Julian Crouch & Saskia Lane: Birdheart

Shapeshifting: Transformation and the Art of Affective Scaffolding in Birdheart

An Essay by Ana Díaz Barriga

In the middle of a dark stage, a solitary table held a sandbox. On top of a dune of sand, an egg shook. Puppeteers Saskia Lane and Julian Crouch assisted the egg in its cracking to reveal a balled-up brown piece of paper-like material, which slowly stretched out. Though wrinkled and shapeless, the material seemed to breathe and have intentions. It leaned over the egg’s shell and placed one half of it on itself, effectively giving itself a head. With the clarity provided by where its head was, the puppeteers were able to give this creature feet, by grabbing two points at the opposite end from where its head was, and an arm, by grabbing one of its sides. Accompanied by sounds of the sea, the paper creature began exploring the sandbox.

This was the beginning of the puppetry section of Birdheart, as performed at the Instituto Cervantes on January 25, 2025. Part concert with bird-themed songs and part puppetry show, Birdheart provides an interesting opportunity  to examine a curious phenomenon puppetry performers often speak of: the sense that they must “listen” to the puppet, as if the object itself has intentions (see, for example, Margolies, 2014: 323). This seemingly magical notion goes beyond mere metaphor and can be understood through the lens of “affective scaffolding.” Just like we use our environment to support our thinking through what is known as “cognitive scaffolding”—like leaving a sticky note to remember a grocery list—performers employ affective scaffolding by strategically using environmental elements to encourage emotions, moods, or interest in a situation (Ravn & Columbetti, 2024: 225).

In the case of Birdheart, Lane and Crouch demonstrate this concept vividly. Following principles of improvisation, they don’t simply impose a predetermined form onto the paper-like material. Instead, they enter a collaborative dialogue with the material itself, allowing its inherent qualities to guide the puppet’s transformation. Researchers Susanne Ravn and Giovanna Colombetti explain affective scaffolding in site-specific dance performances where dancers “offload” creative processes onto their environment, allowing the site itself to inspire and shape their performance—a kind of improvised conversation between performers and space (2024: 236). Similarly, Crouch and Lane’s performance appears to be a re-creation of a process of discovery they underwent with the paper-like material that the puppet is made of where, dialoguing together, they discover all the possible creatures that exist within this piece of material.   

Sifting through the sand, the now-humanoid creature discovers a pair of crumpled-paper hands, which it attaches to its body. A weathered wooden stool and a tiny table emerge from the sandbox’s landscape. At this point it becomes evident that the puppet itself is also using its sandbox environment for affective scaffolding, as it draws inspiration from objects it finds to shape its own body. The puppet sits on the stool and tries to place its feet on the table, but its legs are too short. The distance between the stool and the table then becomes an invitation for the puppet to lengthen its limbs and further shift its shape to achieve its goals. 

In performance, the process of affective scaffolding connects directly to “affective engagement”—a concept Ravn and Colombetti use to explain how performers manage their own and the audience’s affective experience. Of note is that affective engagement is shaped by enculturation (225; 234). Birdheart plays with this notion to create a moment of pleasant surprise before its climactic ending. As it explores its environment, the puppet finds a pair of coconuts and pieces of string. With a deliberate movement, the creature places the coconuts across its chest. It drapes the strings on its head—the threads framing its face. Spectators are encouraged to perceive this figure as a woman, who begins to dance. This moment is taking advantage of a notion of neutrality that is, in fact, gendered as male instead of actually being neutral. Laura Purcell-Gates explains how puppets without clear or stereotypical gender markers (i.e., “neutral”) are de facto perceived as male, describing that for a puppet to be readily  perceived as female it needs to have “female markers such as long hair, breasts, red cheeks, or lips.” (2019: 21) While Purcell-Gates explores how this perspective can add to feelings of uncanniness that puppets produce by challenging assumptions about gender, Crouch and Lane use this bias in the spectators’ perceptions to create joyful surprise, potentially challenging the preconceptions that audience members might not have known they had about the gender of the puppet. This form of affective engagement reopens the possibilities of what the puppet can be that became limited as the objects found by the creature defined its character. 

Now, letting the coconuts, string, shoes, and hands go, the puppet can shift out of its humanoid state of being and follow its material qualities to become a snake, a quadruped, and finally a big bird. Having shown so many possibilities held by the material, the bird spreads her wings and flies away. She leaves behind an egg on top of a sand dune. Within it lies the potential for a new creature’s life cycle to begin—and for a new journey of creation for puppeteers to discover.