How did dancing dolls get on lifetime
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A+E Networks EMEA
At A+E Networks EMEA, we share stories that matter. A global broadcaster since 1995, we reach audiences in over 100 countries, including the UK, Nordics, Benelux, Central & Eastern Europe, Spain, Italy, Germany, Africa and the Middle East. Our stories are global and local, linear and digital, and always compelling.
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Personalities shine at A+E Networks EMEA. Our culture embraces individuals, in all their daring, passionate, ambitious glory. Our people are our strength, and our differences are celebrated. We challenge each other, collaborate and come together, just as a family does; winning as a team and celebrating as one too. Everyone has a voice and should feel proud and free to run with their ideas, enjoying their successes and journey with us. And in such an evolving industry, tomorrow is always today.
We anticipate change, identify future opportunities and are excited by the potential that tomorrow brings.
Our culture
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We want to be famous for creating and sharing stories that matter – unique, trusted, entertaining, everywhere. Whether our stories challenge and inspire intellectually or simply entertain, we know that we are making a positive contribution to our audiences across the many diverse regions and countries in the UK, Europe, The Middle East and Africa. Striving to always do so requires passion. And it’s with just as much passion that we strive to gain new audiences with our creativity and by using innovative technology, by partnering with leading and emerging local platforms.
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With our diverse line-up of original, high-quality programming, our distribution partners across EMEA recognise the benefits of offering A+E Networks EMEA's distinctive, high quality brands on their platforms and services.
We understand the opportunity to grow engagement with new audiences of all ages and through new partnerships with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, along with our podcasts and on-demand SVOD services, we ensure our programming and unique stories reach audiences across the full demographic spectrum.
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COSMO premieres Flechas, its fifth short film against gender violence
Dean Possenniskie: A+E will grow through programming not M&A
A+E Networks UK is proud to partner with ZDF Studios on a docu-drama about the women who helped win the battle of The Atlantic
A+E Networks EMEA commissions ITNP Productions for new UK true crime series, Cops Who Kill
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May 24-28, St. Petersburg 
For her toys went from all over the country. 
Only she's been gone for a long time. 
And what about our storyteller Ulyana Yezhkova, who ended her life in the same House of Veterans as Medyantseva? 
And then it went... She stayed in Mikhailovka, and her dolls walked all over the world. They lived their separate lives, like children who flew away from their native nest, and there is no exaggeration in this. It is today, due to our thoughtlessness, that we perceive the doll exclusively as a toy. At a time when fairy tales were not yet fairy tales, but remained part of real life, the doll was an artifact being. Attribute witchcraft, shamanic. A being through which people communicated with forces that today we call unreal. It is no coincidence that it is the doll that is entrusted with first protecting us in the cradle, and then leading us through childhood to adulthood. The last time, seriously and absolutely consciously, the magicians and sorcerers of the Silver Age, led by Meyerhold, tried to breathe life into the doll. Yes, but they could not cope with the forces they had brought to life. The tragic ending of that story is known. 
There was no intellectual artificial cleverness here, and she worked with material alive. She simply wove her dolls, without thinking that she was weaving a path connecting the present with a truly deep primordial past, restoring the once broken connection of times. It didn't work out. This fragile thread broke, like many other things, in the 90s of the last century, which became cursed for Russia. 
Did Medyantseva understand then that it was forever? For sure. And still, she could hardly see her Mikhailovka from the window of that car for the last time. And not just because of bad eyesight. After all, tears are useful only for the soul, but for the eyes it is akin to cataracts. 
The dolls have been on sale for a year now and enjoy considerable success, and Madeleine is not going to stop there. >> 
"It's like the wind or fashion," said Jay Lowe, head of Morphy's puppet business. Auctions in Denver. - "In ten years, people can aspire completely not for what they want now"... >> 
Toys 1950-1980 from the collection of Sergei Romanov. The purpose of the exhibition is to acquaint visitors with the history of Soviet toys in the 1950s–1980s. XX century, to show the toy as a reflection of cultural values, an element of propaganda, a work of art of its era... >> 
How successful the new ideas will be - time will tell, but we'll take a look at what's new in 2017 Barbie will give us. 
