Puppet theater celebrates its 50th anniversary, we spend the hour with the theaters the founder, Peter Schumann, and speak him about why he uses the theater to address the most urgent political issues of our time from Nuclear Weapons to nsa spying. Soon to celebrate his 80th birthday, we will also ask Peter Schumann about why he refuses to retire, and the place of older people in our society. When i think of my motherin , theyd other older family are able to do things and society doesnt find a way of bowing to the concentrated power. All of that and more coming up. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The United Nations is warning the ongoing violence in south sudan has claimed thousands of lives in just over a week. Hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee. On wednesday, the Un Security Council approved a measure to nearly double the number of peacekeepers to around 15,000. Oncretarygeneral ban ki mo pleaded for an end to the violence. This is a crisis which requires a peaceful, political solution. In this season apiece, i urge the leaders of south sudan to act for peace, stop the dialogue,stop the save your proud annual independent country. There have been reports of at least three mass graves and the fighting so far, including one or 34 bodies were found. A series of bombings in iraq has left at least 40 two beagle dead and dozens more wounded. The Christmas Day attacks mostly targeted christian areas. The New York Times reports the u. S. Has rushed a new shipment of hellfire missiles and low tech Surveillance Drones to help the Iraqi Government fight al qaeda militants. The cia is also helping Iraqi Forces Target militant camps with aerial strikes. The military government in egypt has escalated its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, formerly branding it a terrorist organization. The move was billed as a response to a Suicide Attack on a Police Station that killed 14 people earlier this week. But the Muslim Brotherhood has condemned the bombing and a sinaibased militant group has claimed responsibility. Under the new designation, brotherhood members and supporters can be immediately charged with belonging to a terrorist group. Israel is reportedly preparing to announce a new round of settlement construction in the occupied west bank. Anonymous israeli officials said they expect to confirm up to 2000 homes to coincide with the release of a group of palestinian prisoners next week. The news comes amidst new violence in the gaza strip, Palestinian Militants killed an israeli man working on the border wall with gaza, prompting an israeli strike that killed a threeyearold palestinian girl. Died after have their boat capsized your the turks and caicos islands. The victims were among 50 migrants packed into a sailboat that left haiti in hopes of reaching a foreign port. At least 30 migrants died in the capsizing off the bahamas last month. In chile, a former Army Officials have been convicted of murdering local opponents to the first months of the role of general pinochet. Close to 100 dissidents were killed in an operation known as the caravan of death after the 1973 coup that brought pinochet to power. The x officials have been sentenced to terms of up to 15 years. Russia has formally drop charges against the arctic 30 after granting them amnesty last week. The group of 28 activist and two journalists were jailed for two months for trying to stop russian oil drilling in the arctic. With the charge is removed, they can now leave russia after securing exit visas. Peter wilcox, the captain of the arctic sunrise, said his group refuses to apologize for opposing arctic drilling. Has established we have accepted amnesty and and that is what we did, we accepted the amnesty. We dont admit any guilt or feel we have anything to be blamed for. Greenpeace still has an issue with drilling for oil in the arctic. We havets tell us completely enough oil to push Climate Change past the place where we can live on the planet. We dont need to drill for new oil and we certainly dont need to drill for it in the art ache. In the arctic. We will be objecting to any oil drilling and we will be objecting, especially, to drilling in the arctic. We think it is stupid. Click the arctic aired were among the estimated 22,000 people granted amnesty last week including two members of the russian punk group pussy riot. Believed towidely market attempt to bolster russias image ahead of the winter olympics. A federal Appeals Court has upheld a ruling barring prisoners held in the u. S. Run afghan jail from challenging their confinement. A threejudge panel says prisoners at Bagram Air Base dont have habeas corpus rights because afghanistan is to lower zone for the United States. The ruling impacts hundreds of prisoners, including men who were captured in other countries and then transported to afghanistan. Three of the plaintiffs in the case were captured outside of afghanistan in thailand, iraq , and pakistan. Pope francis delivered his first Christmas Mass as head of the Catholic Church with a call for peace and protection of the environment. He asked a crowd of 70,000 at st. Peters basilica to pray for peace in conflict ridden areas including syria and south sudan. He also preached outreach to atheists and called for protection of the environment from greed and rapacity. Lord of heaven