puppets

The Theft of Sita

Posted by hil

Sita

(Photograph: Julian Crouch)

PuppetVision recently referred to The Modern Shadow where Michelle Zacharia is exploring combining Indonesian Wayang Golek puppetry and video and digital production techniques, and thinking about western influences in Indonesia. It reminded me of a production here called The Theft of Sita which was commissioned by the 2000 Adelaide Festival of Arts and received acclaim both here and overseas. It was a modern retelling of the Ramayana using shadow puppetry, and involved a remarkable collaboration of artists, puppeteers, makers and musicians.

The piece was written and directed by Nigel Jamieson (AU); music composed by the Australian jazz musician Paul Grabowsky (AU) and Balinese gamelon artist I Wayan Gde Yudane; designed by Julian Crouch (UK); and the puppetry directors were Peter J. Wilson (AU) and Balinese master I Made Sidia (who both performed in the show).

This Ramayana begins conventionally, but quickly explodes into a metaphor of the tumultuous events surrounding the overthrow of Suharto. Computer-generated images and photographic projections of demonstrations coexist with giant shadow puppet logging beasts. There are white water rafters and withering paddy fields in Bali. And Langka becomes a futuristic city of gleaming steel and glass towers, and of rubbish tips. Giant screens lift and disappear, perspective shifts from screens at the front to screens at the back of the stage. Shadow puppets emerge on tiny screens in the middle of the space and then shift again.

— Robin Laurie, Inside Indonesia, The Theft of Sita

Robin’s article is worth reading in full, as is Peter Wilson’s account in his book ‘The Space Between: The Art of Puppetry and Visual Theatre in Australia’, where he describes The Theft of Sita as a transformation of the ancient tale into a modern allegory of environmental politics.

Unfortunately I didn’t see The Theft of Sita, but I have seen a TV program that was made about it.

The designer, Julian Crouch, has a gallery showing some of the wonderful shadow puppets and scenes from the show, including the one above. His other galleries have some gems in them, too. Just a couple of examples: a dog, some huge figures, and some rather beautiful arresting star faces.

Update 2015: broken links; also, try a Julian Crouch google image search

Ping pong Matrix style

Posted by hil

MatrixHere is a fabulous game of ping pong, Matrix style. According to Puppetry Films‘, it appeared on a Japanese Game Show to help celebrate the opening of the Matrix. Isn’t puppetry amazing?

Updated links 2015

A peep into the making of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Posted by hil

The New York Times has a short slide-show of some of the sketches and models from the latest Wallace and Gromit movie, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I like seeing the armatures and insides:

Gromitbts

Nick Park gives the commentary. I’m not a huge fan of Aardman, but I was sorry to see the Aardman Animation studios had burnt down last week, with many of the original drawings, wooden sets, paperwork, awards and other memorabilia lost.

Gondwana

Posted by hil

Due to popular demand the National Museum of Australia has scheduled some extra performances of Gondwana by the Sydney company erth Visual and Physical Inc. You’ll have to be quick to book, as the last performances are this coming weekend.

Gondwana

The puppets are fantastic, as you might expect from erth, and with Bryony Anderson on the making team (I don’t know who else was on the team) . Some are wonderfully satisfyingly HUGE. Others have delightful characteristics, such as the Leptictidium’s twitchy nose. With one exception – the crocodile-y animal – the creatures moved beautifully. I loved the fine movements of the Meganeura, a gigantic primative dragonfly, and the Ammonites. One of the smaller dinosaurs shared a similar and effective design to some of the puppets in ‘The Lion King’, such as the warthog: the puppeteer visible in the middle, with the neck and head built out the front, and tail out the back. The baby Dryosaurs were just plain cute. And the inflatable lanscape and original soundscape were cool, too.

At the performance I saw the accoustics were dreadful. It was hard to hear any of the narration.

Its an interesting task to seek to satisfy both traditional theatre audiences as well as museum audiences. For the theatre goer, there was drama in seeing the creatures brought to life so well, but little story development aside from evolution. For museum audiences, which I assume are those whose interests are mainly historical and scientific – and there has been great attention paid to scientific accuracy in developing the show – there might be some unease about the artistic licence that allows the Liptictidium, a relative late-comer and ‘visitor from the Northern Hemisphere’, to appear through each era as a link throughout the performance.

The program leaflet gave lots of scientific detail. It would have been good if it had also credited the directors, performers, makers and production team, and given us some detail about the puppets.

