Sabbatical Adventures Part 3-Montreal

The Casteliers Puppet Festival coincided with U-M’s spring break, so my family was able to join me for this next adventure! Montreal is a fantastic city, though the weather was all over the place- still quite cold some days, though we did see some sun. Also notable, the Byzantine parking system. We stayed in Outremont which reminded me a lot of the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, NYC, and managed to not get a ticket nor towed! There is a large Hassidic community there, and we managed to arrive during Purim. It took me a minute to figure out why everyone was wearing really remarkable and colorful hats! Lots of vintage clothing and record shops, and great food all around, all within easy walking distance of our Airbnb.

Working out of Outremont, the Maison internationale des arts de la marionnette (MIAM) is a year round organization providing support to puppet artists, programming in schools, and produces the Casteliers Festival bringing in artists from all over the world for one week of puppetry and object theatre performances, exhibits and discussion. Since my last sabbatical, seven years ago, I have been practicing French every day, and was amazed to realize I could understand and speak it with great competency (though far from fluency). The biggest test was attending a panel discussion with artists and I could follow along quite well, as well as a walking tour of

store window displays featuring the work of Le Pire Espèces, a long time Montreal object theatre company. The guides would summarize in English, but I was following along in French just fine. I observed how language is the underpinning of their culture- people are raised “Anglo” or “Franco.” Fluency in either or both seemed generational as well. I started to notice subtler patterns in store signage, how people would greet you, or each other, and often effortlessly switch between two to three languages simultaneously. 

Similar to the Chicago festival, performances took place in a variety of venues with different institutional partners, with Outremont serving as a hub for additional programming. Tucked into a

small theatre, the first show we saw was called Whalefall by Infinithéâtre. This piece was inspired by the arrival of a young whale in the St. Lawrence River in 2020. The overall tone was earnest but honest in its presentation, featuring overhead projector shadow puppets, and several dimensional whale puppets that floated through the stage. There was also a live violistist underscoring the whole piece, and though she was off to the side, I appreciated how she collaborated with the performers.

Another highlight was Parallel Realities by Le Pire Espèces and reminded me a lot of the work by Manual Cinema and Kid Koala. As I leaned about their work from the vitrines exhibit, I believe this was a more technically complex show than they typically produce using two cameras focused on two model boxes with screens, objects, hands, and miniature scenery. A team of four performers wearing all black, except for day-glo

orange shoes (I assume so they could find each other in the dark) manipulated everything, with two of them taking turns providing narration, sound effects, and sound sampling. A fifth artist had the job of mixing the sound & live video feeds into one projected image. The show was in three acts with a massive change over of all the moving parts between each act. The first act was the most realistic- a memory piece of a German boy in WWII, then act two started to break with reality, with the final act wildly surreal. It was a remarkable study in production flow and organization. There were hundreds of objects, each only used once before it was stowed away. I loved how they used so much practical depth to create the large, layered, but ultimate 2-d animated image that was projected. The model boxes sometimes served as small shadow theatres, but then the camera would be matted, disrupting the exterior shape projected altogether. Even through at first glance it looked like chaos on the stage, it was brilliantly conceived and visually stunning. 

Une Traversée by La Compagnie Tchaïka is the story of a girl who travels through eight

stages of someone else’s dream- those of a black chess queen. The manipulation of the girl was once of those magical puppetry moments, when the puppeteers melt away and the movements, intention & focus are so beautifully articulated so the character springs to life. There were some magical practical effects of furniture melting, heads floating, and a wild sense of scale all in service of a story that was well served by the medium. 

All of these travels have been so inspiring! I’m excited to see how this work informs my own work and teaching. Next up: Indonesia!