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By Monica Hoth von der Meden (April 21, 2006) San Miguel de Allende has been characterized as a city with an extensive cultural life. Here one can find many festivals of music and film and plentiful exhibits of the plastic arts, but there are relatively few cultural activities designed for the young people who live and visit here. For this reason, the San Miguel Puppet Festival was started in 2003 and repeated in 2004. Currently, we are enthusiastically organizing a puppet festival for 2006. Our goal is to preserve the art of puppetry so that children of the 21st century can come to know, appreciate and enjoy this ancient theatrical art. Since the beginning of civilization, humans have created figures in their likeness as symbols for their longings, fears, achievements and dreams. Beginning in the 19th century, puppets were relegated almost exclusively to the realm of childhood. Nowadays, in a time when children spend increasing amounts of time in front of the television and lack other options for entertainment, they devote less time to playing and creativity. Some experts believe that this phenomenon is responsible for the erosion of childhood traditions. The games and toys that help bring about intellectual, emotional and even spiritual growth are in danger of extinction, taken over by commercial interests that generate a mass culture that promotes violence and consumerism to the detriment of more traditional family values and society at large. For more than three centuries San Miguel de Allende has been privileged to be home to several important puppetry companies. The city has also been infamous for its puppetry. In records dating back to 1730, inquisitorial proceedings were directed at a puppeteer named Antonio Farrfán. The Sacred Office of Mexico recorded in its findings that the puppeteer's skills and operations created foul smoke and that some of his performances were hardly Christian and led to superstition. For his theatrical efforts the poor Farrfán was jailed. At the beginning of the 20th century the renowned Compañía Nacional de Autómatas Hermanos Rosete Aranda passed through San Miguel. Don Donato Almanza, a prestigious artisan of sacred images with a fertile imagination, became enchanted by the marionettes and, along with his apprentice, José Rodríguez, began constructing his own puppets and entertaining friends and neighbors on Sunday afternoons. In 1968, Linda and John Keogh, Canadian puppeteers and pioneers in the field of television animation, came to San Miguel. They set up a puppet workshop in the Centro Cultural "El Nigromante" (Bellas Artes) and presented several works by the celebrated Spanish author Federico García Lorca in the Teatro Ángela Peralta. The group of shadow puppets "Athanor," formed by María de Céspedes and Claudio Kermaría, among others, established itself in San Miguel in 1974. The company was founded in France, and following a long tour of the Pacific Rim countries and the Middle East, its founders decided to settle here. In 1983 and 1985 they organized the very successful National Festivals of Puppets in San Miguel. Since 1999, I have taught the puppet theater workshop at Bellas Artes. In 2003, the Festival of Puppets San Miguel de Allende was organized under the auspices of the Mexican Association of Hotel and Motel Owners of San Miguel de Allende, A.C., and Bellas Artes. These two groups also directed the festival in 2004, with the added support of the Coordinator of Tourism of the State of Guanajuato and the National Chamber of the Restaurant Industry. Now, we are rejoining forces and looking for public and private benefactors so the puppet festival can once more come to life in San Miguel de Allende and delight the young among us. Monica Hoth von der Meden is a dramaturgist, narrator, puppeteer and director of puppet theater. She has directed the puppet theater "La Salamandra" since 1991. You can reach her by email: monicahoth@yahoo.es |