Puppets Come to Life on Lower East Side

On sweltering, mid-August Thursday on the Lower East Side, puppets paraded down Delancey Street, including 10-foot-tall marionettes of a couple dancing, handheld colorful creatures, and even a life-sized, hip-shaking replica of Brazilian actress and singer Carmen Miranda, a staple of 1940s Hollywood musicals. All of the puppets — and their people — were kicking off the first day of the Puppet Fringe Festival, which ran from August 13-16.

The procession made its way to the Clemente Cultural Center where an outdoor stage and red carpet were set up. Puppeteer Sophia Tarantelli made her way down the carpet with Luna,  a loony-bird marionette with a blue head, gray legs, black feet, and a big red nose. 

“ I love puppets," said Tarantelli. "I think they're such a fun way to express yourself and come alive."

For the fourth annual Puppet Fringe Festival, the theme was "Women In Puppetry." The festival featured exhibitions from artists Theodora Skiptares and Nancy Lohman Staub. 

Skiptares, a Greek-American puppeteer, got her start in sculpture before transitioning to performance art, where she discovered her love of the craft She said when she moved to New York City in the ‘70s, she began experimenting with different art forms. 

“ The experiments led to my using little self-portraits I made of myself as puppets," she explained. "I knew nothing about puppets. I didn't like puppets. But in my studio one day I just took one of my dolls and brought her on stage with me. I was a solo performer. And then all of a sudden I made a piece that had 300 little Theodoras on it, and I realized when I left the stage, I was much happier directing them and not being a performer."

Skipitares also said the best part of performing with puppets is the ability to say whatever you want through them. “I've always believed that you can say things through puppets that you can't say straight out as an actor.  I think we need to say things now, and, and maybe puppets are gonna help us say things.” 

Nestor Carillo is part of the two-person team that operates the Carmen Miranda puppet. He said he enjoys making people happy through the stories he tells with the puppets. 

“Sometimes when you're just acting, you just represent just one character. Sometimes you can do two characters. But with puppets, you can change your voice, and you can play different characters.”

Puppet Fringe Festival founder Manuel Moran believes that puppetry is the last tactile and physical art form left. 

“In a world increasingly dominated by AI, by screens, algorithms, and digital experiences, puppetry still begins with something beautiful, beautifully simple: a human being giving life to an object," said Moran. "A hand, a piece of wood, some fabric, some paper, and suddenly there is life. There is imagination.”