Performing Objects and Actors. Where does the power of life originate?

In John Bell’s essay “Death and Performing Objects,” Bell presents the dichotomy between the living actor and performance objects that are not living, but have a connection to the living world, either through their materiality or their animation through human interaction. Bell begins his conversation by proposing that we all “arise from inert material, exist for a brief moment, and then return to the larger body of dead matter from which we arose.” In essence, he argues that actors/performers have a connection to the objects that they perform in a cyclical sense because the materiality of the objects – whether it be leather, wood or bone – was at one time alive. Although these materials had a physical “life” to them at one point, I think his justification that the implicit power of these materials is stronger because they are more connected to the life is incomplete. For example, the native American Zuni tribe honors small objects the look like animals which are carved from stone, called fetishes. These fetishes reference the Zuni creation story in which predatory animals were struck by lighting and turned to stone, but the heart inside the stone is still very much alive which protects its owner from harm. I believe that the anthropomorphic power invested in objects such as the fetish of the Zunis is just as powerful as the leather or plant objects. Bell references the use of animal as well as human bones and remains as objects of power. The objects we might understand the most are relics in the church – a divine protection that connects the human world with the afterworld. I argue that although these materials have a physical connection to life, the power of the object itself is imaginary and its strength is in the belief of the viewer, regardless of its materiality.

The subject of the role of the actor and the role of the performing object is one of the main points of Bell’s essay as well as Kantor’s “The Theatre of Death” (1975). Bell references the arguments of Edward Gordon Craig and Heinrich von Kleist who both agree that the puppet or performing object is more valuable that the actor. Kleist and Craig both seem to agree that the human form is awkward and useless as a valuable art form. Bell instigates that although Kleist’s and Craig’s argument offer warning to the actor as secondary importance in performing object theatre, the actor is still necessary to successfully activate object theatre. “The elevation of the object from the status of prop to active agent provokes anxiety, because it appears that focus on the object will reduce focus on the human body. This anxiety is in fact justified, because forming object theatre de-centers the actor and places her or him in relationship not to another actor or to the audience, but to a representative of the lifeless world.” In contrast, Taseusz Kantor claims that the death of the actor must be present in performance in order to truly fill the puppet with life, “it is possible to express life in art only through the absence of life.”

I am surprised that throughout both of these essays and the variety of performances including puppets and props that represent death, the Mexican “day of the dead,” or “Día de los Muertos,” was not even brought up. This is a holiday that is celebrated each year by families welcoming and honoring their loved ones who have passed. There are parades with balloons, costumes, candy, toys and they all usually depict the skeleton to represent death. I feel like this discussion would have been helpful to include in Bell’s essay discussing ritual as it relates to death and performing objects.