20th International Tehran Puppet Theater Festival Research Section Announces Selected Abstracts
According to Khabarresan, the research section of the 20th International Tehran Puppet Theater Festival – Mobarak has received 63 abstracts, including five in English. Jury members include Mohammad Bagher Jamshidi (University of Tehran), Kamran Sepahran (University of Art), and Ramtin Shahbazi (Sureh University). Full papers are due by 7 Mehr, with final results announced on 14 Mehr.
Key Themes and Selected Abstracts
- Applied & Pedagogical Puppet Theater: Studies on educational capacities of traditional Iranian puppetry, academy’s role in professionalizing puppet theater history, puppetry for children’s fear of darkness, comparative international educational puppetry, and university development of Iranian puppetry.
- History of Puppet Theater in Contemporary Iran: Research on water puppetry, first mask and costume makers for children’s theater, mirror puppets in Iranian traditions, Zoroastrian female rituals, festival’s role in preserving Kheimeh-shab-bazi, cross-cultural puppet exchange, and aesthetics of ugliness in mythical representations.
- Puppet Theater & New Technologies: Papers on redefining agency from string to algorithm, data-driven dramaturgy in online puppetry, puppet-to-robot agency shifts, geographical migration of Iranian puppetry styles, and phenomenology of human-robot empathy.
- Puppet Theater & Audience Studies: Analysis of audience experience transformation from realistic to puppet performances (focus on Hamlet), and English-language papers on early-years interactive puppetry (Thauma in the Early Years) and global puppetry museology (Emerging Technologies and Global Practices in Puppetry Museology).
The festival, directed by Popak Azimpour Tabrizi with research managed by Fahimeh Mirzahosseini, will take place in Tehran during Mehr 1405.
