Puppet Cabaret

Due to COVID-19 all programing & performances have been postponed

You can read our full COVID-19 Update here.

We hope to reschedule these performances at a later date and look forward to connecting with you digitally in the days and weeks to come!

Letter to the Cabaret Community:

This weekend at our Valentine’s Puppet Cabaret we had a “Handholding Puppet Photo Booth”. What we did not anticipate, was that by having extra puppet hands available to use in the photo booth, we created an opportunity for cultural appropriation, in the case of white-bodied folxs posing with puppet hands that did not reflect their identity and using puppet bodies of color as props. Not only did we not anticipate this kind of inappropriate use of the puppets, we didn’t offer the audience a chance to reflect on their own identity while choosing a puppet, and educate ourselves and our community about the nuances of navigating skin tone in puppetry. 

We have decided to not use any of the photos taken. We sincerely apologize for the ways urgency culture at HOBT led to us offering an experience that does not align with our values. We have taken time as a team reflecting on what led to this incident and what we can do to prevent future incidents, using our new Cultural Appropriation policy which we plan to share with the community soon. 

We promise to more thoughtfully curate opportunities for the community to engage with the sacred nature of puppetry. We are committed, as an organization and as individuals, to deepening our own work around Cultural Appropriation and White Supremacy, and invite you to explore these educational resources with us. 

We also hope you will join next Friday’s Free Black Dirt-y Talk Discussion on Cultural Appropriation in the arts, where we’ll be invited to consider the history of art-making in this community and how we might create healthy and authentic art-making spaces moving forward.

 

On February 28th, we’ll lean into hard conversations around Cultural Appropriation in the art-making process. We will look at examples of film and media that reflects thoughtfully on the topic. You’re invited to consider the history of art-making in this community and how we might create healthy and authentic art-making spaces moving forward.