I’ve opened a second blog, ‘monkey see monkey do’, subtitled ‘How to slice a banana inside its skin and other tricks, games, idle pursuits, and things to make and do’. :-)
Happy Christmas!
Seventh ‘One Van’ International Festival of Puppetry
The seventh ‘One Van’ International Festival of Puppetry will be taking place on January 21-24, 2005 in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.Ailie Cohen from Scotland will be bringing 2 shows, ‘Rumplestiltskin at the Fairytale Laundry’, and ‘Jazz Mouse’, to add to the fabulous Australian shows coming from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and north coast NSW.
It will be a chance to see Richard Hart’s Dream Puppets ‘Dreamer’ trilogy, ‘Muckheap’ by Polyglot Puppets, Aphid’s ‘A Quarrelling Pair, ‘Moon Shadow’ by Sydney Puppet Theatre and two productions by Krinkl Theatre, among others.
There will be great workshops for adults in manipulation, writing, mask and shadow puppetry and puppetry making workshops for kids. Philip Millar, Joanne Foley, Sue Giles and Gary Friedman are among those offering workshops.
‘Nature Band’ is a community puppet project being run as part of the festival too, as Sean Manners at Puppetry Australia explains:
‘Designed by Jenny Kee, a number of large street parade puppets, celebrating the flora and fauna of the area, are being constructed by local members of the community who then will use them in outdoor events in and around Blackheath during the Festival.
Construction workshops are being run every weekend in November, December & January apart from Christmas and New Year from 10.00am to 4.00pm in Blackheath next door to the Fire Station on the Great Western Highway. All are welcome over the age of 16 to come and join in. Come for the day or for an hour.’
A full list of performers and activities for ‘One Van’ can be seen at a glance here.
An umbrella event of the festival will be a 2-day Puppetry Conference on Jan 19 & 20th in Blackheath in which there will be discussion and focus groups on various topics. All puppeteers are welcome, but the emphasis is on puppetry in NSW. For information contact the directors:
David Collins – drcollins@ozemail.com.au
Sue Wallace – Ph/fax: (02) 9550 6457, or email spuppet@ozemail.com.au
For further information or to be on the festival mailing list contact:
Blackheath Area Neighbourhood Centre,
Gardiners Crescent
Blackheath
NSW 2785
Australia
Phone: (02) 4787 7770
Fax: (02) 4787 7777
Email: puppets@banc.ngo.org.au
Brumby Jack
I forgot about Brumby Jack, the official mascot of the Super 12’s Brumbies, the ACT Rubgy Union team. In a daggy interview in the Canberra Times he listed ‘The Man from Snowy River’ as his favourite movie, and ‘Horse with No Name’ as his favourite song. Its possible to buy a rather frightening Brumby Jack toy.
Brumbies are wild horses in Australia, and most mums and kids know the song Brumby Jack from watching the ABC’s Playschool — ‘Here comes Brumby Jack, bringing the horses down the track…’
The other local football mascot is the Canberra Raiders Victor the Viking. His muscles always look lumpy and migratory…
Updated links 2015
Trauma Teddy
Continuing in my quest to collect all the large puppet mascot characters around, may I present Trauma Teddy, ‘the bear that cares’, and the fund raising mascot for the Australian Red Cross. November is fund raising month for the Red Cross, and November 23nd was National Trauma Teddy Day.
While Trauma Teddy himself visits sick children in hospital and travels to schools to entertain and inform children about the activities of the Red Cross, the Trauma Teddy program is one where people in the community knit individual bears which are then given to comfort children and adults experiencing trauma. Although the bears are made to a special pattern, and you have to be a registered knitter with the Red cross to get it, each bear is different.
In hospitals now they have a machine with which you can self-administer morphine when things are getting tough. The nurse comes along and coos ‘Now how would you rate the pain you feeling on a scale of 1 to 10? 7? Well then I’ll just link you up to the … (imagine dramatic psycho stabbing music and cackles) … PAIN MACHINE!’ My only concern with Trauma Teddy is his name. Does someone come up to you and coo ‘There there, let me give you a …(uh-oh) … TRAUMA TEDDY’.
