The Judy Project – A Critical and Historical Investigation of Women and Puppetry from the 18th to the 21st Century
Speaker: Alissa Mello (University of Exeter)
Respondent: Marianne Drugeon
Salle Kouros (Saint-Charles 2)
Lundi 8 avril 2024, 16h30
Abstract:
The Judy Project is a three-year transhistorical study of women practitioners, gender and its representation in Punch and Judy from the 18th century to the present day. From fairgrounds to seaside resorts, Punch and Judy is perhaps the most iconic English puppet tradition that simultaneously conjures images of beach holidays, laughter and ice cream alongside violence, misogyny, abuse and sometimes racism. For many, it is a men’s performing practice about the leading male character, Punch. Yet its historiography and meaning across time are significantly more nuanced and complex revealing a diverse range of social activism and anxiety(ies) at volatile historical moments. It investigates innovative women practitioners and feminist performances that have either escaped thorough examination or been elided from the extant historiography.
Biography
Alissa Mello is a theatre artist and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. Her publications include Women and Puppetry: Critical and Historical Investigations (recipient of the 2022 UNIMA-USA Nancy Staub Award and finalist for ATHE’s 2020 Excellence in Editing Award) with Claudia Orenstein and Cariad Astles, and contributions to books and journals. Forthcoming edited volumes are Race, Gender and Disability in Puppetry and Material Performance, co-edited with Paulette Richards and Laura Purcell-Gates, and Making Meaning with Puppets: Material, Performance, Perception with Dassia Posner and Claudia Orenstein both in contract with Routledge. She was a founding member of Inkfish, and performed and choreographed with Theodora Skipitares, Anna Kiraly, Jane Catherine Shaw and Ishara Puppet Theater. From 2019 - 2022 she was the Managing Director at Sandglass Center for Puppetry and Theater Research. Beginning in 2023 she will be the editor of UNIMA-USA’s biannual journal Puppetry International.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska- Curie grant agreement No 101020076. It is being implemented at the University of Exeter in the Department of Drama.
This conference is jointly organised by the ERC funded Puppet-Plays Project, EA741-EMMA and EA4209-RIRRA 21
The lecture will also be accessible via Zoom: https://univ-montp3-fr.zoom.us/j/93435937410?pwd=SzZsVGNPUkhMUDZTOElmQi9XclQzZz09