Argentine puppeteer. After studying at the workshop of dramatic art at the Instituto Nacional de Estudios del Teatro (National Institute of Theatrical Studies), Héctor Alvárez d’Abórmida founded in 1949 the company Las Dos Carátulas (The Two Masks), with which he travelled across Argentina performing his own works. He mixed a variety of performing arts (actor’s body language, music, staging and set design) and was an accomplished puppet builder. On his many tours in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, he staged with different actors and puppeteers a variety of shows, including El Caballero de la mano de fuego (The Knight with the Hand of Fire) by Javier Villafañe and one of his own plays, El bien (The Good).

During one of his tours (1956-1958), the Board of Education of Tucumán Province entrusted him with organizing and directing the first school of puppetry in Argentina.

Héctor Alvárez d’Abórmida also made a foray into cinema – with animated figures made for Será historia (It will be History, 1976), with filmed puppets for El hacha de oro (The Golden Axe) – as well as television, without ever ceasing his primary pursuit, that of a travelling puppeteer which he led up to the end of his life.

(See Argentina.)