and earth, look upon our planet frequently exploited by human greed. Help them protect all the victims of natural disasters. Especially the beloved people of the philippines affected recently by the typhoon. The daughter of new york city mayor elect bill de blasio has revealed a longterm struggle with clinical depression and substance abuse. She said shes come forward to encourage people in need to seek help. Getting sober is always a and its notg, easy. I know means is it easy. Its the hardest thing ive ever done. But it is so worth it. I wanted to speak out because people are suffering from this disease and dying from this disease every day. We really cant do anything as a society to out those people until we Start Talking about it. Nobody can do sobriety on their own. Deblasio takes office as new york city mayor on january 1. The u. S. Will sub lower Edward Snowden has released a new video statement urging concerned citizens to unite against unfettered surveillance. Address,stmas day snowden said mass spying is undermining basic rights to privacy. Recently, we learned our government is working in concert and has created a system of worldwide mass surveillance, watching everything we do. Great britains George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information. The types of collection in the book, microphones and video cameras, tvs that watch us, are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pockets that tracked us everywhere we go. Think about what this means and for the privacy of the average person. A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. There will never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that is a problem. Privacy matters. Time to see is what allows us to determine who we are privacy allows us determine who we are and what we want to be. The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. End mass surveillance and remind the government that if youre really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying. For everyone out there listening, thank yound merry christmas. That was a message that was recorded i Edward Snowden for channel 4 in britain. To see all of our coverage of Edward Snowdens revelations, you can go to democracynow. Org. Those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Today a special an art and resistance. Right this way year marks the 50th anniversary of one of this countrys most beloved Theater Companies, the bread and puppet theater started here in new york city in 1963. Its first productions ranged from puppet shows for children to pieces protesting poor housing conditions. The groups processions involving lustrous puppets, some about 20 feet high, became a fixture a protest against the vietnam war. In the early 1970s, bread and puppet moved to vermont where they transformed a former hay barn into museum of puppets. Today it remains one of the longestrunning nonprofit, self supporting Theater Companies in the United States. He continues to use theater to protest the most urgent political issues of our time. From Nuclear Weapons to mass spying by the National Security agency. For more, im joined right now by Peter Schumann himself, the founder and director of the bread and puppet theater. His first though solo Museum Exhibition is on display at the Queens Museum called the shatterer. Peter schumann, welcome to democracy now thank you. Talk about how you started this very unusual theater company. I first date in the united tates was a participation producing a general strike for peace. It is a big word for something that involves maybe 60, 80, or 100 people. You come from germany. You were born in what year . 34. Ism was risingzi in germany. Period. The shatterer talk about what life was like then and how you came to live in the United States. I was born in a small town. When the war ended, or came close to it, bombarded by the watch tankse had to approaching. Everybody fled. Fled to the baltic sea. Here they had some friends we lived as refugees for a few years on the farm. Five kids. We left having to make a new life. , grindinghe fields wheat, making bread been Old Fashioned village in a communal bakery. Everybody brought their loads on one day a week to the big of an to bake them. What was your family doing during the nazi period . My father was a teacher at the high school, my mother was busy with five kids. What did your father think of hitler . Whispering was the speech. When they came to my parents house, the kids were asked to leave. They were locked out of these conversations. So how did you end up coming here. Wife. The grace of my [laughter] we were married, had two kids, she was a student in munich on a scholarship. We learned to know each other. We came to visit. Something happened. Something,ndices or we got stuck in new york city. She is the granddaughter of Scott Nearing . Yes. How would you describe him . Was an incredible influence on all of us. Acceptcally didnt just this is society, but developed a living apart from the oral dependencies. Normal dependencies. You move to vermont and started gardening. He inspired other people to do so. The whole movement of self sustenance, homestead making started through his activities. As they called him an advocate of Simple Living . Yep, i would say so. That is pretty true. He was. Quick so he was there in vermont, but you came to new