One of the biggest puppetry-related events of the „Three Layers” program of University of Theatre and Film Arts and its partner universities was the conference titled On the borders of storytelling – Puppetry Theatre Education in the XXI. century on 19 January 2016 in Budapest. The main organizers of the conference were puppetry professionals Kata Csató and Edina Ellinger.
The conference was visited by representatives of Hungarian puppetry theatres and organizations (Unima, Puppeteer Assosiation, Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute), puppetry actors and directors as well as students and teachers of University of Theatre and Film Arts.
Guests from abroad included the leading teachers of the partner universities in Prague, Bratislava and Bialystok: Robert Smolik, Marika Kecskesová, Wieslaw Czolpinski. Guest lecturers were invited from partner institutions of the planned Erasmus Joint puppetry master’s program.
The topics of the conference revolved around the contexts and situation of puppetry today, concentrating on the role of storytelling in education. Due to the structure of the sections, the audience was able to get a good overview of the similarities and differences of puppetry education in the different countries from both theoretical and practical points of view.
In the first, theoretical block, Karol Suszczyński spoke about the history and current situation of puppetry education in Poland in his lecture While crossing too many borders, we forget where we come from. He talked about the ideal education of puppeteers and the chances of progress in puppetry. The second lecture, titled Puppetry in contemporary theatre by Ida Hledíková from Bratislava brought up a point that became a hot topic of the whole conference: the demand for a standardized terminology in puppetry. Speaking about contemporary tendencies she also contemplated the borders of puppetry and education in the context of new and independent theatre forms. The last lecturer of this block, Géza Balogh talked about the history and current issues of puppetry education in Hungary in his presentation The puppeteer yesterday, today and tomorrow. A short discussion followed his lecture, revolving around the problem of permeability between the different traditions and languages.
The second, practical block started with Tomáš Procházka’s lecture Noises and Visions: Puppet theatre influenced by experimental music and visual art, in which he did an audiovisual presentation about connecting different art forms in puppet theatre.
Dóra Gimesi talked about both theoretical and practical aspects of puppet dramaturgy in her lecture Versions of fairy tale: the practice of creative writing in the education of Hungarian puppeteers. The topic of Konrad Dworakowski’s lecture Double tree – crossing the borders of imagination was the aesthetic representation of the connection between puppetry and imagination. In the closing discussion of this section the participants discussed the borders of puppet theatre in different contexts.
In the last section, focusing on pedagogy, the lecturers described the puppetry education of their respective countries: we had a chance to hear the presentations of Jiří Adámek from the Czech Republic (Student or youg artist? Casuistry of searching the authentic creative expression), Katarína Aulitisová from Slovakia (Space as Inspiration and Ephemeral Expression Meanings) and Xiaoxin Wang from China (Educating Puppeteers on Chinese Stage and Screen).
The closing program of the day was the performance of the 4th-year puppeteer students of University of Theatre and Film Arts Budapest, titled bearlife/beardream.
Lecturers, guests and the audience were all fascinated by the conference and hope to continue the inspirational joint work in the future.
