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Eye on the Triangle is WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2’s weekly public affairs programming with news, interviews, opinion, weather, sports, arts, music, events and issues that matter to NC State, Raleigh and the Triangle.
00:04
Autumn Smith
You are now listening to Eye on the Triangle, WKNC's weekly public affairs program from the campus of North Carolina State University. Any views and opinions expressed during Eye on the Triangle do not represent NC State or student media. This is WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1 Raleigh.
00:23
Autumn Smith
Hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in to Eye on the Triangle. My name is Autumn Smith. In this episode, WKNC data journalist Hale Zulueta discusses the new AI Recycling Assistant at NC State. Then a full interview with Donovan Zimmerman of the Paperhand Puppet Project about the new production ongoing in Chapel Hill.
00:43
Autumn Smith
New at NC State this fall semester is an AI Recycling Assistant in Talley Student Union that instructs students and faculty on which bin their waste needs to go in. The partnership with Intuitive AI is their next step after announcing an AI powered waste management system initiative in 2023. Detailing the story is Hail Zulueta.
01:01
Hail Zulueta
Ladies, is he obsessed with trash, tells you what to do, and is horrible at remembering faces? That might not be your ex--that might be Oscar, NC State's newest AI recycling assistant. Starting this fall semester, you'll be able to interact with Oscar near Talley Market and near One Earth Dining. Oscar uses AI to recognize the type of trash in your hand and helps you put it in the right category recycling, compost or landfill. Now, Oscar does have limitations. Oscar is still being trained on what types of trash he can detect, but most importantly, he can only detect trash, not faces. This means that he is not going to be able to collect any sort of personal data. Question is, do we really need him? The answer is maybe.
01:43
Hail Zulueta
It's too early to tell, but here at WP&C we pulled the numbers on sustainability, and for a university that's big on biotech and agriculture, we don't really give Mother Earth her flowers like that. Since 2019, our student body has grown by about 6%, but total campus waste has jumped by nearly 20%, regenerating significantly more trash per student today than were before the pandemic. We've also been locked at a 55% waste diversion rate for four years straight, meaning that we've been pretty stagnant in how much we're recycling, despite how much waste we're increasing year over year. So is Oscar going to save us from our waste problem? Hardly. It's a cute first date, but NC State needs real commitment and we need to see how Oscar operates after one year.
02:29
Hail Zulueta
So the real takeaway is that the AI Assistant might actually help us, but we should treat it with a healthy dose of skepticism.
02:35
Autumn Smith
That was Hail Zulueta with WKNC. For more information on sustainability initiatives at NC State, you can visit sustainability ncsu.edu. The Paperhand Puppet Project is back at the Forest Theater in Chapel Hill with a production titled the Wild Wisdom of the World. The puppet focused nonprofit organization regularly holds shows and events across the Carolinas that bring performers and artists together to highlight the importance of nature, community and the condition of all living beings. The following segment is a conversation with Donovan Zimmerman, the founder and director of the Paperhand Puppet Project, to talk about the ongoing event and its impact on local communities.
03:15
Donovan Zimmerman
My name is Donovan Zimmerman. D O N O V A N Z I M M E R M A N.
03:21
Autumn Smith
Going straight into it. What is the Paperhand Puppet Project and how did they get started?
03:27
Donovan Zimmerman
Well, Paperhand is a 30 year running giant puppet company that does a lot of mask and stilt walking and giant puppets and costumes and shadow puppets. And we do sort of a wide variety of puppetry styles. We do things like weddings and even funerals, actually. You'd be amazed at how many different ways that puppets can be used in the community. Got our start with Jan and I, Jan Berger and myself, deciding that we wanted to combine some of our interests, which I was interested in everything. I wanted to do music and theater and drawing and painting and sculpting and I just couldn't really pick a thing.
04:07
Donovan Zimmerman
Basically, Jan had a similar thing going and so we started collaborating about 30 years ago doing the Hall River Festival, which is like an environmental education festival that we started doing a puppet show as like something for the kids after lunch before they went back to school. And it just sort of snowballed from there and we kept working and kept getting invited to things and we kept building and trying new things out with new varieties of puppets or sizes. It just became what it is today, which pretty well known, I guess.
04:39
Autumn Smith
Absolutely. Coming up at Forest Theater in Chapel Hill is the Wild Wisdom of the World, which is the project's 32nd production since 1998. That is a lot of productions. I want to ask, what was the focus into making this show?
04:53
Donovan Zimmerman
Well, we started asking the question, like, what is the wild wisdom of the World? And we kind of felt like whatever it is, even if we don't know that we need to be closer to it. Some of the ones that we got that we felt we could all agree on were that everything moves. It's a. It's a moving living universe. Everything changes. That seems like a pretty obvious one, but, you know, were trying to get back to basics. You Know, because it just feels like we get so overloaded with all of the different bits of chaos that come into our lives and into our minds from the media we're exposed to and the, you know, just basically how insane some aspects of the world have gone.
05:30
Donovan Zimmerman
We don't have to get into specifics, but it definitely, I think for everyone in some ways feels like that's a common united experience. We also thought that the idea of reciprocity and how systems work in nature, if we look around at all the different things that are there to teach us that things have a way to stay in balance, they, they give back in order for that system to kind of regenerate itself.
05:56
Autumn Smith
Very, very beautiful themes being touched on there. Something I want to ask more about is how these themes that you're presenting in this production with human respecting those around you, et cetera, and how that sort of builds into the overall themes that the Paperhand Puppet Project likes to go into such as, you know, justice, equality, community. What is the importance of those themes being present in all of your productions?
06:23
Donovan Zimmerman
Our work being centered around the environment has never felt like an issue based thing. It's more like if we don't start the conversation there, I believe it begins and ends there because it's like those more difficult and hard places within our social structures would be I think brought some ease if we had just a little bit more of that reverence and connection in place.