york city . Yes. Theater. U begin the why the title bread and puppet . Works well, because i was baking anyway. I helped my mother baking. My mother always baked bread. That dark bread is very different from white bread because it is sustenance. It is a brand you can live off. It was 150 years old. At each event, you set up a brick oven to bake for the people who are coming to the performance . When we can. Brick ovens now, 400 bricks, the secret is you have to find real brick, meaning clay brick, then we stack it. You build a dome. It takes an hour to build an oven. And mortar . No mortar, just stack it. I want to go to a clip from the 2002 film of the hopeful bread andof red an puppet. In this clip, peters wife talks about the bread. Shes standing in front of the huge of an where the bread is baked. Thee made Peter Schumann director, learned how to make this from a polish servant girl from a babysitter who helped his mother in a part of germany that is now poland. Theyre very good sourdough rye bread. We have a grinder to rind the grain itself. The bread is not like the supermarket. You really have to chew it and put some work into it, but you get something very good for that. When our theater is successful, we feel is the same way. It doesnt tell you everything. Its not like wonder bread, there it is, heres the story for thats what it means. You have to do something hearing your self in the theater in our theater. If the play is successful, the end, you feel it is worth the work. If it wasnt successful you, what in the world was that about . Just an excerpt from a film about those ovens and about bread and puppet. Bread and the title, puppet. Just took a liking to that idea that when people come to the theater and we give them a piece of bread to eat. U. N. From performing to making puppets. Why puppets . Why puppets . That is hard to say. Me and my brother and i think my sisters also made puppet shows. When we were kids. Any occasion birthday party, whatever. There would be a bedsheet strung between two chairs and puppets would be taken out and we would perform for each other. That your puppets got bigger and bigger. Well, that came from new york city. Realizing when you play out in the street that the little stuff is too little. Anded it to be bigger bigger meant really bigger. We kept growing them. We kept growing them to larger sizes, yeah, still growing. You need many, many people to human these puppets because theyre so big, to carry, to enliven them. Process you is the go through, who gets involved. Come, i think, are people who are dissatisfied with disturbing leaflets, caring pre painted posters and slogans, and happy to have the opportunity to become an inside of a larger sculpture that is multiheaded and has its own persuades people visually. It doesnt need and which, but speaks by itself. Language, butneed speaks by itself. We found it easy to find people either directly of the demonstrations you mentioned the one at the location of the afghan invasion. Right, a margin 2001 where interviewed you. We took 200 or 300 puppets to that demo. Then we worked on the outskirts of the speeches that were being delivered at that time. We asked people to join us. Friends who 15 would choreograph a group of 30 or 40 people into particular movements with these puppets. We walked along the outskirts doing these practices. In the march started and we headed together. We could pull all of that together and could do this big street dance. I want to go to that moment in 2001 because i bumped into you at this protest i was covering it and i asked you to talk about the 9 11 attacks. Corrupt thinking of these people collapsing under the building. [indiscernible] not a tiny minority, but a gigantic art of the world is basically in the background of such an attack. We have been taking this arrogant stance as the number one country in the number one culture and explored exploit our culture around the globe, posting our riches, eating up 80 of the resources of the planet for relatively small group of consumers, then we just as if its by wasnt. All of the anger and hate and power by those are being terrorized continuously concentrated in such an attack. That was 13 years 12 years ago, and you are still marching. It is amazing. Nothing seems to have been learned from it. Absurdly [indiscernible] explaining to people what happened. Taking an attack as if the the fallout in the horror in that or the target. They were not the target. The target was the world trade center. These were the Collateral Damage that america took so much care to explain to people that war produces Collateral Damage. Our guest for the hour is Peter Schumann, founder of the legendary bread and puppet theater, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. We will continue our conversation in a moment. [music break] this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. As we continue our special hour long program, one of this countrys most cherished and celebrated Theater Companies, bread and puppet, you may not be familiar with the company but familiar with the puppets that often appear in protest and parades all over the country. I recently sat down with the founder and director, Peter Schumann. I asked him about why he left new york where he started bread and puppet 50 years ago in 1963 and headed to vermont. [indiscernible] we