Online screening followed by a Q&A with Hamid Rahmanian, in conversation with Olga M. Davidson (Boston University) and John Bell (Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, University of Connecticut). Hosted by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. Date TBA.
Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic is a cinematic shadow play that features the white-haired Zal from his birth to his love story with Rudabeh, based on the Persian epic Shahnameh (‘The Book of Kings’). Created and directed by Hamid Rahmanian with graphics derived from the visual tradition of the region, rendered as puppets, costumes, masks, scenography, and digital animation.
Excerpts from Feathers of Fire and interview with Hamid Rahmanian:
The Feathers of Fire homepage contains fuller information about the play, including media interviews with the team.
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Olga M. Davidson (Boston University) offers background information on Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic, focusing in particular on the character of Zal—his birth and immediate expulsion due to his white hair, his exiled childhood, and his later marriage to Rudabeh—as well as Zal’s son Rostam, one of the epic’s most beloved heroes. Her presentation took place in the context of the online mini-symposium World Epics in Puppet Theater: India, Iran, Japan, Italy devoted to the theme of exile and hosted by the Museo Internazionale delle Marionette “Antonio Pasqualino” (Palermo). It can be found at 1:05:18 – 1:21:40 on the video recording of the mini-symposium.
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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry (BIMP) is one of America’s hidden treasures—a superb collection of over 3,500 puppets from all over the world; an archive of books, manuscripts, posters, drawings, audio-visual materials and photographs all covering the history of puppetry. It is also the new home of the Puppeteers of America’s Audio-Visual Collection: the largest collection of videotapes, films, and other media about puppetry in the United States. The Ballard Institute curates and produces exhibitions of puppetry, both at the Ballard Museum and for touring across the United States. The Institute also offers workshops, museum tours, artists’ forums, film showings, performances, and other events and programs that promote the art of puppetry as a twenty-first-century art form with deep historic and global roots.
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This screening and Q&A is part of the World Epics in Puppet Theater: India, Iran, Japan, Italy project, a Columbia University Humanities War & Peace Initiative that aims to foster “the study of war and peace from the perspective of scholars in the Humanities, in conversation with colleagues from around Columbia and the world […] with an ultimate goal of perpetuating a more peaceful world.” The event is co-sponsored by the Humanities War and Peace Initiative, through the Division of Humanities in the Arts & Sciences at Columbia University; the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, University of Connecticut; the Puppet Arts Program, Department of Dramatic Arts, University of Connecticut; and UNIMA-USA.
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