Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
12. Uluslararası Ege Sosyal ve Beşeri Bilimler Kongresi, İzmir, Türkiye, 25 - 26 Şubat 2026, cilt.1, sa.1, ss.1, (Özet Bildiri)
DECENTRALIZATION OF THE SUBJECT IN BREAD & PUPPET THEATRE PERFORMANCES
Res. Asst. Yağmur Sevim PARİM SAĞLAM
Istanbul Yeni Yuzyil University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Performing Arts
Yildiz Technical University, Faculty of Art and Design, Department of Music and Performing Arts yagmur.saglam@yeniyuzyil.edu.tr, ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4092-1341
ABSTRACT
Since the 1960s, Bread & Puppet Theatre has been one of the most widely discussed examples at the intersection of political theatre, street performance and puppetry practices. A significant portion of the literature focuses on the company’s position within countercultural movements, its aesthetics of public spectacle and procession and particularly the role of the Domestic Resurrection Circus in its political performance repertoire since the 1970s. Bread & Puppet Theatre does not assert the dominance of dramatic character, star performer, or text in its performances. Instead, meaning is distributed across collectives, objects, images, and the attention of the audience. The giant puppets manipulated by the performers redirect effect and attention away from empathy toward social labor and material force. Performances structured in segments and choral formations replace linear plot development and disrupt the expectation that a single hero will guide the flow of events. The power of the performance generally lies in scale, rhythm, procession, and repetition, where individual bodies function as parts of a larger organism. Music, banners, and spoken slogans should be read as arguments voiced by a collective mouth rather than a single speaker. This study argues that, in Bread & Puppet Theatre’s performances, the puppet functions by being articulated with the performer’s body in a way that decenters agency. Through the concept of subjectivation, the study discusses how this material bodily articulation renders the agent of action irreducible to a singular actor and weakens the central position of individual subjectivity on stage. Within this framework, Bread & Puppet’s performances, procession practices, and workshop structures are approached as primary evidence demonstrating that the subject is constituted not through representation, but through collective action and shared processes of production
Keywords: Bread & Puppet Theatre, Political Theatre, Giant Puppet