.. >> 
Monsters at school! 
ru - for you! 
Puppets of past centuries - Official site of the Smolensk Regional Puppet Theater named after D.N. Svetilnikova
Dolls appeared a long time ago, as soon as people learned to sculpt from clay, carve from wood and carve figures of people and animals from stone. Just as now, some of them depicted real beings, others were the fruit of a person's fantasy. Girls cradled babies carved out of sticks, boys aimed their toy bows at wild animals woven from reeds. And adults decorated their homes with masks of good spirits and wore around their necks, like amulets, small figures of the gods. Toy dolls probably appeared before theatrical puppets. After all, the theater originated from the game. What, if not a game, can be called festive dances after a successful hunt or victory over the enemy.
During these dances, colorfully dressed people showed with gestures how a buffalo was killed or a tribe of enemies was defeated. The dancers often wore masks, depicting wild animals or evil spirits. Masks, stuffed gods and spirits that took part in such performances are the earliest elements of the puppet theater.
Scientists say that the art of theatrical puppets is one of the most ancient. Excavations of disappeared cities, the study of half-worn inscriptions, the opening of pyramids and sarcophagi confirm this. Sixteen centuries BC in ancient Egypt, with the help of puppets, a mystery (religious performance) about Osiris and Isis was played. The puppet theater of ancient India and China has a thousand-year history. In sarcophagi and catacombs, dolls were found lying next to the body of the deceased. Moreover, these puppets, made of wood or metal, often have devices for tying threads, like puppets.
In those bygone times and many centuries after, people were attracted by the desire to see a motionless sculptural figure in motion.
After all, movement creates the impression of life. Take an ordinary toy doll and put it in front of you. No matter how skillfully it is made, you will always feel that the doll is inanimate. But as soon as you put it on the table and, supporting it from behind, start moving, imitating the gait of a living creature, turn, tilt, as moments the impression begins to appear that the doll itself walked, turned, leaned. Your hand prevents you from believing in her complete independence: you always see how she holds the doll. What if you lower the doll to the floor and tie a long string to its head? Or disguise your hand with a doll costume, cover it with a scarf? By doing this, you will see that the strength of the impression is much increased. Something similar was invented by people in antiquity. Some put the doll on a long rod in order to carry it high above them, while they themselves hid from the audience behind a large cloth. Others hung it on threads, others began to make the body of the doll hollow inside and put it on the hand like a glove, the fourth came up with flat dolls that protrude against the background of an illuminated screen.
So in different countries, different peoples developed the types of theatrical puppets known today.
The desire to make the doll absolutely independent at the moment of movement, independent of the human hand, led to the creation of mechanical puppets and a theater of automata. Now the theater of automata has disappeared, only children's toys controlled by a spring winding or an electric accumulator remain: trains, cars, gliders, moon rovers.
In ancient times, mechanical dolls made a huge impression. The ancient Greeks and Romans placed dancing figures on a large disc. Under the pressure of the water jet, the disk rotated, and the little men circled in a cheerful round dance. In ancient China, there were dolls that were set in motion by powder explosions. In the XVIII century. automaton theaters gained great popularity. Small porcelain musicians stood and sat in a box that looked like a model of a palace hall. A hidden spring was wound up, and the puppets began to move: the violinist moved the bow over the violin, the harpsichordist put his hands on the keys.
The spring set in motion not only the musicians, but also the musical mechanism hidden inside - a small hurdy-gurdy. So the porcelain orchestra moved and sounded. Of course, only the most noble aristocrats could buy such a rich toy, but many wealthy houses had music boxes, snuff boxes, clocks with bird figurines.