06:43
Autumn Smith
Instead of being more of a mission to talk about these things, more of a necessity to you guys.
06:48
Donovan Zimmerman
It just feels like it comes from our heart like where we're at as people and has always been that way. And I think sometimes we get classified as like an environmental. You know, the only reason that we end up going back to that is because yes, we have still not figured it out. We can't just completely separate ourselves from those things. My experience has been that people tend to project a lot of feeling into what the puppets are doing and feeling on stage when the combination of the music and when they're there experiencing it. And to me that's like almost like exercising the muscle that can get quite weakened from non use. And this is the way I show my care for my fellow humans and the earth and its creatures.
07:33
Autumn Smith
That's absolutely beautiful. With those different themes and the messages that you guys have within your productions. You know, going across to these events all across the Carolinas. How would you say that this has helped the Paperhand Puppet Project impact local communities here in North Carolina? How would you say they've received it.?
07:51
Donovan Zimmerman
The first thing I would say is that we've been able to stick around. And not only that, but not that we're needing to grow, but we're always trying to make sure that people are getting paid in a fair wage kind of way. Even though it's not an easy thing to pull off as an arts organization. But I think that our longevity speaks to some of our success just. Just because it's not that common for things to last this long when it comes to arts projects, you know, I think that the biggest testimony that I would have to would be just all of the feedback that we get through letters and emails and messages and just face to face. People write some very profoundly moving things about their experience with our work and how it inspires them and gives them hope.
08:34
Donovan Zimmerman
And sometimes it's just about giving people some joy or just a moment when they're reaching out their hand to a puppet that's coming through the audience. And it feels like this, let's just say Earth dragon, which is one of our creatures we made this year, this earth dragon that's coming through. It's alive and they feel it's alive with the music and the way it's being moved and they want to connect with it and that's something so powerful. It, it feels like we get those ideas that I'm seeing now reflected back to us in ways that people are very grateful and that just makes me feel, you know, hugely, I guess, just humbled and, but also deeply satisfied as an artist to be able to know that you're having a positive impact.
09:14
Donovan Zimmerman
The look of wonder on people's faces is like a real part of the pay. For me. I don't think people get to experience enough whimsy and wonder. And so I try to bring some.
09:26
Autumn Smith
Of that moving forward as there's a lot of musicians that get involved either with the events, opening up for the events. What has been your experience with working with these artists and getting them involved as part of Paperhand's projects?
09:40
Donovan Zimmerman
So this year it's a six person band and every year it's like in between six and eight. And we do that starting usually in April or May. We tell them all of the ideas, usually April, I would say we tell them the ideas and the overall themes and structure of the show and we get them writing and people use some online platform like Dropbox to put musical sketches into there and that we listen to and then we sort of decide which ones are working the best and we sort of place them alongside the pieces. And the music gets developed through rehearsals and people continually working on it outside of rehearsals.
10:23
Donovan Zimmerman
And it can be a bit chaotic at times because sometimes we don't have everything figured out, or we'll need a very specific kind of transition that we don't really even know what it sounds like or looks like until we're doing it together. And we're seeing the puppets that we built for the first time, hearing the music that we've made for the first time. And then we need it to, like, shift, you know, into a different emotion. Like, can we make it sound sadder or can we make it suddenly sound triumphant? Or, you know, there's just so many little nuances and everybody just puts their whole heart and energy into it. And it's an unorthodox approach because the puppets are made during the summer and the music is made during the summer.
11:04
Donovan Zimmerman
And it comes together in that last little window which we're in right now, by the way. And everything is kind of, in fact, coming together. And, you know, it is locked in, though it's not an improvisation. But we find the work, though, through improvisation until we make the decisions on what it's going to be and then we stick with that.
11:25
Autumn Smith
To close out, I wanted to ask for our listeners. Aside from attending, you know, this upcoming event next Friday, any of the events going on, how are people able to get involved with the organization?
11:36
Donovan Zimmerman
I think that our website, PaperhandPuppet is a good starting place and getting onto our mailing list. So you know when and where we're going to be. I think oftentimes just showing up to an event that we're going to be at that's public and participating in that way, like being a part of the parade, we usually bring enough stuff for lots of people to carry and wear. We had over close to 400 people come to our Saturday work days and help build the puppets this summer. In the early part of the summer, we have big paper mache parties and, you know, these work days every Saturday. That's certainly a way, but just sending us and, you know, there's ways to contact us through the website and things like that. There's an apprenticeship program that people come in and do that. We have them here now.
12:24
Donovan Zimmerman
There's only so much space that we have. But just participating in our public events is a great way to just start the conversation or just try to engage with us, have fun with us.
12:35
Autumn Smith
All in all, is there anything else you wanted to discuss or mention?
12:40
Donovan Zimmerman
I mean, I'm excited about this year's show. We have lots of incredible new animals, goats and sheep that are extremely cute and shaggy. We've got no less than four dragons. I just like making big creatures, you know. What can I say? We've got, you know, creatures that we've been working on here in their shop over the summer. And I'd be excited to share them with everybody and come check out what we're doing. It's going to be a blast.
13:08
Autumn Smith
Thank you to Donovan Zimmerman for the Paperhand Puppet Project for speaking with Eye on the Triangle. The Wild Wisdom of the World production is playing at the Forest Theater every Friday and Saturday until September 26th. This has been Eye on the Triangle from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1 Raleigh. Our theme song is City Lights by BerryDeep, licensed under Creative Commons. To re-listen to this or any other episode, please visit wknc.org/podcast or subscribe to Eye on the Triangle on your favorite podcast site or app. Thank you for listening.