In recent years, you can hardly turn around without bumping into the uncanny puppet artistry of Tarish “Jeghetto” Pipkins, whether it’s in Paperhand Puppet Intervention shows, Missy Elliott music videos, public libraries and schools, The Steve Harvey Show, or the Durham Hotel’s lobby. Last year, Jeghetto’s talent and work ethic earned him a Jim Henson Foundation grant to develop signature work 5P1N0K10, a hip-hopera created with The Beast bandleader and 2017 Durham mayoral candidate Pierce Freelon. Using music, video, and magical marionettes, the show spins the story to which its title and Jeghetto’s moniker refer into an Afrofuturist parable about a robot that longs to be a real B-boy in a post-apocalyptic future. “It confronts urban issues, police brutality, and asks questions like, What is humanity? What are human rights?” Pipkins told the INDY last year. At the ArtsCenter, find out how he and Freelon spent that Sesame Street money to upgrade a show that was a must-see in the first place.
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