Artistic Inheritance: the power of storytelling across generations

Karagöz (left) and Hacivat (right); Collections of the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 

This week I’ve been developing a section on puppetry for my Theatre OER textbook. It’s a theater tradition with ancient roots, and it is ubiquitous in the world. I have thoroughly enjoyed absorbing so many different forms of puppetry that have developed independently across the globe, and I’ve only just scratched the surface. In this blog post, I’d like to share a little about Karagöz Shadow Puppetry.

Karagöz (“Black Eye” in Turkish) comes from the name of the main character in an over 700-year-old form of shadow puppetry.  Karagöz has Turkish and Persian origins. It combines puppetry, music, dance, and expert storytelling to entertain children and adults. Earliest mentions of Karagöz appear around the 14^th century, and it was extremely popular in the Ottoman Empire of the 18^th century.

Karagöz Shadow Puppetry was sometimes performed by one person, and part of the artistry came from that one performer’s ability to manipulate multiple puppets at one time. Word play, satire, and voice manipulation were also highly admired in this art form. An alternate performance practice was to have a small troupe of performers, some in charge of puppets, others sound effects and music, all coordinating to tell the story.

The Karagöz puppets were typically created from animal skin (camel was evidently the most durable) stretched to the point of translucence and painted. Artists manipulated the puppets behind a white sheet with a light source projecting the images and bringing out the beautiful colors painted on the hides. Waxed thread at the joints of the puppets provided mobility, and the artists used attached rods and their own fingers to create the movement of each puppet. The show began when an artist lit the lamp to provide rear projection on the sheet. Performances happened historically in cafes, private homes, and outdoor temporary spaces.

This YouTube video produced by TRT World provides some contemporary examples of Karagöz Shadow Puppetry: Showcase: Timeless Tales of Karagoz and Hacivat.

Fast forward to today. Sona Tatoyan is a first-generation Syrian Armenian American actor, writer, and producer who just happened to discover 180 shadow puppets in an attic in her family home in Syria—all handmade by her great-great-grandfather. These puppets inspired her to learn more about a family legacy that not only included inherited trauma but also a wealth of artistry.

Sona grew up in rural Indiana, but she spent summers with her maternal grandparents and extended family in Aleppo. She went to college in the U.S. at Wake Forest University, where she had the unique opportunity to study with Dr. Maya Angelou. While at Wake Forest, she also performed in a play called Mad Forest by the renowned British playwright Caryl Churchill, about overthrowing Ceaușescu's dictatorship in 1980s Romania.

All these cultural threads wove together to inform Sona’s personal calling as an artist. One of the many questions she pursues is: if story is the foundation of power, how do we take our story back?

Sona founded Hakawati, which is a nonprofit that endeavors to integrate the work of professional artists, renowned spiritual teachers, innovators, scientists, and therapists with a commitment to transform trauma through authentic storytelling. Sona’s great-great grandfather was a shadow puppeteer in the Ottoman Empire during the time of the Armenian Genocide. He fled with his family (and his puppets) to Aleppo and gradually started to make theater again there. Sona, generations later, found his puppets and founded Hakawati to create a new generation of storytelling. She put his inheritance to good use. Hakawati means storyteller in Arabic.

There is much more to this story. Take some time to listen to or read this full podcast interview Storytelling Alchemy with Sona Tatoyan from HowlRound.

Recently, Sona co-created AZAD (the rabbit and the wolf) with Jared Mezzocchi (produced by actor Bill Pullman, and developed with support of Harvard Artlab). This multi-media production puts her great-great-grandfather’s puppets front and center. AZAD combines Middle Eastern folk music with Karagöz shadow puppetry, video projections, storytelling, and movement techniques. Past and present intertwine to create a new theater experience that could not be told without the unique lived experience Sona brings to the project.

If you would like to dive deeper into Sona’s work, check out this YouTube video interview, “The places where we are broken could be our greatest source of empowerment.”