Photos from UCLA Performing Arts Hugo
Suarez‘s knee plays the ukulele in "Short Stories," a show
at the Freud Playhouse that runs April 4 through April 7.
By Nick RabinowitshDaily Bruin Contributor
Body parts can sometimes look like little people.
Despite any doubts about this, body parts nevertheless
constitute the puppets of “Short Stories,” an unusual
puppet show coming to UCLA’s Freud Playhouse April 4 through
April 7.
In “Short Stories,” the two puppeteers, Hugo Suarez
and Ines Pasic, use their hands, feet, elbows and a variety of
props, to create their puppets.
Instead of a typical wooden or stuffed doll, the couple will use
a knee and two hands to create a strange-looking street musician
playing a ukulele. Feet become heads, toes become noses, fists
become faces, belly-buttons become mouths; this is metonymy in its
purest form.
 A foot transforms into a character in a production
combining mime, dance and puppetry.
These living puppets form a show that has been critically
acclaimed from South America to the Middle East.
The conception of “Short Stories” is about as random
as its content that began with the couple’s unexpected
encounter. Pasic, originally a skilled pianist from Mostar,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, chanced upon Suarez while traveling in
Florence. Suarez, who grew up in Lima, Peru, was performing as a
mime on the street at one of the town squares.
“We didn’t have a common language so we communicated
with mime,” the puppeteers said in an e-mail interview from
Peru. Pasic soon began to study mime and also found that her piano
skills allowed her to skillfully manipulate marionettes.
“From then on, we lived together,” they said.
When asked to describe their show, the puppeteers revealed a
modesty that reflects the humble beginnings of their collaboration
together.
“Our show was the result of many factors: love, effort,
luck. We think that it is simply an amusing show for the entire
public,” Suarez and Pasic said.
The duo also emphasizes that the show has no pretensions of
being informative or pedantic.
“We are not interested in sending an intellectual message
to the public,” they said. “We would like to express
feelings and emotions. We try to do a sentimental bridge with the
audience ““ our puppets are something human (they are parts of
our bodies) and they can express happiness and sadness.
 Hands become the face of a puppet in "Short Stories," a
performance at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse April 4-7.
That said, the duo has no grand delusions of what the show is
meant to do.
“We wanted to create a good energy in the room. Our
purpose is not to teach something to the public or to give a
lesson. We only want the public to live the moment with us,”
they said.
When speaking of influences for the creation of the stories,
Suarez and Pasic cite nothing other than the unique appearances of
the characters themselves.
“We begin with the character, not the story,” they
said. “First we study the personality of the marionette,
their expression and their limitations, and then we adapt a story
for them according to their characteristics. Our characters are
atypical marionettes (the foot, the knee) and for this reason,
their stories are very particular,” they said.
Although their characters already play musical instruments,
Pasic, a trained pianist from the Sarajevo Conservatory, hopes to
incorporate the piano into their future performances.
“I don’t play piano in our shows but I’m
planning to use my piano technique in the future,” she
says.
The couple also has larger plans for the future. They recently
completed filming for a PBS national broadcast series called
“Between the Lions.”
Now, the couple even hopes to expand to the world of the motion
picture.
“We would like to experiment with our characters in the
television or movie and we have written a script for a movie with
our puppets,” the duo said, although they could not elaborate
on any concrete plans for a film venture.
The show, essentially, intends to play out the poetic moments of
daily life. And their formula seems to be working ““ their
shows are often sold out, and viewers must arrive early to
guarantee a spot in the audience.
The most renowned venue that hosted their performance was the
Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater in New York. This
festival, including Suarez and Pasic’s performance of
“Short Stories,” has been credited with influencing a
sort of renaissance in puppetry.
THEATER: “Short Stories” runs from
Thursday through Saturday, April 4-7, Thursday through Friday at 8
p.m. and Saturday through Sunday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. The show
will be performed at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse. It is a single
act that runs for 70 minutes.