The puppets of the automaton theater gave the impression of a small miracle. The clarity of movements, the coherence of actions, the absence of props, canes or threads visible to the viewer, gave a special charm to the whole performance. But the mechanical figures acted only according to one, once and for all, established scheme, alternating several simple movements. They did not have access to the freedom of action of puppet artists capable of transferring the diversity of life to the stage, recreating human relationships and characters. Therefore, the puppets of the theater of automata could not compete with theatrical puppets, but always remained only funny toys.
Puppet shows existed hundreds of years ago in all major states of Europe and Asia. The puppets acted out folk legends, heroic tales, performed acrobatic and circus performances, performed satirical scenes. In ancient India and Indonesia, dolls played the folk epic "Ramayana", in Vietnam - a heroic tale about the five brothers of the Sun and their struggle against insidious enemies. Indonesian dolls were flat, carved from buffalo skin, thin, transparent and painted. Figures glided across the backlit screen. The performance probably resembled a modern colored cartoon. The puppets moved to the music and reading of dalang, an actor-puppeteer who was also the owner of a shadow theatre. The spectacle began with the onset of darkness and sometimes continued until dawn. Vietnamese dolls were floating. Spectators were seated around the pond, under the surface of which the dolls were prepared. As soon as the performance began, the puppets floated to the surface of the water, and at the end they sank back.
In ancient China, there were not only gunpowder puppets, but also all types known now - glove puppets, puppets, shadow puppets. One of the most popular puppet plays was called Trouble in the Kingdom of Heaven. Its action took place in a fantastic transcendental realm. The main character was a brave and dexterous monkey king. He fought well-armed celestial commanders with only a stick in his hands. With this stick, he beat the swaggering warriors and put them to flight.
Satirical puppet shows were very popular in Ancient Rome. The Romans appreciated the comic talent of dolls, their ability to make fun of the ugly phenomena of life and human shortcomings - greed, hypocrisy, stupidity. But the puppeteers who dared to make political satire were soon punished: Julius Caesar, who was hurt by their ridicule, forbade the puppets to talk. Only movements and gestures were allowed to convey the content of the performance.
In medieval Europe, dolls also had bad luck. The Christian clergy, struggling with the remnants of paganism, saw in the dolls "filthy idols" and called for their destruction.
But the people were very fond of puppet shows, and it was not possible to destroy the puppets. Seeing the popularity of the dolls, the church decided to use them to promote religious ideas. Dolls-characters of Christian mythology were made: Virgin Mary, Christ, Magi, angels, devils. The puppet stage was erected right in the church. Under the singing of psalms and prayers, the dolls acted out religious scenes from the life of Christ. Boring, monotonous plots doomed the dolls to inactivity and immobility. Only in the scenes of hell, when the devils jumped out and began to deal with sinners trembling with fear, beat and scold each other, did the performance again arouse the interest of the audience. Gradually, these scenes became central, the audience was looking forward to their start in advance. The actors tried with might and main, their imagination, wit and energy knew no bounds. But the more fiction appeared in the scenes with devils and sinners, the more boring it was to look at the saints and angels.
Of course, it couldn't go on like this for long. Angry priests with new force brought down their anger on the puppets and puppeteers. They are driven out of churches. Puppets are burned at the stake, actors are accused of witchcraft. The famous Parisian puppeteer Brioche, who intended to escape abroad, is caught up, arrested and accused of "making small creatures that could only be devils speak, argue and move."
And yet, no amount of persecution can destroy the people's love for dolls. Actors roam from city to city, perform at market squares, inns, barns. They play funny comedies and show ancient legends about brave knights, formidable kings and famous robbers. French puppeteers stage the tragic story of the folk heroine Joan of Arc. The Belgians show the legend of the fearless knight Roland. On the stages of German booths there is a puppet comedy "Doctor Johannes Faust" - one of the most popular in the folk fair theater. The basis of the comedy was the folk legend about the godless scientist Faust.
Particularly popular with the public was a character who was not in the legend, but who was invented by the puppeteers themselves - Faust's servant. This rustic, but savvy guy conquered the audience with his energy, practical mind, and humor. He managed to make a fool of the devil himself, before whom even Faust could not resist.