always wanted to live in the country. We said, now we can go to the country. We wanted to grow potatoes like my wifes grandfather. Get the chance to grow the tate does and make puppet shows. Talk about what you did each summer. We called it our resurrection circus. We made it to the all embracing and huge into be everything from to thel and circus concentration point of any abstract and intense style of thinking that you might do publicly. Developed its shape. On the farm the campus in the same year we moved there in 1970 and then continued when we moved to glover four years later in a landscape that ,ncluded a natural amphitheater an old gravel pit, which allowed us to perform without electrical notification. Grew and started to separate the different animals of the show more and more. E. We called part of a sideshow, part of it circus, and part of. T pageant finally, now, we are going back to melding it all together into one show. So thousands and thousands of people would come from around the country and around the world in the summer until 1998. Describe what happened then. What stopped this . I think it was a self defeating mass gathering that we ended up getting 40 to 45,000 people. Just the difficulty of all of this. It was fantastic. A piece of horror there , a drunken man killed a drunken man. Theanyway, for us it became way out of making these massive spectacles. This order became spectacles in their own right and imitating american mass meetings with all thehe dark traffic and bands hired for the campgrounds to entertain the people who didnt even attend the circus is cell. Too much ado. Good riddance. So you stop the mass gatherings, but you continue every week performances. Yes. First, can you talk about the s, how you became the man on the stilts . I learned it from a monk, a former monk from france who had worked in an area where they have shepherds who are professionally on stilts because in ground is wet and rocky the way of guarding sheep is easier from stilts. They have a funny habit of [indiscernible] have a little seat so they can sit on their stilts and they andpending spinning reducing something on their stilts. Anyway, that monk showed us how to build stilts. We all got quote. How do you build them . 2s or cedar polls. And harder than building it is walking along them. Are yours like 20 feet high . No, theyre more like 10. 5 feet from foot down. So how do you get up on them . I sit on top of one of our school buses and put a box under it because it isnt quite tall enough. A box on top of the school bus. How do you go once you tie them around your feet, to standing . You just lift yourself up and the rest is balance. You will go from one foot to the other. Have you ever fallen . Yes. Does it hurt . Yes, i broken a few things. Talk about the power of stiltsing. What is the message of stilts . We love the dancing you can get from stilts. Technique of being up and above everything. Peter schumann, why do you play uncle sam . Oh, we need to make fun of uncle sam. I think it is very important. He is like santa. Santa and uncle sam, we love those ridiculous figures. To some your nose at them . To thumb your nose at them . Yes. What are the other characters you have developed . In our theater, everybody does everything. Usually, a gigantic group of characters instead of singular characters. We have groups that we call gray ladies, groups that we call uncle fatso. The first one i built, kids called them uncle fatso. Just a big landlord. Grin. T, big, fat nose, no hand and the other hand, we made it so it could be detached and the cooks could put something with it and the kids could punch something with it. We could activate it as a marionette hand that could go on its own. It did its job and came back to uncle fatso. At your mass gatherings, your mass pageants, the end, the burning of one of the puppets. What was the significance and who was the puppets . Theseng a lot of pageants, we build some evil knievel gigantic thing that was meant for burning. Giant pieces of meditation gigantic machinery or horses. Electri apocalyptic they were set ablaze by mother earth who comes in. She is a big puppet the takes about 60 to 80 people to operate. She comes and has a torch in hand. Then she gets lit and to that monster thing that did all the killing before and she burns it. And then people do dances around it as a bonfire. What is the power fire for you, the symbolism of fire . This particular fire is the opposite of the bread oven fire. I love my bread oven fire. I sit there and smoked my cigar all night. Ou be by yourself i think in india, there is a proverb that says humans will never tire of watching fire or elephants. And thats what it is. Can never tire of looking into flames. Were talking to Peter Schumann. I want to go to this video blog called stuck in vermont, part of seven days newspaper. They interviewed some of the Younger Generation of bread and august atformers in the total this and that circus in vermont. Heres what they said about being part of bread and puppet. Being part of the theater i am very aware that im a part of something that is so much bigger that is as such what brought me here. That is part of the reason i was interested because bread and puppet was one of the first Big American Companies to do this and get kind of recognition and puppets are amazing. Theyre