Hand crafts have character and personality, in this case more than one of each. New, unique creations can arise from all corners of the earth/the sewing box, all unique, all equally valuable. The puppet master breathes life into gnarled, bony actors with perfect expressivity and with movement patterns we recognize. With great precision, the puppets express universal aspects of human life, the fragile moments when we all can meet. Life: absurd, comic, true. And then it’s over. Life is a performance on a small scale – but, at the same time, it is broad, expansive art.

Javier Aranda is an actor and puppet master on both stage and screen. He has extensive experience of constructing puppets for his own productions and for others’. In Life he reveals what twenty years of focused work in one artistic genre and one craft can achieve. Aranda allows his puppets to perform in such a way that we recognize every gesture. He doesn’t only excel in tempo and technique, he also seems to communicate with his creations. The puppet master appears to have as much fun as his audiences do.

Aranda expresses all aspects of that which makes us human, and he does it in the straightforward, unembellished language of the puppets. It is ingenious – and a lot of fun.

Life won the 2022 Golden Dragon Award for best production.  

Created and manipulated by: Javier Aranda
Direction consultancy: Alfonso Pablo, Pedro Rebollo
Costume: Pilar Gracia
Graphic design: Val Ortego
Rehearsal premises and workshop: Teatro Arbolé Acknowledgements: Lucía Bernal, Estelle Hi, Rafa, Clara, Rosa, Merce, Teatro Bicho, Le Bateau des Fous and Cabanyal Intim
Management: Ana Sala – Ikebanah Artes Escenicas

“Life” has no spoken dialogue and no subtitles.

Also performed at Kulturhuset Bergsjön on August 23 and at Göteborgs Stadsteater on August 25.