At the turn of XV! and XVII centuries. in Italy, and then in other countries, a satirical folk puppet theater takes shape. The performances of this theater are characterized by bright folk characters, comic situations, humor and enthusiasm. The central character becomes a mischievous, never discouraged little man. He is ugly, with a long hooked nose, a jester's cap on his head, and a club in his hands. The voice of this little man is sharp and piercing, and his speech bears little resemblance to conversation. QH shouts out the words loudly, swinging his baton every now and then, which makes a sharp clicking sound as it has a forked end. With a cry and a club, this little man defends the truth, protests against violence, arbitrariness, and oppression.
Each country has its own name. In Italy, his name is Pulcinella, in France - Polichinel, in England - Punch, in Germany - Hanswurst, in Russia - Petrushka, in Turkey - Karagez.
In the English folk comedy About Punch and Judy, Punch should be sent to prison for pranks. A policeman enters and announces Punch's arrest. Punch beats the policeman and starts dancing. A police officer appears. Punch beats him and dances again. The executioner comes. "Are you an executioner? asks Punch, brandishing his baton. "So I say, cry!" - and rewards him with a blow. Nevertheless, after a noisy fight, the peace officers manage to drag Punch to prison. Through the bars in the cell window, Punch sees the gallows being set up for him. When he is taken out for execution, he deftly deceives the executioner, and it is not Punch who is in the loop, but the executioner himself. The devil jumps out to take Punch to hell. But Punch copes with him too: shakes the soul out of the devil, raises it above his head and twists it merrily in the air.
Well-known English satirist D. Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, wrote "Ode to Punch", which contains the following lines:
Look how sad the audience is
As long as Punch is hidden behind the stage.
But lo and behold, long and high,
A creaky voice is heard,
And it's as if everyone has been replaced:
What fun, what laughter!
Kicks rain down on Punch,
Pokes, cracks, clicks,
But he is cunning, mischievous, bold,
And he didn't give a damn about everyone.
Poking his nose into everything...
Russian folk puppet hero was Petrushka. Representations with his participation were played out by wandering buffoon actors. It is difficult to say when Petrushka first appeared before the public, but it is known that already in the 17th century. puppet shows with Petrushka were very popular among the people. “In this crude and naive image, the working people embodied themselves and their belief that in the end it was they who would overcome everything and everyone,” Maxim Gorky wrote.
Many books on Russian history reproduce a drawing by the secretary of the Holstein embassy, the German scientist Adam Olearius, depicting a buffoon showing dolls. In the picture you can see Petrushka, a horse and some other doll. In all likelihood, the buffoon is playing the scene of Petrushka buying a horse. This drawing is an illustration to the book of Olearius about the journey to Muscovy. This is how he described what he saw: “These comedians tie a blanket around their body and straighten it up around themselves, thus depicting a portable theater with which they can run through the streets and on which puppet games can take place at the same time.” The drawing by Adam Olearius and the above description date back to 1636 and are the first historical mention of the puppet theater in Russia.
Petrushka was a small glove doll in a red silk or satin caftan and velvet trousers. On his head is a permanent red cap with a tassel. In face and manner of speaking, Petrushka was very much like Punch and Pulcinella: the same long, upturned nose and hurried, squeaky voice.
By the way, this unusual speech and sharp sound of the voice was achieved with the help of a special device - a squeaker. The puppeteer put the squeaker in his mouth and spoke through it. The use of a squeaker made Petrushkin's speech unintelligible. Therefore, in later years, the parsley maker led his performances together with the organ grinder, who not only turned the handle of the barrel organ, entertaining the audience with music, but also talked with Petrushka: he purposely asked him again, forced him to repeat unintelligible phrases.
Here is how N. A. Nekrasov describes the puppet show, which the peasants got to, in the poem “Who in Rus' is good to live”:
Comedy with Petrushka,
With a goat with a drummer
And not with a simple barrel organ,
But with real music
They looked here.
