiting. Following on from axis 1, this axis will focus on the increasingly numerous exhibitions of puppets and stage elements. What can be said about the performance without the animation? How does exhibiting also mean taking care of a professional and artistic field, bringing performance, a fortiori puppetry, long considered a minor art form, into museums and galleries? What exchanges take place between these fixed puppets and the visitors in motion? From installation to staging, objects undergo what some studies have suggested is a new form of puppetry dramaturgy. How can we think about this in light of recent exhibitions devoted to theater, its objects, and puppets?

3: Photographing. We are aware of the links that can be forged between theater and photography. They are not only played out in the composition of the image, what we might too easily call the theatricality of photographic staging. Beyond archiving and the technical act of conservation to “keep a trace,” photography can be a place of invention, of gestures that bring puppets back to life. If we can reify the living by photographing it, perhaps we can, conversely, reanimate the inert by photographing it? In these images, captured moments, we might suspect that movement, however slight, is possible; that these images are a fragment of it, the beginning of a tremor of the or in the frame, which could upset the registers of presence.

The format of the papers may be academic, artistic, or performative.

Proposals (500 characters including spaces) should be sent, specifying the chosen theme, with a short biography (500 characters including spaces) to Shirley Niclais shirley.niclais@... and Oriane Maubert omaubert@... by September 20, 2025.

The three-part conference program will be presented to the public at the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnette (FMTM) de Charleville-Mézières on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, in the presence of Oriane Maubert, Shirley Niclais, and Nicolas Saelens.

Scientific committee:

Marie Garré Nicoara – Lecturer, Université d’Artois

Shirley Niclais – Lecturer, Université de Poitiers

Oriane Maubert – Lecturer, Université de Strasbourg

Ester Fuoco – Lecturer, IULM, Milano

Julie Postel – phD, UPHF, artist

Nicolas Saelens – MAST Université d’Artois, president of THEMAA, artist

Amos Fergombé - PR UPHF

Sandrine Le Pors - PR Université de Montpellier3 Paul-Valéry