Magkes, Koutsavakia, Rebetes and the Midwife's son

A new puppet design is born!

In the Old Athens-especially in the area of Psiri,- at the end of Otto kingship and the early reign of George Α'. appears a marginalized group of people with strange habits, unique dress-code, contentious and  troublemaker behavior ,  carrying the distinctive nickname koutsavakis , or koutsavaki (pseftomagkas).

The  beautiful folklore art of Greek Shadow puppetry , will integrate a few years later this group's characteristics with the characteristics of  the early 1920s Rebeti, creating one of my most favorite puppets.

His name is Stavros, (nickname Stavrakas)  son of a midwife, who was born in Syros Island but early in his life relocated in the slums of Piraeus.
Stavrakas' puppet is the only one with a long independent arm, like Karagiozis.

Until today, every time I was looking  on internet for references of Stavrakas puppets, I could not find accordingly to my aesthetics , a drawing with the best representation of the hero.

Last week  I accidentally discovered a drawing of Stavraka , stored in the British Museum 


The drawing which dating from 1930-1970 inspired  me to create my own Stavrakas puppet.

(c) 2016 S.Dimis

The personal design  keeps most of the original 1930s drawing's characteristics , but for first time the left jacket sleeve  hangs behind Stavrakas shoulder, revealing the hero's long independent arm, and belt.

The jacket and hat colored brown, as the pants carrying stripes of dark and lighter blue. Stavrakas is wearing brown color ankle booties. 
He is  holding in his one hand a dagger and a worry-beads (kompoloi)  in the other.

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