Not a wise comedy,
However, not stupid either,
To a bad guy, quarterly
Not in the eyebrow, but right in the eye!
They laugh, console themselves
And often in Petrushkin's speech
They insert a well-aimed word,
What you can't think of,
Swallow a pen!
In the folk comedy about Petrushka, in addition to the main character, several other characters participated: Petrushka's bride - fat, ruddy, brightly dressed, a doctor in a raincoat and huge glasses, a bailiff or a policeman in a uniform, a priest, a devil or a watchdog with black shaggy head.
Petrushka was no less fervent and decisive in dealing with his enemies than Punch. The tsarist government and the church were hostile to buffoons, seeing them as troublemakers and rebels. Special decrees more than once forbade "rebellious demonic actions, mockery and buffoonery."
The performances of Petrushka have been ardently loved by ordinary people for two hundred years. Petrushka was an inseparable part of Russian folk culture. In this image, as in songs, epics and fairy tales, the dream of working people about brave and strong heroes who will help achieve liberation found its expression. Buffoon games and satirical puppet shows with the cheerful Petrushka
gave rise to Russian theatrical art. Bright characters, apt language, nationality - everything that the best comedies of N.V. Gogol, D.I. Fonvizin and A.N. Ostrovsky are famous for, was born at first on the fair stage and the puppet screen.
Other peoples of old Russia also had satirical puppet shows.
Uzbek Palvan-Kachal - "Bald hero" - was also one of the Petrushka brothers. He ridiculed the greed and cowardice of the rich - bais, took under the protection of the poor and the weak. The folk puppet theater in Ukraine and Belarus was very peculiar. The Ukrainians called it a nativity scene, the Belarusians called it a batleika. The nativity scene and batleyka differed significantly from the parsley theater in terms of the arrangement of puppets, the stage and the nature of the performance.
Batleyka appeared in Belarus in the 16th century. At that distant time, the batleyka was under the influence of the church. Therefore, the central place in her repertoire was occupied by plays on religious subjects, which were played out by seminarians - students of theological educational institutions. Over time, the batleika passes from the hands of the clergy to the philistines, peasants and becomes a truly folk theater. Along with the play “King Herod”, it includes the folk drama “King Maximilian” and many genre scenes: “Matey and the Doctor”, “Anton with the Goat and Antonykha”, “Volsky the Polish Merchant”, etc.
The battle scene was like a box. Usually the box had two tiers: upper and lower shelves, as it were. The upper tier was called "sky", the lower - "earth". During religious performances, the dolls of angels and saints appeared in the "heaven", and the figures of sinners and devils - on the "earth". On the lower tier, all domestic scenes were usually played out.
Butleika puppets were not put on the hand of the puppeteer, as in the parsley theater, but were made in full growth and planted on a rod. The floor of both tiers has slits disguised with hare fur. The butler stood behind the box and, holding the doll by the rod, moved it using these slots. From the side of the audience, the batley box and the rods coming from the dolls remained invisible. A complete illusion was created that the doll herself walks, turns in different directions, bows, dances. Batleyka dolls depicted folk types of that time: a peasant, a pan, a gypsy, a tavern keeper, a charlatan doctor. Each doll accurately conveyed the characteristic features inherent in the character.
The number of dolls often reached 30-40. In contrast to the parsley theater, great attention was paid to the scenery, decoration and lighting of the stage. Some batleykas, for example, in Vitebsk and Velizh, were arranged according to the principle of shadow theater, and performances were played in Dokshitsy, where transparent colored scenery changed in the course of the action. The text for all the dolls was uttered in different voices, usually by one person - the owner of the batleyka. The performance was accompanied by the music of a small orchestra: a violin played merrily, cymbals rang, a pipe whistled or a tambourine rattled.
Recordings of the texts of some battle scenes have been preserved. Let's get acquainted with the content of one of the most famous - "Anton with a goat and Anthony".
