Spirits Dancing

Towards the end of last year I added an Australian puppetry links page here. It’s listed above with the other site navigation tabs. It is a little more than links because there are brief notes with some of the entries.  I also started up @OzPuppetry,  a Twitter account for Australian puppetry news, which you can see running real-time updates in the widget in the sidebar to the left.

What prompted me to do both was the frustration I felt when I received an out-of-the-blue email asking my thoughts on the ‘puppetry industry, or lack thereof’, in Australia. Although in many ways I’m only on the periphery of the industry, I was aware of lots of exciting and diverse puppetry at the time, as I tried to convey. So I decided to write down publicly what I did know as links, and to track news as I saw it on Twitter.

But I should say straight up that I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing either.  At the moment I’m enjoying it, but I don’t intend to tie myself to it if my interest wanes.  Also, with many of the puppetry community here taking to FaceBook for notifications and networking, perhaps it is only a matter of time before it becomes redundant?

Tags: links, news, puppetry, puppetry australia, puppets

ABC’s Radio National Artworks program has a great interview with Sonny Tilders who is the creative director at  Creature Technology Company in Melbourne, the company that produced the amazing arena show Walking with Dinosaurs Live, and is now making a giant King Kong for the stage. Exciting stuff.

Tags: creature technology company, king kong, puppetry, puppets, walking with dinosaurs live

(Disclaimer: I have no idea which puppets will be for sale, so please don’t assume the puppets in the photos here are in the sale)

Terrapin Theatre Company in Hobart is selling off many puppets from its 35 year history and that of its predecessor, Tasmanian Puppet Theatre.

The puppets will be on sale on Wednesday 25 November from 4pm to 5pm at 23 Wellington Street, North Hobart.  They are priced from $10 to $180, with the majority of older puppets at $25. CASH ONLY payment required on the day. Please don’t bring kids with you as there is as there is little room and it is semi-industrial.

When I was at the 2nd National Puppetry Summit in Hobart in 2006 there was a window display of  a wide variety of puppets from Terrapin from over the years.  This puppet with its huge head and little body was my favourite. It was made by Greg Methe for the 1997 production The Fork.

I also loved these platypus, quoll, and Tasmanian tiger puppets that were made by Axel Axelrad. I took a number of photos of other puppets in the display, a few of them are here.

Tags: puppetry, puppets

Red Leap Theatre from New Zealand will be bringing a new theatre adaptation of Shaun Tan’s book The Arrival to the Sydney Festival in January. I love the look of what I can see in this video of highlights, in particular the aesthetic feel and muted colours, the puppets and the imagery.

(photo credit: Robin Kerr)

(photo credit: John McDermott)

I saw the adaptation of The Arrival by Spare Parts Pupppet Theatre at the Unima 2008 Puppetry Festival in Fremantle. It has gone on to win a number of awards, and recently had a season at the World Puppetry Festival in Charleville Mezieres, France.  I felt the strength of that production was in the projected animations and digital imagery, and that the story line and emotional content had been simplified for a very young audience.  I hope Red Leap’s production will be able to tap further into the richness and drama that the book holds.

Previously:  Shaun Tan

Tags: puppetry, puppets, red leap theatre, shaun tan, spare parts puppet theatre, the arrival

(photo credit: Verieihnix, thank you)

Celebrations are taking place in Berlin this weekend for the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany. At the centre of the celebrations is a 4-day performance by Royal de Luxe’s giant street theatre puppets, featuring their little giantess, and her giant uncle, the deep-sea diver.

Earlier this year in June the diver debuted in Nantes in La géante du Titanic et le scaphandrier, but in Berlin the back story, already one of separation and reunion, has been redrawn as an allegory for the divisions of Germany:

Berlin was once a swamp inhabited by giants.  One day, land and sea monsters tore the city in two and the Big Giant and Little Giantess were separated. The Little Giantess fell into a long sleep. When she awakes, she finds a large old mailbag containing letters between East and West Berlin, and sets out to deliver them.  After each searching the streets of the city, the two giants are reunited and symbolically return tens of thousands of letters once intercepted by former East Germany’s Stasi secret police to people watching their procession through the city.

Photos and videos are starting to appear at Flickr and YouTube, and many others will follow, but here are some links to items that have grabbed my attention so far:

• Official site: Risesen-in-Berlin: The Berlin Re-Union
• @dieriesenkommen on Twitter
• Promo with nice footage from Nantes
• Four videos of the Giantess
• Video of diver surfacing and a close up of the puppeteers
• Reuters video: Giants re-enact German Re-unification
• ABC News video: good summary in video, includes reunion between giants
• Die KlieneRiesen: photo by Gofio of the reunion, Brandenburg Gates
• Royal de Luxe Central photo pool at Flickr
• Search ‘Riesen berlin’ at Flickr, or YouTube

I’ve posted a lot about Royal de Luxe and their influence on the genre of giant puppets over the last few years and you can search here to go to those posts.

