Gilberto Palma and the other players of Happy Show in Mérida, Yucatan use puppets, costumes, and performance to preserve and spread traditional Yucatecan culture. At the show I saw in the tiled courtyard of the Holiday Inn on July 6th, Palma wore the traje típico for men in the Yucatan – a white cotton suit and hat that clearly offered more comfort in the sticky heat than the modern jeans and t-shirts worn by families watching the show.
The show was free thanks to funding not only by the hotel but by state support of Happy Show’s cultural transmission mission, borne out in the mobile show I watched through a story about the Rey of Uxmal and songs by puppets in traditional Yucatecan dress. Balancing the show's educational message was its circus theme. I like to think of the puppet dog and seal from that circus as fabric fusions of the historic partnership in Mexico between itinerant puppetry and circuses. In the heyday of itinerant puppetry in Mexico, people learned what it meant to be Mexican through shows like these. Now Happy Show is using their brand of teatro infantil to teach what it means to be Yucatecan.
The show was free thanks to funding not only by the hotel but by state support of Happy Show’s cultural transmission mission, borne out in the mobile show I watched through a story about the Rey of Uxmal and songs by puppets in traditional Yucatecan dress. Balancing the show's educational message was its circus theme. I like to think of the puppet dog and seal from that circus as fabric fusions of the historic partnership in Mexico between itinerant puppetry and circuses. In the heyday of itinerant puppetry in Mexico, people learned what it meant to be Mexican through shows like these. Now Happy Show is using their brand of teatro infantil to teach what it means to be Yucatecan.
Palma and his group come across as solidly professional. Whether the children they entertain number 5 or 500, those children will see a show that is well-rehearsed and well-amplified. The young adults who perform with Palma in Happy Show are his apprentices, and they may preserve Yucatecan culture in their own troupes as they grow older. |
Palma himself learned from a pillar of puppet theatre arts in the Yucatan: Wilberth Herrera. In my study of communication and peer development among puppeteers, Herrera has emerged as the father of the modern puppetry tradition in the Yucatan. Herrera passed away in 2011, but in the video below his fancy footwork lives on.