To the sound of a popular folk song, Anton brought a goat onto the stage. Behind him was Antonikha with a pail.
The goat stopped, began to stubbornly, butt heads. Antonikha beat the goat, it dodged, and Anton got the blows.
Anton was crying in pain, Antonikha began to milk the goat, but the goat began to gallop again. In the end, Anton managed to sit on her astride. He beat her on the sides and left the stage.
In the skit "The Volga nobleman and Vanka Malaya" the boastful impoverished pan was ridiculed. The conversation between the pan and Vanka is interesting.
Pan. Vanka Small!
Vanka. What, my sir?
Pan. Do our men have a good harvest?
Vanka. Good.
Pan. How good?
Vanka. Ear from ear - not to hear the human voice. A sheaf from a sheaf is a pillared verst. A mop of mop is a day away.
At the end of the conversation, it turns out that the master did not have a single horse left.
Pan. Who will we ride?
Roly. Pan - a day on me, and two - I'm on a pan.
Sits on the pan's shoulders and shouts: "Pan, let's go!"
Batleyka has come a long way. Her last performances were played in 1927. She was a vivid manifestation of the original culture of the Belarusian people in a difficult time of oppression and suppression of everything national.
Russian Petrushka, Uzbek Palvan-Kachal, Belarusian Matey, Ukrainian Zaporozhets, Armenian Karagyoz-Karapet and other characters of the national satirical puppet theater for several centuries strengthened the belief in the inevitable victory of justice in working people. The dream of freedom, common to all peoples, was embodied in the mischievous and merciless reprisal of the puppet hero with enemies on the theater stage.
Folk puppet shows were very close to folklore. Their text was born by nameless authors, polished by time and never specially recorded. Each puppeteer knew his repertoire by heart, which passed from generation to generation orally along with puppets and a screen. But despite this, the dolls were not as far from the literature and work of famous writers of that time as it might seem at first glance. According to legend, the tragedy of William Shakespeare "Julius Caesar" was first staged by the London Marionette Theater. It is known from history that a contemporary of Shakespeare, poet and playwright Ben Jonson wrote the comedy "To each his own right" especially for puppets.
Famous Japanese playwright of the 17th century. Monjiemon Chikamatsu wrote about a hundred plays for the puppet theater. Moreover, these plays are still being played in Japan. The great Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni addressed his first comedies also to the puppet theater.
Composers also created works for dolls. Famous Austrian composer of the 18th century. I. Haydn wrote five operas for marionettes. And the Spanish composer de Falla created the opera Maestro Pedro's Puppet Theater, the plot of which was borrowed from those chapters of Don Quixote, where Cervantes describes the meeting of his hero with a traveling puppet theater. This opera is still performed on some English, Italian and Czech puppet stages.
Later, Maurice Maeterlinck, Bernard Shaw, Spanish communist poet Garcia Lorca wrote plays for dolls. The puppet farce Don Cristobal's Puppet Show, written by him on the eve of the fascist revolt, was repeatedly performed by the La Tarrumba mobile puppet theater on the fronts of the Spanish Civil War.
To this we can add that many plays by Shakespeare, Goldoni, Gozzi, Moliere, Aristophanes, successfully performed by drama theaters, were also staged on puppets.
The puppet theater has a long and rich history. Unfortunately, the main thing, the performances, has not survived to this day. Only in a few countries you can see the performances of folk puppeteers who play, as they did centuries ago: the same plays, with the same puppets, in the same manner of performance. In England, an old parsley, moving from town to town, still shows The Game of Punch and Judy on a small screen. Old plays are staged by puppeteers in Belgium, Italy, and Eastern countries.
There are doll museums in some countries. Behind the glass of shop windows, the once noisy Gansvursts, Kaspariki, Panchis, Guignolis and Karagezys rest. In our country, the best collection of puppets is the museum of the Central Puppet Theater in Moscow. It contains hundreds of exhibits from all over the world. There is also Petrushka with the rest of the characters of the Russian folk puppet theater.
