Spiral Q Peoplehood and Participatory Puppet Performance, Part 2

(Jump here for Part 1 and Part 3)

Elements of the Performance 

The Peoplehood Parade and Pageant has shifted and morphed overtime to respond to its community and context and yet, both the parade and pageant retain many of the elements of their performance from the beginning. 

Since 2000, the Peoplehood Parade has kicked off at the Paul Robeson House. The house is part of the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and it provides access to the arts, supports local artists, and advocates for arts to promote social change and economic development. The website describes their work and mission in relation to Paul Robeson’s legacy: 

In a red brick house – not unlike many others on the 4900 block of Walnut Street in Philadelphia – Paul Robeson came to live out his final years with his big sister Marian Forsythe. The unassuming rowhouse was a haven for a man who had used his voice in song and speeches to advocate for the rights of oppressed people. 

Every Peoplehood starts on the block between Walnut and Sansom and Fran Aulston, of the Robeson House (and now her successor), welcome all to the neighborhood and give a blessing for the parade’s journey. From there the parade moves south, wending its way through residential streets. A few people carry a banner and a couple of flags to lead the parade, followed by different groups carrying or wearing puppets, costumes, flags, and their own banners. The giant puppets are spread out among the paraders with arms outstretched. The West Powelton Stepper Drum Squad, and sometimes its dancers, have been partners for many years and hold the front of the parade, while other musical groups – often a handmade instrument brigade – take up the rear. 

The parade ends at Clark Park, a municipal park created in the late 1800s whose prominent feature is a former pond now known as the “bowl”. Peoplehood enters this park from its most southwest corner. Everyone is invited to cross the bowl and sit around its edge while organizers actively recruit people who might be interested in participating. Open roles usually include at least birds, houses, and flags; the birds and houses are made to fit smaller people so that children can be involved. 

The pageant itself is performed in the bowl for, and partially by, the audience. Over the years the details of the story have shifted but the arc of the story remains essentially the same — there are people, animals, houses, etc. co-existing in relatively peaceful (but often separate) ways when some sort of force comes in and does damage to them and brings destruction and pain in its wake. This force is then only confronted by a counterforce of the people, animals, houses, etc. organizing themselves and using their collective power to reverse the pain and destruction. Once the power of the collective is recognized and engaged, the destructive force is reduced and then (often) included in the celebration of transformation and community at the end which is highlighted by music, dance and an invitation for everyone to join in. 

Although the story is similar, the puppets used and the story details are specified by
whomever creates the pageant; some puppets from previous years are used in remixed roles
and others are built new. Topics of the day bring a focus to the story; these have included
school closures, the housing market crash, gun violence in the community. Today, the pageants
continue to reflect the social and political happenings in the community and wider world, much
in the way that puppet and object performance has historically taken up this role (Bell). For
example, In 2017 the parade was organized around the theme of Healing Our Roots both as a
tribute to the late Fran Aulston, who had died earlier that year, as well as the emergent #blacklivesmatter movement. 2018 brought a focus on Trans Lives Matter and in 2019 three activists groups – ACT-UP, Philly Thrive (advocating for clean-up of Philly’s old oil refineries),
and the Shut Down Berks Coalition (advocating for the release of families in a Pennsylvania
migrant detention center) – were engaged through an Arts in Action Pipeline process and invited
to imagine the pageant together. 

The pageant is set up to feature its surrounding landscape, ie. the urban park surrounded by rowhouses, trolley cars, playgrounds, a health center and a community garden. The opening of the pageant is always a loosely choreographed event involving flags although since 2017 the pageant begins with a participatory Healing & Reconciliation Dance meant to embody the historic violence against people of color in the United States (spiralq.org). 

The puppet objects form the details of the narrative as they move and dance and interact with one another – a kind of cultural remix. Puppets have included creative tools like giant paintbrushes and hammers, destructive forces like bulldozers, oil rigs and eviction notices, transformational puppets such as floating ancestors, butterflies and suns, fantastical creatures that enter on rocketships and winged horses, memorial objects such as ankhs and vessels, as well as a range of janis figures that represent the related sides of struggle and addiction to acceptance and transformation. 

The giants puppets are usually created using simple backpack structures and require three people to carry. Giant heads and heads are created for these puppets, and/or fit onto someone’s head and/or are created to be carried, bunraku style. Headdresses and feather backpacks create simple birds, cardboard houses are worn around the torso, flags of different sizes and colors are available for waving and signaling. Other elements have included conestoria and giant crankies, painted umbrellas, cardboard clothing, and lots of painted “flat” puppets carried individually or collectively. Spoken and written text, sounds and music also play key roles in most performances. Musical partners have included various local musicians, the US Postal Service Choir, and parade partners. As Matty describes: 

It’s messy and it should be. And I think that those are the critical moments in how we’re trying to redefine the use of public space that allows us to understand that it is ours.

Want to read more about Peoplehood and Spiral Q? Check out Part 1: What is Peoplehood and a Part 3: How it is created and why that matters.

Images courtesy of spiralq.org and my personal collection.