Walking in downtown Philadelphia in the late 1990s, we came upon Matty. Or, really what we saw was a giant black and red fist made of cardboard holding itself straight up in the air. My friend recognized the activist under the fist as Matty Hart and we stopped to admire the giant puppet and to say hello. I was immediately inspired and set out to find out more about Matty and what he was building. 

During the day I worked with an educational non-profit, operating from a small office connected to teachers online, and I soon found myself spending late afternoons in a walk-up apartment at 13th and Sansom streets among activists and artists, making cardboard and paper mache puppets. A couple weeks later, I jumped into a parade in Old City as one of the hands of the giant puppet that took the lead; this was my first parade with the newly formed Spiral Q Puppet Theater. 

Matty apparently thought I was a librarian. Or a Quaker. Admittedly I was a bit quiet and shy among the activists, and I wasn’t directly connected to any of their work. Instead, I was drawn to the making – the paper mache, the used jars of house paint, the fabric rolls, the giant puppets made from all of these materials, and the spectacle these objects created on the street. It reminded me of the organizing work I was doing with educators on then nascent Internet, although here it was in full-out analog and recycled glory. Over time I would become a regular volunteer in the Spiral Q Peoplehood Parade and Pageant, a member of the Board of Directors, and then ultimately its co-Chair and Chair, a position I would be in for several years. 

What is Peoplehood? 

One story of Peoplehood is about how a community was activated immediately following
a show of police-force and repression that impacted many in the city of Philadelphia in the year 2000. Another story is the power of the art of ancient object performance and puppet theater
and how, when used wisely, it can feed a fundamental need for connected community. 

John Bell’s book on American Puppet Modernism: Essays on the Material World in Performance ends with his thoughts about “the communicative powers of traditional materials performed live in public spaces” and picks up on both of these stories (Bell 229). First referring to puppet spectacles created for the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, he then turns to the unjust arrest of dozens of puppeteers and the destruction of hundreds of puppets the following year: “The power of the ancient art of puppet theater was demonstrated in a different way … during the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia” (Bell 230). 

Peoplehood is a “giant puppet spectacle” envisioned as an event that brings people and organizations involved in Spiral Q programs together to celebrate across communities. Beth Pulcinella, then a “Q” teaching artist, reflects back on that period of time and the naming of “Peoplehood” in the 2008 Spiral Q Peoplehood Newsletter: 

That fall, after the Republican National Convention when many of us had gotten arrested, we were tired. Puppets had been built and destroyed … Fall had arrived and with fall came Spiral Q’s annual culminating giant puppet parade and pageant. It was the parade of all parades. 

She then describes the evening that it came together. After a meeting to decide on a name and vision that had ended without a satisfying conclusion, Beth recounts sitting down to peruse the dictionary trying to find new words to help describe what she and others were envisioning. 

… I can taste that night and the feeling of complete certainty when it leapt at me from the dictionary pages: “Peoplehood, n 1. The quality or state of constituting a people 2. The awareness of the underlying unit that makes the individual part of a people.” 

Based on the poster created for that year, the full title became Peoplehood: An All-City Parade & Pageant. It reads “Spiral Q’s participatory giant puppet and costume parade that will loop through West Philadelphia to Clark Park, followed by ‘The Pageant of Our Neighbors’.” The poster details the times and addresses of these two events – the parade and the pageant – and then announces “Studios open to the public to build giant puppets will be held each Saturday and Sunday in October at Spiral Q Puppet Theater, 1307 Sansom Street, from 11-5.” 

This call to build a participatory giant puppet and costume parade went out to the general public in addition to the Q’s many partners. This act of making invitations and engaging the community in shared practices underscores the participatory ethos of Spiral Q’s work and deeply informs the now annual Peoplehood Parade and Pageant. 

