Patterns of LifeKukas’s PuppetsSomeone once stated that being a puppeteer wassomething bad. Kukas and Isabel have <strong>de</strong>votedthemselves to this for thirty years, and believethat it is the best profession in the world. Kukasis today the indisputable name in the making oflarge-hea<strong>de</strong>d carnival figures or puppets, withoutever stopping imagining, or pergheñar, asthey say locally. A tra<strong>de</strong> that mixes the stage artsand plastic arts, literature and music and magic.Over these years he has been gathering the viceof thinking, the healthy vice of never stoppingcreating. They are therefore convinced that thebest thing about <strong>Galicia</strong>n craftwork is the creativitythat it releases, that stands out whereverit goes. Kukas’s puppets have exchanged thefold-away theatre box for magnificent stagingsand huge casts like the <strong>Galicia</strong>n Royal Philharmonic,without ever losing the essence of thecompany: everything remains to be invented.14
“We have always takenrisks on the plastic andconceptual levels andthere have never beenany problems”“We have had to struggle, going around with our gear in a rucksack.Nowadays we perform in very important theatres, the Arriaga,the Campoamor…, huge theatres”. Thus speaks Marcelino<strong>de</strong> Santiago, better known as Kukas, a name inseparable from thehistory of puppets in <strong>Galicia</strong>. Because if today it is possible to enjoya puppet show, it wasn’t the case only thirty years ago when hebegan his career as a puppeteer and maker of marionettes. “Atthe beginning there was nothing; we are self-taught”. A work ofacknowledging and dignifying this craft was always present in theirprofessional course. But that is also the stimulus, when everythinghas to be done. Even the word. Isabel Rei, who, along with Kukas,is one of the pillars of Kukas’s puppets, smiles as she recalls thatthey chose the name “monicreques” for the company because of itssound qualities, and which referred to the rag dolls that got carriedon one’s back. “Before no one used this term, and now people evencorrect us if we say ‘marionettes’”.Dolls, rag dolls, ugly face dolls, puppets, big-heads, marionettes…,whatever they are called, they are their lives. Kukas’s hands havebeen building, carving and shaping the recent history of marionettesin <strong>Galicia</strong>. His company is <strong>de</strong>voted both to the production of showsand to the making of the sets that we usually see in theatres or on TV,such as in the Xabarín Club. And they are easily recognizable, with astyle and a <strong>de</strong>sign that are clearly colourist, brutally expressive, andfull of strength and emotion. An eclectic style, as Isabel and Kukascall it, as each work is unique. “Each work has its own style. I don’tthink that a work has to be ma<strong>de</strong> by the same standard. It is like achild. I’m not really in favour of this matter of copying oneself andmaking fifty copies of the same thing”. Isabel highlights the explosionof colour in her work, along with her finishing touches. “A lot of peopleknow you due to the way you finish the work, both marionettesand stage sets, treating them pictorially like paintings”.The protagonists of Seven Capital Stories are ma<strong>de</strong> out of papier-mâché for the heads, and the bodies are ma<strong>de</strong> of carved and painted wood.15
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