Countdown time for puppets in İzmir
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Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mart 11, 2009 00:00
Think puppets. Vietnamese water puppets. Or Turkish or Javanese shadow puppets. Or American finger puppets. Or the Bunraku of Japan. Or marionettes. This is, after all, a most ancient art.
Yes, Hillary Clinton just went home to Washington. And Foreign Minister Babacan and President Abdullah Gül are in Tehran. Soon Babacan will go to Armenia. Of course, we all hope this will add up to something that makes the probable visit next month of U.S. President Barack Obama all the more fruitful.
Times are busy in the news business. The Israelis should soon have a government. Northern Ireland is troubled again. Turkey will soon have local elections. An international Kurdish conference is coming up next month in Arbil, along with a global water conference here in Istanbul. The economic news only grows more grim by the day. Yesterday we reported the Turkish Lira trading at more than 1.8 to the dollar and a 21 percent drop in industrial output. Today we report that industrial capacity usage, already low, at least did not drop any further in the latest monthly report. Sometimes "good" news is a relative thing.
So against this backdrop, we were delighted yesterday with our report in our daily Metronome section that, "Izmir is counting down the days until it is overrun with puppets."
This is all part of İzmir’s third annual "International Puppet Days" festival which will begin in that Aegean city tomorrow and continue until March 21. Karen Schafer, one of Europe’s best known puppeteers is coming. So is the world famous Italian puppet group Controluce Theatro D’Ombra. This just one of the 12 puppet groups from six countries who will put on some 39 separate shows in Izmir in the coming days.
Turkey of course has its own "Karagöz and Hacivat" tradition of shadow puppet play. This long Ramadan tradition is the form of puppetry familiar to most of us. But we also believe our own puppet traditions can serve as not a model, but a window, for the understanding of others.
Which, with a bit of effort, we could probably work into an interesting metaphor for our age. But we won’t. We just want to use the occasion to take a break from the relentless flow of major news and encourage any readers who may be in Izmir in the coming days to do the same.
"With every passing day, we are seeing the interest in puppets increase exponentially," said Selçuk Dinçer, director of the festival. "The number of people who want to learn puppeteering, who want to watch puppet shows and who want their kids to learn is increasing. Now the art of puppeteering has become one with İzmir, so we want to take that and make İzmır a center of puppets."
There is not much we can add to that.
If you are interested in learning more about "International Puppet Days," check out the Web site: www.izmirkuklagunleri.com.
Times are busy in the news business. The Israelis should soon have a government. Northern Ireland is troubled again. Turkey will soon have local elections. An international Kurdish conference is coming up next month in Arbil, along with a global water conference here in Istanbul. The economic news only grows more grim by the day. Yesterday we reported the Turkish Lira trading at more than 1.8 to the dollar and a 21 percent drop in industrial output. Today we report that industrial capacity usage, already low, at least did not drop any further in the latest monthly report. Sometimes "good" news is a relative thing.
So against this backdrop, we were delighted yesterday with our report in our daily Metronome section that, "Izmir is counting down the days until it is overrun with puppets."
This is all part of İzmir’s third annual "International Puppet Days" festival which will begin in that Aegean city tomorrow and continue until March 21. Karen Schafer, one of Europe’s best known puppeteers is coming. So is the world famous Italian puppet group Controluce Theatro D’Ombra. This just one of the 12 puppet groups from six countries who will put on some 39 separate shows in Izmir in the coming days.
Turkey of course has its own "Karagöz and Hacivat" tradition of shadow puppet play. This long Ramadan tradition is the form of puppetry familiar to most of us. But we also believe our own puppet traditions can serve as not a model, but a window, for the understanding of others.
Which, with a bit of effort, we could probably work into an interesting metaphor for our age. But we won’t. We just want to use the occasion to take a break from the relentless flow of major news and encourage any readers who may be in Izmir in the coming days to do the same.
"With every passing day, we are seeing the interest in puppets increase exponentially," said Selçuk Dinçer, director of the festival. "The number of people who want to learn puppeteering, who want to watch puppet shows and who want their kids to learn is increasing. Now the art of puppeteering has become one with İzmir, so we want to take that and make İzmır a center of puppets."
There is not much we can add to that.
If you are interested in learning more about "International Puppet Days," check out the Web site: www.izmirkuklagunleri.com.