Call for Contribution & Save the Date – Kasper & Co. goes UNESCO

Dear Colleagues, 

we are reaching out to you as part of the new initiative “Kasper & Co. goes UNESCO”, which aims to highlight the shared tradition of comic glove puppetry figures across Europe and to work towards an inscription on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage.

As a first step, we seek to establish an overview of existing traditions, current theatre practices, research, and national heritage initiatives. We therefore kindly invite you to contribute by completing the attached questionnaire.

Survey document/link: 

Google forms: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf3AJVPH1RpwfWHHQbLePKjQtAYzpT-NBuMZlAsbqpqjU4q0g/viewform?usp=publish-editor 

as pdf: click here to open the pdf version

as word document: click here to download the word document

We would appreciate receiving your response by June 30th, 2026.
Brief answers or keywords are fully sufficient.

We would also appreciate it if you could share the survey within your professional network of puppeteers, theatre practitioners, and researchers.

Save the Date:

A short Zoom information meeting will take place on April 13^th 2026 at 3pm (CET), providing further details about the project, the questionnaire, and possibilities for European collaboration.

https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zoom-x.de/j/66459004802?pwd=CA07yVljjFglQi1uL1yseOKORP0Euk.1

Meeting-ID: 664 5900 4802
Password: 304728

The meeting will be in English language.

Thank you very much for your valuable contribution to this important cultural heritage initiative. If you have questions about the project, the questionnaire, or want to be added to the projects mailing list to receive news and information, please contact us via mail (doku@fidena.de).

Yours sincerely,
The “Kasper & Co. goes UNESCO” Working Group

Katrin Seitz (Ministry for Science, Research and Culture of Brandenburg, Potsdam), Mareike Gaubitz (Head of the Documentation and Research Centre, Fidena, Bochum), Lars Rebehn (Head conservator of the puppetry collection of the Dresden state art collections, Dresden), Ralf Uschner (Director of the Central German Marionette Theatre Museum, Bad Liebenwerda), Dr. Gerd Taube (free Theater scholar, Frankfurt/Main)