like the cheapest, to make awesomeest way political theater. Quick swing of a puppet youre disarmed because you think it is a kid saying, then it is suddenly a really Important Message and hits you right in the stomach. How, Peter Schumann, geo corporate the new crises and scandals like the nsa spying on everyone, like drone strikes . We dont have playwrights in the theater. Our playwright is the daily news. All of this horror that happens. The god damn media dont say it. They live by our Mission Rather than reporting. Exception is you, so we listen to democracy now or the other radically unincorporated media that is still around. It is not for the fun of it, really, it is for that Service Needs to be made available to the public. Artist, you cant slip into this situation of nonparticipation. You have to. You preach what you build. Whether it is on paper or music. What you build is an address for the address has to make sense that the public needs it. Year yountioned last stopped doing some things. What did you stop doing . Stilting. Why did you stop . Too old. What do you mean . If i would fall off the stilts, my body wouldnt take that anymore. How old are you now . 79. When do you turn 80 . Next summer. Our guess is Peter Schumann, founder of bread and puppet theater. Celebrating 50 years. It remains one of the longest running selfsupporting Theater Companies in the United States. It continues to use theater to protest the most urgent political issues of our time from Nuclear Weapons and war to mass nsa spying. Peter schumanns first solo Museum Exhibition is on display at the Queens Museum in new york called the shutterer. We will talk about that and why Peter Schumann feels or how he hows about older people and theyre treated in our society. We will continue our conversation with the legendary theater founder in a moment. [music break] this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. As we go back now to our interview with Peter Schumann, founder of bread and puppet theater, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Have a new installation at the Queens Museum, which is astounding, from the floor to the walls to the ceilings, almost every inch covered. It is all black and white. Shutterer. The why that name . The first atomic bomb was chief architect of that bomb, the scientist, he happened to be a knowledgeable student. The line of the poem goes like of a life, the splendor thousand suns blazing all at ise, resembling the foal attererdeath, the shut of worlds. That was the interpretation of what here participated in building. I think it never went away. I think he suffered from remembering that line until the end of his days. , thelk about the shutterer kinds of poets are the kind of puppets and the artwork you did, the huge murals you did as well that you have made. Exhibit which is really he insisted on the doing that. So he needs to get that credit. Also, the Queens Museum. Exhibits inad any america, basically. I dont know, people dont want that kind of art. What kind of art . Messages. Attacking, yelling at them. They want something more docile or fashionable or whatever it is. Differentibit has routes in it. It has very important revolutions that never became revolutions because of whormists and so forth sided with the aristocrats against the peasants. The uprisings were tremendous. [indiscernible] the uprisings with thousands of men and women. The peasants realized with their beat thes they could pulp out of these fancy knights. And they did. They won quite a few battles against the landowners. The big reformers turned against them. In the exhibit the shatterer , part of it is a library, your books. Why . Because i make books all the time. Exhibit. De that i think he has 420 titles of books from those 50 years. Started making little from the news. We took something from the New York Times and made it into a little book and then out of a from one subway to another, we sold them one for . 25, two for . 10, three for five cents. [laughter] dont you make comic books for your grandson . Oh, yeah, i make books for my grandson every year, and my kids, to. Comics . Why life is comical. That is what comes to mind. What do you think of this digital age and people are completely getting away from books and paper and yet you still make art of your exhibit, your library, with real papal and real real paper and covers . I like that you can touch i wasturn them, that in to outside and i went check out because it was a kid stay, i went in to see how the kids would look at the exhibit, and they had closed off the library part. I asked them why. They said because one cover had come off one of the books when the kids turn the pages. So i opened it and we put a piece of tape on the thing. Theyre falling apart. There are books. Theyre not meant forever. Therefore looking and leafing through. They will be damaged. Do you think there is power in the internet . Maybe, but i havent discovered it. I have no desire. You havent logged on at all . No. Can you talk about the free arts store in vermont . Doing cheap art. We called it cheap art in the 1970s. We just decided, lets make little cookie sized paintings and take them in the streets and park the bus. Not just gets, the grownups came. Five cents, . 