The term „animant” has already become familiar within the language of puppeteers, both in Poland and abroad, but questions arise about where it comes from and what it actually means. Well, I came up with it while writing articles about puppet theatre and within a book called ‘The dramaturgy of Polish puppet theatre’ (Warsaw 2013). The definition there remains in force, so let me quote it:
“I propose the term 'animant', i.e. 'object' - absolutely any, material or immaterial (e.g. shadow) - animated by an artist-animator. The Latin ‘anima/animus’ means 'soul', animatus = 'animated, endowed with life', therefore 'animation' means all 'animating' procedures, and 'animator' is the one who performs the act of animating. [...] An 'animant' may be a human-like figure, a rod puppet, a hand puppet, a string puppet (marionette), a shadow puppet, a mask, any object, a piece of material, even a streak of light, but treated as a stage character, a dialogue partner, the carrier of an idea, an aesthetic object building a metaphor - something that the actor introduces on stage and shows to the audience as the third element of the performance. The essence of theatre is the meeting of the actor and the viewer. The essence of puppet theatre is the meeting of three partners: the actor, the viewer and the puppet. And it doesn't matter whether the actor is visible to the viewer or hidden, e.g. behind a screen – they are always there."[1]
The variety of puppet techniques, the abundance of forms and ways of bringing them to life on stage, the multitude of historical techniques and the constant emergence of new forms and new methods of animation (including remote animation, using electronics and artificial intelligence) create numerous language problems. What should we call these various phenomena? What does a classic string puppet have in common with a half-human tintamarresque, a mask on an actor's head with a puppet on a stick, a glove puppet with giant figures animated by a team of people? The questions can be multiplied, and substantive problems are compounded by linguistic practices that vary across different countries. The English differentiation of the words "puppet" and "doll" or the French - "marionnette" and "poupée" facilitates understanding, but, for example, in Slavic countries one term describes both a puppet for performance and a children's toy as in the Polish "lalka", the Czech "loutka", the Russian "kukla" and teh Slovak "babka". This linguistic situation generates a simplified and common association of puppet theatre as being only theatre for children, which is deeply harmful to the art of puppetry, which is much richer and - both in the past and today - often addressed to an adult audience.
The term "animant" removes these problems. First of all, it is not associated with children's dolls. Secondly, it belongs to vocabulary related to the art of theatre, not to pedagogy for children. Thirdly, and this is the most important aspect, it emphasises what is most important in puppetry in a broad sense: animation, the miracle of life, the uniqueness of art on the border between fine arts and theatre - the art of giving life to artistic objects (as broadly understood). The living presence of the animator distinguishes the art of puppet theatre from kinetic art, performances involving moving elements, and the use of props, which, although they are objects present on the stage, are not subject to animation. The uniqueness of puppetry art lies in suggesting to the audience the spontaneous life of the animant. Sometimes the performance tries to hide the animator, even behind a habitual screen, in order to strengthen the illusion. In recent decades, explicit animation has dominated, with the animator present on stage, often having a triple acting task: the actor must play their role, they must animate the puppet (and create the puppet character), and they must build a relationship between themself as a living actor and the animant as an animated actor.
In brief, the animator animates the animants. If the phenomenon of animation does not occur, i.e. the act of giving the animant illusory life does not take place, then the objects on the stage remain only props or elements of the set design.
The traditional term "puppet" has one more limitation: it is associated with a human-like form, a three-dimensional figure. Meanwhile, within puppet theatre, animals and objects, atmospheric phenomena (wind, sun, moon) and fantastic characters (dragons, elves, ghosts), three-dimensional beings and flat shadows become animants. Theoretically, anything that exists or that an artist can invent can turn into an animant if brought to life.
"Coming to life" is not only the illusory art of giving life to material objects, but something much broader - an attempt to extract and show life hidden in seemingly lifeless matter. The end of the Anthropocene era makes humanity think more about everything that exists but is not human. The life of animals and plants is obvious, but what is the specific life of water, stones and air? In the article ‘Puppets in the face of the Anthropocene’ I wrote:
“The era of human domination over the world is ending, so it's high time to really notice and understand everything that is not human, to give it a voice, to look at it, to understand it, to activate empathy towards non-humans. Puppet theatre can become a real training ground for such exercises, and to some extent it has been doing so for a long time.”[2]
Ecological posthumanism and posthumanist ethics pay attention not only to the protection of the rights of animals and plants, but, bit by bit, also to the rights of objects, robots, androids and all non-humans. Bruno Latour, co-author of the famous actor-network theory, included non-human beings and objects within the field of philosophical research as actively participating in the creation of our culture. A widely commented philosophical concept was formulated by Graham Harman in books such as ‘The Quadruple Object’ and ‘Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything’[3].
A philosophical background can support artists - especially puppeteers aware of the power of object theatre - in creating work that will help viewers experience the agency of things and activate empathy directed not at people, but at objects. Empathise with their fate to be able to more easily see the world from a perspective other than human.
Animants serve these processes. The word itself indicates that something so-named has a "soul" in it, i.e. life. Puppet theatre teaches compassion and empathy, as well as sensitivity to life present everywhere. This is particularly clear in the history of object theatre. Almost everything has been used - umbrellas and plates, vegetables and fruit, nails and screws, bones and sticks, forks and spoons, found objects and everyday objects. Treating them as animants causes empathy in the audience. We feel sorry for abandoned, damaged and unnecessary objects, and we feel more deeply the grave sins of humanity towards nature.
New challenges are posed by the development of electronics, experiments using animatronic actors, all kinds of automata, robots and artificial intelligence. Aga Błaszczak proposed the term "digittry" as a combination of the words "digital" and "puppetry", meaning "a multi-level fusion of puppet art and digital media". It is evident that this area of animation art will develop in the future.
And one more thing. The word "puppet" is associated with fun, and the word "animant" - with exploring the phenomenon of life of non-human beings. "Animant" serves equally well to describe historical puppet theatre and traditional techniques (as a synonym for "puppet"), as well as any contemporary and future explorations undertaken by animators. It seems particularly useful for contemporary puppet forms, as these forms have little in common with classical puppet techniques.
[1] Halina Waszkiel, Dramaturgia polskiego teatru lalek [Dramaturgy of the Polish puppet theater],Warsaw 2013, Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theater Academy in Warsaw, p. 10.
[2] Halina Waszkiel, Puppets in the face of Anthropocene, [in:] Impulses. Mapping the new puppet theatre, edited by Mirosław Kocur, Wrocław 2022, Stanisław Wyspiański Academy of Theater Arts in Krakow Branch in Wrocław, p. 76.
[3] Graham Harman, Traktat o przedmiotach [The Quadruple Object], transl. M. Rychter, PWN, Warsaw 2013. Graham Harman, Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything, Penguin Books 2020. See also: Sylwia Mieczkowska, Object-Oriented Ontology and performative capital, or a new look at objects in action, "Didaskalia" No. 160, December 2020.
