Why Puppets Matter
Puppets are associated with children in this country, and parades are associated with fun — so people sometimes assume they're trivial. This is very far from the truth. Pageants, parades, and processions take over public space and transform it into a place where anything can happen: dragons, giant goldfishes, purple people.
With puppets, a space people walk through every day in their daily lives suddenly becomes completely other. People can see that they can make anything they want of their own home. Puppets can make thoughts real. It's not only imaginary animals that can materialize — Faith, Hope, Charity, the redwoods, summer, exasperation, and the desire for world peace can all take form and walk down the street greeting their devoted fans.
Street performance is amazingly intense. In a theater, everything says "sit still and listen." In the street, everything says "hey, look around, there might be something more interesting over there." When the audience approves, there is no distance to take the edge off the applause of what appears to be the entire immediate world. To walk down the street as thousands cheer — everyone deserves to do it once in a while.
This is why we do what we do. By organizing puppet parades and lending out puppets, we're helping train a generation of community artists to pay attention to, and respond to, the people around them.