10 affordable prices. Look. Puppet tobread and pardon political theater. This is a big letters the cheap art manifesto. We have quite a few of those. People have been thinking too long that art is a privilege of the museums into which art is not business. It does not belong to banks. Art is food. You cant eat it, but it feeds you. Art has to be cheap and available to everybody. What do you still want to do, what do you want to accomplish, Peter Schumann. I never did totally what i think i set out to do, the combining of the music and the sculptures in the languages that are available when you do public address art. Very challenging. It changes every day. Everyday a new show. That is the nature of it. It becausechanging we think it needs to be varied, but we have to do it. Of anciente field , thevals that are in their whole idea of [indiscernible] is in there. The whole history of sculpture is in there. Crazyole history of poetry is in there. And how to make that into one thing is even a sieve, difficult. A kind of unified beard theory. Yes. It did not quite happen. They steer, cut a little more off here. In the end we say we have to do it again tomorrow. I want to take people on a little to her of the museum in vermont. Playing a clip from that film again. Giving a tourife of the museum and glover, vermont. This is the sicilian marionette. It was in a play about the crusades. Year, 365t of the episodes would be played out in the course of a year, showing the crusades. The history of poetry is very ancient puppetry is ancient and goes back to the roots of drama and literature. The earliest theaters were probably enactment of hunt using animal skins and animal masks and using that as magic to try to ensure a good hunt or harvest. By the way, what is the secret to a successful marriage . How long have you been married . 55 years . 55 years. That is way longer than many people have been divorced. [laughter] what is the secret . I dont know. I guess we like each other and appreciate our Work Together. Spouse, shenly my is also my censorship office. She cuts out things and says, no good do you agree with her . No, no, we fight that out. So fighting is an important ingredient in a successful marriage . I think so. Probably not welcome on my censorship office. What you think of the place of older people in society in the United States . Well, they dont have enough to do. Society doesnt have any place for them. I dont get why. When i think of my motherinlaw another older women who ive met in my why and my life, unemployed, and used by society is beyond my cobra engine. They are so powerful. They are so able to do things. Ofsociety doesnt find a way bowing to the concentrated power and employing it. It doesnt do it. It discards them. It leaves them out. What can be done . There are many societies where older people automatically the role as being older people was more experience. This doesnt exist in the society. It is a society of youngsters and pushy middleaged characters and the rest is not so welcome. The kids are not welcome and the old are not welcome. What do you think of retirement, that concept . What does it mean to you . I really dont know what it means. Why retire . From what, your self . How do you see young people . Youngenitally work are continually working with all different ages. Do you think people are less educated or more educated today i might even as they can reach out around the internet . There definitely less educated. Very definitely. When i think of the kids who come to us, coming from art school, colleges, from universities so often, but their knowledge of music and literature and arts in the world is minimal. A lot of them are with us and work with us because they find it opens doors to various aspects of just that, of music than oneher languages that is educated, supposed to be communications but so much less. Finally, what message do you have for young people and older people . People whothe young come to us are very encouraging. The desire to participate, the desire to Work Together the desire for artist who get out of the Arts Education as a solo education [indiscernible] but rather to do something together that matches with other peoples putting things together and then because of this producing a together, becomes that thisand bigger, is deep and young people are pursuing it what did they call it, the appraisers the uprisers . The occupiers . The movement is not gone, it is just a sleep. Who listen toople be amused, to the nonexisting news that are all over the place. We have to do something with it. It is not just good enough to analyze it or complain or what have you. It has to be transformed. It has to be put in a grinding back, roundup and made into something. Occupy continues to give you hope . Totally, yeah. Peter schumann, thank you for joining us here on democracy now thank you, too. , founder ofumann the legendary bread and puppet theater, celebrating its 50th anniversary. Peter schumanns first solo Museum Exhibition is on display now at the Queens Museum in new york. T is called the shatterer consisting of two new large scale, immersive installations created specifically for the museums to galleries, combining painting, drawing, papiermache, sculpture, handmade books. A very special thanks to karen. That does it for our broadcast. If you like a copy of todays show, you can go to democracynow. Org. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now ]