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<DIV class=event_data><STRONG>WHEN: THURSDAY </STRONG><A
name=091808><STRONG>09.18.08 | 5-7 PM |</STRONG></A></DIV>
<DIV class=event_data><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV class=event_data><STRONG>WHERE: </STRONG><A
href="http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=2-105&mapsearch=go2-105"><STRONG>2-105</STRONG></A>
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<DIV class=event_title><STRONG>Playing with Stuff: The Material World in
Performance</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV class=event_speaker><STRONG>John Bell</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV class=event_speaker> </DIV>
<DIV class=event_description>This presentation / lecture / infomercial examines
the nature and implications of object performance both as a global cultural
tradition and as a contemporary medium that dominates our culture. While
performing objects traditionally include puppets, masks, icons, and other
“things”, the more recent innovations of film, television, and the internet can
also be seen as aspects of our need to play with stuff. In all cases, the
central dynamic of this form involves a focus on the material world instead of
humans. The talk will be accompanied by images from 20th-century avant-garde
film and performance work. John Bell began his performance work with Bread and
Puppet Theater, after which he earned a Ph.D. in theater history at Columbia
University. He is a founding member of the award-winning Great Small Works
theater company of Brooklyn, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies
at MIT, and Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the
University of Connecticut. This spring he will be directing a “Living
Newspaper”-style production about the politics of global healthcare with MIT
students. His latest book, American Puppet Modernism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008),
examines particular moments of puppet, mask, and object theater in the United
States over the past 150 years. He is a trombonist with the Somerville-based
Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band, and organizer of the
upcoming October 12th HONK! Festival Parade from Davis Square to Harvard
Square.</DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>