Tags: berlin, giant, giant puppets, giantess, marionettes, puppetry, puppets, reunification, royal de luxe, street theatre

Suzie Templeton’s animated short of Peter and the Wolf has, among other things, the most gorgeous and engaging Indian Runner duck. My pet ducks are Runners, and I just love them. Be warned, though, Peter’s one doesn’t make it…

The other three parts follow at YouTube. The film won an Academy Award in 2008 for Best Animated Short Film and is based on the 1936 composition of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. I found a little bit info about the puppets at Pollystaffle.

(Via Espaço das Marionet@s)

Tags: animation, duck, indian runner, peter and the wolf, puppetry, puppets, stop motion

I had a really enjoyable build recently, making a swag of zany puppets and props for Canberra Youth Theatre’s production TANK, which is playing now at Canberra’s spring flower extravagaza, Floriade.  TANK is a rather Pythonesque look at our relationship to water, written by Adam Hadley, directed by Pip Buining, and designed by Imogen Keen. It’s told in six 6-minute stories, played to an audience of six per story. Performances are free and run at Floriade on 12,13, 19, 20, 26 and 27 September 2009. Later, on 23 – 28 November, it will play in Garema Place in Canberra CBD, at 11am and 12noon.

Here are some of the puppets and props; check my Flickr portfolio set for others.

The meercat and the meercat hat:

Yiying Lu in the meercat hat!

I got rather fond of the hat…

The pirate captain (finger puppet):

The rat (rod puppet):

Kevin, the polar bear (worn on shoulders):

Hans and Donaldine, or the other way around… (glove puppets):

The shark (worn on shoulders):

The amoebas (glove puppets):

The eggbeater time machine! Love this great design idea!

Two rockets:

The multiple eyes of Veruna, the water goddess. In motion.

Tags: canbarra youth theatre, canberra, finger puppet, floraide, glove puppet, meercat, puppetry, puppets, rod puppet, tank

Here are two behind-the-scenes video clips from the makers of the Fantastic Mr Fox movie, showing more of the puppet making, among other things.  In the first, Roald Dahl’s wife Felicity thinks he would have loved it.

Previously: Fantastic Mr Fox trailer

Tags: animation, fantastic mr. fox, movie, puppetry, puppets, video

What a great idea! Spanish designer Héctor Serrano has designed these beautiful temporary tattoos that make hands into monster and animal puppets. You can buy them through the gifts company Worldwide. (via Dezeen – funny range of comments there!)

Tags: hand puppets, puppetry, puppets, tattoos

Those of you interested in the arts in Australia will likely know that the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne was earlier in the year merged with Melbourne University. The college gave practical training in the arts, and included a post graduate puppetry course, the only school of its type in the Southern Hemisphere. The puppetry course has been suspended, many staff have lost their jobs, and the practical elements of courses are being cut back. You can read up on the back ground of the merger at Save the VCA.

Today organisers are hoping for a big turnout to protest these changes. Here are the details:

Friday 21st of August,10am

MEET
VCA Campus at 10am.
234 St Kilda Rd, Southbank
Featuring live performances and speeches from prominent industry figures, featuring Julia Zemiro (Rockwiz).

MARCH
Show your support and march down Swanston St, along Collins St to Parliament. Final speeches, featuring John Micheal Howson (Shout).

When I first started making puppets in about 1995, I had the great fortune to be taken on and coached by Company Skylark and their new artistic director, Peter J. Wilson. Peter is not only a brilliant puppeteer; he also had a vision for setting up professional puppetry training to support development of  a vibrant puppetry artform in Australia. He went on to achieve this in setting up the puppetry course at the VCA.  I admired that, and feel sadness over the loss of the course somewhat personally, too, for that reason.

Over the last seven or so years the puppetry course has produced innovative work and graduates, supporting that wider idea of puppetry as artform, where it belongs. And of course this has benefited both the arts and wider community. Ironically, while merger discussions revolve around budgets and money, and draw in the question of funding for the arts in general, the puppetry course itself had managed to bring in outside money consistently since its inception with the patronage of the Cattermole family.

Tags: puppetry, puppets, save the VCA, victorian college of the arts