Why an international puppet day?
Puppets don’t hate, they are not envious, and they are not mean. They say everything that needs to be said in a way that doesn’t hurt us. They even take over the responsibility for our failures and defeats. They return us love, trust and sincerity, when we truly believe in them.
For at least one day a year we should think and talk about puppets a bit more. What do they mean to us in everyday life? Are they really entertaining only for the youngest? For them every day should be a puppet day, they find days without puppets empty and dull, prosaic. We don’t realise enough that every day, we are puppets – marionettes. As Plato had written, it is Gods who pull the strings of our lives. In the modern society, these Gods are made of paper/newspaper, they are electronic Zmaji Tolovaji who control our actions and we are repeatedly being fooled like Žogica Marogica was in one of the most famous Slovenian performances that has already for 63 years been telling us from the stage that we should not trust shiny promises, and that only faith and belief in true goals can stir us form lethargy. Our youngest will also help blowing hard (like in the story) and together we will blow away the shadows of all the dragons.
The Slovene people can be proud of its puppetry tradition, of an art that is an integral part of the nation’s culture.
International Puppet Day is therefore a good opportunity for our sophisticated society to realise that. Let us try to rid ourselves of everyday manipulation and let us rejoice over the magical force of puppetry!
Edi Majaron, University Professor for Puppetry
Honorary Member of the International Puppetry Association UNIMA
