Quality manipulation depends mainly on a good knowledge of movement and how to apply it. The more it jerks and jumps about or moves all over the place, the less it keeps our attention, as the movements cancel each other out. A character isn’t more alive because it moves a lot. The quality of manipulation isn’t measured by the quantity or size of movement either. Controls come in every shape and size from the large and complex ones used by Harro Siegel or Greta Bruggeman to the very simple little ones in the shape of an H that can be found in Myanmar (Burma). Usually the puppeteer will hold it with one hand, using the other to pull individual strings. Such a control may be held in a vertical or horizontal position. A control consisting of a piece of wood to which all the strings are attached does not necessarily have a universal relation to the quality of manipulation. To obtain this sort of virtuosity, the puppeteers of Rajasthan, in India, require no more than three strings (except for their dancer puppet, Anarkali, who has four) which they hold in their bare hands (see Kathputli ka Khel). In the case of string puppets, for example, contrary to the widely believed idea, there is no necessary correlation between the number of strings and the quality of movement: a dancing puppet can be more gracious suspended by one string as opposed to twenty, and a galloping horseman couldn’t turn around the stomach of his horse if he was controlled by numerous strings. However, quality is not merely a matter of technical complexity. In Asian culture alone, the variations are numerous, from puppeteers who lie on the ground with puppets on their toes to Japanese robots that play the piano and are controlled by a built-in computer. Many are influenced by diverse cultural traditions, notably from Asia. In the 20th century, this classical order was shaken by the arrival of new techniques that mix and combine a variety of different styles. In Europe and the Unites States of America the classic manipulation techniques have given their names to different types of puppet: the glove puppet, worn on the hand and operated from below (thus called hand puppet in the United States) the marionette or string puppet operated from above by means of strings, wires or rods and the rod puppet operated from below by means of rods. There is no one single manipulation technique, but rather a wide spectrum of possible ways of animating inert material, characters or objects. However, this depends on certain conditions, of which the manipulation of the puppets is one of the most important, for it is this process that underlines the phenomenon, both fascinating and bizarre, that attracts people to puppets: seeing life where we know it does not exist. When a spectator goes to a puppet show, he is unlikely to question the professional secrets behind the presentation (see Secrecy). However, like the different instruments of the orchestra, every type of puppet demands the development of certain skills which allow the performer to endow it with maximum expressivity. Many puppeteers now find the term “manipulation” unacceptable. Today it has lost currency, partly because of pejorative associations of the word and partly because of developments within puppet theatre itself, most notably when the performer shares the stage with the puppet (or object) which now becomes one of the means of expression of the performer rather than a figure to be manipulated. In the first half of the 20th century, “manipulation” gradually became a more general term for the handling of puppets of any sort. The performers who spoke or sang were regarded as important, but those (other than the showman) who operated the figures were of comparatively low status and often referred to as “figure workers”. In the 19th century, a showman or proprietor who owned a marionette show, went under a variety of names ranging from “ puparo” in Sicily to “physicien” (with scientific overtones) in France to “Professor” in Britain, a term that has survived with the Punch and Judy performer today and was used to imply profession or métier. It does not seem to have appeared in the context of puppet theatre before the 20th century, and here it is most common with marionettes (string puppets) rather than glove or other types of puppet. The term “manipulation” came into general use in the 18th century, often in a scientific context, and implied handling with skill.
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