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Like science fiction, puppetry is an art form where the better you are at it, the more people try to call it something else. Puppets, in America, are for children, and children are like small, gullible sociopaths—hardly the folks you'd look to for artistic recommendations. Which begs the question: Why give a "genius" fellowship to someone working in a discipline we barely even recognize as art?Twist has a long history in puppet-making: The San Francisco native's mother was part of a puppetry club, and his grandfather used puppets in his big band act. He's the only American to ever graduate from the Institut International de la Marionnette, the premier European puppetry school. And the MacArthur isn't even the first big cash prize he's won. In 2012, Twist was awarded a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. Although not quite as lucrative as the MacArthur, it did come with an unrestricted $225,000 over three years, which Twist used to produce his masterful Rite of Spring, set to Igor Stravinsky's 1913 groundbreaking orchestral work of the same name. The Wall Street Journal called the resulting show a "brave new world of unforgettable effects."On the Creators Project: We Spoke to the Puppet Master Behind 'The Dark Crystal' and 'Labyrinth'
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