Peoplehood’s Influences

 

ACT-UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, was an original partner and influence of the Q from the very beginning. In exploring the power of live and material performance, Bell describes the work of ACT-UP starting in the late 1980s. He writes that “ACT-UP created brilliant actions marked by audacity, humor and good design sense, and their choice of materials was centrally important to their work” (Bell 227). He then describes their use of objects, including visual language and even the bodies of those who had died of AIDS, and the ways they were able to leverage mass media to draw attention to the urgency of the crisis and to force change. Ezra Berkeley Nepon in their book
Dazzle Camouflage: Spectacular Theatrical Strategies for Resistance and Resilience quotes ACT-UP activist Jon Greenberg in describing the power of the group’s performance methods as “theater in the world” using all the conventions of formal theater on the streets and in public spaces instead (Nepon 32). 

In an interview from the Philadelphia Gay News in May 1996, Matty tells this story of discovering puppetry when he met the Radical Fairies at a march with ACT-UP. 

I went to New York City for Stonewall 25 … I was really feeling very disenfranchised … About eight blocks into the march I just sat down. Was exhausted, and the sun was really strong. 

And then I hear all this really amazing drumming, and screaming, and bells … all of the sudden I spot these three, huge fairy puppets that were 6 feet in the air above people’s heads, with moving heads, and moving eyes, and long arms that were holding people and hugging them. They were fantastic. 

Like ACT-UP, Matty conceived of Spiral Q as a place where the tools and techniques of theater could be used by “all these people who aren’t invited into traditional theater at all.” And like the fairies he saw, he chose to use puppets. “Puppets can be this totally transcendent thing” Matty says. “For on instant, we can share some elemental delight.” When asked about the name, Matty describes the “Spiral” as an old symbol of magic, of energy and the “Q” is the queer, the other (Philadelphia Gay News 1996, Works In Progress 2002). 

Giant puppetry, and the art of Bread and Puppet, also have been a strong influence on the Q. Matty, as well as several teaching artists, spent time with Bread and Puppet in Vermont. The use of available, cheap, reused and recycled materials is a core piece of all the work at Spiral Q as is the notion of puppeting via parading in public space, and reclaiming public space through the accessible form of parade (Brother Bread, Sister Puppet). Peoplehood’s pageant is reminiscent of the Bread and Puppet pageant in key ways: it is situated in a natural amphitheater (albeit the smaller urban version); the giant puppets, as well as the collective elements, require groups of people; and, the seating of the audience and the staging bring a focus to the story as well as to the landscape of the story. 

Although called a “puppet theater” the Q has rarely produced its own shows in any traditional sense. Often compared to other public spectacles inspired by Bread and Puppet, like Heart of the Beast May Day Parade and Pageant in Minnesota, the Q’s commitment to supporting the community to use puppetry and object performance to build their own stories makes it fairly unique. A closer comparison in the theater work is Ramshackle Enterprises founded by Eli Nixon, a former Q teaching artist. On their website Eli describes what they are trying to do: 

I’m trying to find out how to teach, perform and collaborate in ways that challenge ordinary roles and oppressive power dynamics, that encourage creative resistance to the phobias and ism-hood of our culture and explore the vast potential of our strange and glorious species [and] … trying to see what termites, pelicans and lichen have to teach us. 

The Cattywampus Puppet Council in Knoxville, Tennessee and the Appalachian Puppet Pageant is another example. Their mission is similar: to utilize community-based theatre, parades, and participatory workshops to build power and creativity in community and fuel justice and liberation. Both pageants, Peoplehood and the Appalachian Puppet Pageant, are described as “people-powered” in their performance and in their creation. 

Over time, the influences on Peoplehood will continue to grow, change and evolve due to the participatory nature of its work. For example, in the mid 2000s, a process of speaking and listening to each other called “Story Circle” was adapted from the teachings and traditions of John O’Neil and Junebug Productions.

Want to read more about Peoplehood and Spiral Q? Here is Part 2: Elements of performance and Part 3: How it is created and why that matters.

Images from my personal collection.