Gondwana is the first of three shows which will be developed over the next three years. The second will cover time after the dinosaurs, and the third the present time and future of Australia. I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Update: Here are a few links:
Dinosaurs given new life
Interview with Phil Downing, Musical Director of Erth

Update 2015: broken links. Some photos of the puppets are at Erth > gallery > museums > scroll down. They are inaccessible for linking.

Preparing boby

Posted by hil

Take a look at ‘preparing boby’, netamir’s cool photo set at Flickr, which records the making of her first puppet from wire, paper mache, foam and fabric. I love his expressions, how involved and helpful he is with making himself, and his shape!

Boby

As I’ve commented before, I really find the look of this unfinished stage of making very attractive. Thank you for letting me use one of your images, neta :-).

Muppet stamps

Posted by hil

Muppetblock

Jimhensonstamp

The US Postal Service is commemorating Jim Henson and the Muppets with these cool stamps.

Here’s Kermit and Miss Piggy checking them out. I might have to see if I can get hold of a set somehow. Seems a long time since my brother and I used to race home from uni to be in time to catch Sesame Street when it was a new program here!

The Scott Parkin Case

Posted by hil

Last week an American non-violent activist, Scott Parkin, was arrested and removed from Australia, after having his visa revoked. The Federal Attorney-General, Ruddock, said that the Minister for Immigration, Vanstone, revoked Parkin’s
visa based on an ASIO Security assessment. “I understand the decision was based upon a security assessment, and security assessments are notsomething about which I can comment in any detail.” SourceWatch has a detailed account.

According to a radio piece on the ABC’s The Deep End on Thursday 15th (which you can listen to) Parkin uses street theatre and puppetry. For instance, his groupdoes an act called Hallibacon, which features a large inflatable pig, and protesters wearing snouts and pig masks being fed cash from a trough of public money by Cheney.

Feeding

Such protests have for a long time been regarded as freedom of speech here. In the absence of other reasons, we have to be worried that is being curtailed. On the other hand, there is speculation that our government was doing someone else’s bidding. Crikey outlines the scenario. On the ABC’s The National Interest on Sept 18th, Terry Lane claims that Kellogg Brown Root, subsidiary of Halliburton, donated $50,000 to both major political parties here, suggesting both a question mark over the opposition’s acquiescence, and an alternative avenue for foreign corporations to exercise power. The Law Report, broadcast Tuesday 19th, will talk to Parkin’s lawyer about the case.

Update: Scott Parkin’s own account of his experience

Updated 2015 – most links outdated.

Mr Squiggle – Who’s pulling the strings: The Art and Life of Norman Hetherington

Posted by hil

MrsquiggleMosman Art Gallery is hosting an
exhibition titled Mr Squiggle – Who’s
pulling the strings: The Art and Life of Norman
Hetherington from Sept 3rd to
October 9th.

‘This exhibition explores the career of Norman Hetherington, the originator, creator and puppeteer of the popular children’s ABC program, ‘Mr Squiggle’. Norman Hetherington has lived in Mosman for over 40 years and made a significant contribution to Australian television history and culture. The exhibition presents a variety of original puppets, drawings, cartoons,
promotional material and memorabilia, and ABC television program segments.’

Associated with the exhibition there will also be performances at the gallery on Sunday 25 September, 11am & 2pm. These will be a short and rare performance by Norman with Mr Squiggle followed by A Package for Granny by Sydney Puppet Theatre and Puppetease by Ross Browning. Bookings: 02 9978 4178

Norman was recently interviewed on ABC Radio National’s The World Today. You can read the interview here, or listen to it by following whichever format you prefer linked at the top of that page. It’s refreshing to hear someone recommending fun so much! At the Puppetry Summit a few years ago Norman was kind enough to do an upside down squiggle (Mr Squiggle’s particular thing) for me and others. I come across it in my notebook every now and then and it makes me smile.

Updated 2015: broken links

Foam Latex Puppetmaking Tutorial

Posted by hil

foam

Boing Boing points to Kathi Zung, a NYC maker of foam latex puppets used in animated videos and films, and in particular to her Do-it-yourself Foam Latex Puppetmaking 101 tutorial on DVD. I’d like to try something like that sometime.

This is the same technique that was used to make the Leunig Animated series that brought Michael Leunig’s cartoons to life on SBS TV a few years ago. An exhibition showing how it had been made followed, and I loved being able to see in detail how it had been done. Strangely, while the animations themselves were really good, I felt some tension to do with the whole production of animating them weighing down the original whimsy of the cartoons.

Updated links  2015.