Curate. Programme. Connect. Enjoy.

Festivals can go one of two ways. They can be a bloated, expensive attempt to cash in a particular art form, or they can be lovingly designed to present a comprehensive, if idiosyncratic, study of the works.

Of course, there are other possibilities, but now that Scotland has become the Festival Nation, it's time to recognise the programmer as an artist. And the best festivals show the gentle hand of the programmer in the way that the individual shows have been selected.

Scotland has never been short on visionary programmers: back in the day, Steve Slater compared announcing the season at Tramway as being a bit like releasing a new album, and the work of Nikki Millican made New Territories an annually intriguing feast of experimental theatre. The growth of Celtic Connections over two decades can be put done to some cunning selections - emphasising the connection rather than the strictly celtic - and Morag Deyes' DanceBase seasons in August are always a provocative and enchanting mixture.

Manipulate has built a steady presence, first of all from Dundee, then Edinburgh and now across Scotland and into England, thanks to Puppet Animation Scotland's determination. Still facing a public opinion of puppetry as a minor art form, it juxtaposes film, including the CGI mockumentary Big Man Japan  and performance to maintain a festival that is equal parts primer for contemporary visual theatre and celebration of the cutting edge. Simon Hart, artistic director, is clearly a man inspired by the potential of object manipulation, and the inclusion of potentially controversial topics (Schicklgruber alias Adolf Hitler) is balanced by reinventions of classic fairy-tales (To The End of Love) and all-ages magic (Paper Cinema's Odyssey).

Unlike the Fringe, manipulate has a clear mission: to celebrate contemporary visual theatre. Arika, who have evolved from experimental music festivals into experimental festivals, are even more preoccupied with the way that art provokes conversation, setting gigs next to discussion sessions. Much of Celtic Connections passes beneath the radar, as it offers opportunities to play and learn musical styles next to the grand shows. Yet the focus of all three festivals makes them healthy, dynamic and unique. They stand out from the crowded market.

A strong festival programmer ensures that each performance relates to others: when Svend Brown books minimal, he invites a performer or composer to hang out for the weekend, and lets them make a selection. Manipulate might appear to have a broad range of styles and content (Chris Sullivan's Consuming Spirits delves into human secrets through experimental animation, while A Wild Growling Happiness has larger than life puppets and childhood dreams), but the belief in the power of the performed image is consistent.

There is a danger that any organisation can slap the title "festival" on unrelated events in an attempt to fool the market (one lap-dance bar advertised "a festival of erotic dancing" during the Fringe a few years back, before the Festival of Erotic Arts made a more sustained and serious programme): but the true spirit of a festival goes back to a unity of intention. Entertainment is important, but the connection between the events, the possibility to explore an art form, to learn and laugh, is the mark of great curation.

Thoughts on Dead Matter

John Bell, in Death and Performing Objects, suggests that "What makes performance with puppets.. and other objects different than the actor's work is a concentration, both in the creation and execution... on the materials of the inanimate world, the dead world of inert matter." Considering a range of performances, from a 1511 Florentine Carnival through to the plays of Polish icon Kantor, Bell argues that this consideration makes object manipulation a fundamentally spiritual practice.

The fashion for art that considers the afterlife has been the victim of the twenty-first century's movement towards the secular - the journey of Derren Brown, from youthful Christian to a determined materialist reflects something of the cultural shift away from religion towards science as the dominant influence on society. 

For all the justified complaints of atheists that religion still holds an undue respect, the combination of technological advances and popular science writing has encouraged artists to ponder scientific theory over theological intention. For example, after the war, choreographer Robert Helpmann updated the Christ story to a Glasgow of tenement and slum when he wanted to extend the range of ballet's contents. In contrast, Wayne MacGregor, when not making idiosyncratic videos for Radiohead, is inspired by his research fellowship in neuroscience. And Janis Claxton's study of primates has translated into a series of choreographies that take cues from the great ape's social organisation and behaviour.

Bell's argument follows a selective history of puppetry to identify a specific concern with the relationship between the human and the inanimate. Noting that many traditions feature puppets literally made from the dead, like the Indian tolubommalata that even specifies that the puppets must be made from the hide of an animal which died a natural death and was not killed for purpose, he evokes the words of Kleist and Edward Craig who appeared to want to replace the actor with the puppet. Connecting this to certain rituals - notably the Aztec priest wearing a suit of flayed skin - he presents a case for the puppet as a representation of death.

Although Bell conflates very diverse artists into a single narrative, his claims about the puppet as a reminder of the relationship between inanimate and living material is persuasive, and perhaps accounts for the uncanny impact of works like Schicklgruber, where Nigel Tranter operates life-size versions of Hitler and friends. As puppetry becomes less concerned with "hiding the strings" and the puppeteer is clearly visible,  the relationship between puppeteer and puppet echoes the broader relationship between man and matter.

Throughout Bell's essay, there is an unwillingness to address the spiritual concerns that the rituals considered - the Florentine Carnival was undoubtedly Christian - even if it has a few pagan elements, and the Aztec priest was not playing dress up in flesh for an exclusively secular end and the spirituality he considers is oddly materialist (the puppet becomes a reminder of mortality and the way of all flesh): Klein was interested in the marionette as a cypher for the human in tune with divine grace, even ironically, and Kantor wasn't shy about referencing either the seance or the mass. While he doesn't convince that a preoccupation with death is implicitly spiritual, he effectively offers a resonance to the puppet's presence.

Perhaps this resonance is what encouraged Egyptian priests or medieval churches to incorporate automata into their liturgies - certainly, it's an aspect of the puppet's aura and adds fire to Tranter's depiction of Hitler. His conclusion, which points to modern political demonstrations as part of this tradition, integrates both the otherworldly atmosphere of the puppet show with the contemporary enthusiasm for theatre as a potent, radical activism.

Articulating Adolf

This article is an apology to Neville Tranter. Just before Christmas, he sent me answers to an interview about his Schicklgruber alias Adolf Hitler. I have spent the last fortnight sitting on them, unable to work out how to approach an article on a puppet version of Hitler's last days. I have found the limits of my philosophy.

The easy starting point would appear to be a comparison with Downfall, a film that starred Bruno Ganz in a stunningly virtuoso performance as the dictator: unfortunately, my concerns about its representation of Hitler led me down a pathway so entangled by questions of good and evil that I could not pass. Any attempt to critique the film slipped into difficult questions of morality. That article is sitting on my computer, waiting to be  posted at a time when few people are likely to read my meditations on the difference between Christ and Antichrist.

The scale of Nazi atrocity seems inevitably to encourage my theological tendencies. 

Tranter acknowledges that taking on a subject like Hitler is "delicate." His research, which included collecting 300 hours of songs and auditioning five writers before finding Jan Veldman, took three years to complete. While the YouTube video shows a performance that echoes the irreverent satire of Weimar cabaret, complete with comedy number about joining the Luftwaffe, the juxtaposition of larger than life puppets and the icon of twentieth century evil is a struggle to discuss. Like Giselle Vienne's Jerk (manipulate 2011), the mixture of object manipulation and difficult content combine to create an impact that is made more potent by the apparent mismatch.