puppets

Gardner Puppet Theatre

Posted by hil

In Victoria people are doing individual things to celebrate World Puppetry Day this year. Lorrie Gardner, Australian president of UNIMA, has received some coverage in a local paper for the day and her plans to celebrate it:

Maroondah Leader, March 16, 2004 : Puppeteers have own special day

“Ringwood East puppeteer, Lorrie Gardner, says next week’s World Puppetry Day will be a celebration of puppetry and its contribution to the arts. Gardner, the Australian president of the Union International de la Marionette, said the day aimed to raise awareness of puppetry.

“The idea is to call attention to the art form of puppetry to the general public,” Gardner said.

Gardner, who has been involved in the field for more than 30 years, said the world puppetry day would grow. “This is only the second year we’ve had the World Puppetry Day, so it’s just getting started,” Gardner said. “Last year, unfortunately on the day, we went to war so it overshadowed it.”

To celebrate the event, Gardner will perform on Monday, March 22 at Catjump Pre-school, Doncaster. For further details on World Puppetry Day phone 9870 8998.”

Sydney Puppet Theatre: ‘Z for Giraffe’

Posted by hil

Sydney Puppet Theatre is presenting performances of Z for Giraffe to celebrate World Puppetry Day. The shows will be at The Rocks Puppet Cottage, on Saturday 20th & Sunday 21st March at 11am, 12:30pm and 2pm.

‘Z for Giraffe’ is based on the true story of a young Giraffe’s travels to France in 1826. There will also be short demonstrations of puppets that families can make at home. Over the last few weeks SPT has been advertising the day at the Cottage and encouraging kids to make their own puppets. They have been asked to bring their puppets to show when next they visit.

Contact : Sydney Puppet Theatre, P.O Box 520, PETERSHAM NSW 2049, tel/fax 02 9550 6457

Spare Parts Puppet Theatre at the Joondalup Festival

Posted by hil

In Perth, Spare Parts Puppet Theatre in partnership with the City of Joondalup will celebrate World Puppetry Day with the spectacular opening of the Joondalup Festival. The project, Animus Maximus, is supported by Healthway, the Heart Foundation’s ‘Smarter than Smoking’ message and ArtsWA.

Spare Parts Company associates, Bryan Woltjen and Karen Heathey, will not only be bringing out the giant Wubba puppet, but are co-ordinating three festival parades comprising puppets made by the children, including large scale stilt walking creatures. Narelle Simpson, another talented multi skilled company associate has been doing stilt walking classes with children in preparation for the big event on World Puppetry Day. And Sanjiva Margio has also been working with the community to create large scale puppetry parade elements.

Overview:

“The performance is a spectacle street theatre event (devised by Bryan Woltjen and Karen Hethey in conjuction with Kinross College and Warrick Senior High School) based on the 2004 Joondalup Festival’s theme of Global Village. Through the project students have undertaken workshops in complicite’, performance development, introductory puppetry skills, and construction to bring to life giant multi-operated puppets on the streets of Joondalup.

Dillo the giant scaled shape changer, a magnificent glowing raptor the size of a two story building, a graceful stilt creature and the Five Fingered Puppet King will take to the streets of Joondalup to meet at the great cross-roads for a summit which will hopefully bring peace to the global village. A village whose clans have been left fractured and fearful from the great battle which has waged for four centuries.

The setting is the third Millenia, and the formidable Dillo the scaled shape changer, protected by the legions of Dillodians has dominated the clans through sheer force and numbers but the clans have grown tired, hungry for change. A small contingent of renegades, the Aeralians have held out against the all consuming might of Dillo. Through out time, woven into the mythological threads of the clans, a prophecy has for told of a time of change. Some think the prophecy to be nothing more than a children’s story or fools riddle, but the older wiser ones Annularis, Medius, Digitus, Index and Polex whose wisdom was born long before the clashing times know otherwise.

The prophecy fortold of a great winged creature
made from neither flesh nor wood or metal nor bone,
not feathers, skin nor wire alone,
whose force if harnessed and rode in flight
would turn the scales of wrath and might

A legion of Dillodians capture a great raptor. Is this the mythological beast of the prophecy? Is a time of change at hand? Or do the fates hold another story? Set to a sound track designed by Kingsley Reeves with SPPT company associate Nel Simpson playing the character of Arial, all is revealed at twighlight at the great summit of Animus Maximus, at the cross-roads of Grand Boulevarde and Reid Promenade in Joondalup March 21st.”

Mixed Media Productions joins World Puppetry Day celebrations

Posted by hil

Mixed Media Productions will be celebrating WPD by presenting ‘Shoreline’, a puppetry and story-telling performance for the whole family.

The Shoreline project is part of the this year’s Mountain Festival in Hobart which takes place from 19 to 28 March 2004. Shoreline involves performing artists Thomas Zotz and Heidi Callewaert of Mixed Media Productions as well as visual artist Chantale Delrue working with diverse community groups in the Eastern Shore region of the Derwent Estuary in the City of Clarence. The artists facilitate community workshops in making artworks including sculptural works, prayer flags, masks, costumes and puppets and storytelling as performance using the history of the region and ecology of Mt. Wellington as the focus. These artworks will become part of a public installation and be the site for a related storytelling performance encouraging audience participation, at the historic Bellerive Fort reserve with Mt. Wellington as a dramatic visual backdrop.

Harvie Krumpet on SBS

Posted by hil

Adam Elliot’s animation Harvie Krumpet won an Oscar yesterday for best short animated film. It has already been shown in cinemas in Melbourne and Sydney, but next Monday we can all catch it on SBS at 9pm. The ABC Radio National program The Makers, always worth a listen, has an interview with Elliot on audio this week, and there is an interesting online interview with him, with a variety of the characters pictured, at Sleepy Brain.

World Puppetry Day : March 21

Posted by hil

Activities are being organized internationally to celebrate World Puppetry Day on March 21st. The day is to celebrate and recognize the art of puppetry, and our association, UNIMA. Sirppa Sivori-Asp, (Finnish actress, director of puppet theatre, drama, opera and television, ex-President of UNIMA International), has written an international message for World Puppetry Day.

Puppeteers and people interested and involved in puppetry are invited to organize their own celebrations of WPD. You can email information to me for inclusion (take the ‘about me’ link at the top right-hand of the page), and check in here over the next few weeks to see what others are planning.

Do use the ‘comment’ facility below posts to add details or to respond to ideas and plans, too.

75th Anniversary of UNIMA

Posted by hil

Yep, this year Union Internationale de la Marionnette, (UNIMA) is celebrating its 75th anniversary, making it the oldest theatrical association in the world.

The anniversary coincides with the 19th UNIMA World Congress which is to be held in Opatija, Croatia, from 7th to 11th June 2004, while the accompanying International Puppet Festival will be held in Rijeka from 6th to 12th June 2004.

Just a reminder too, that March 31st is the deadline for registration. Registration for the congress includes admittance to all shows accompanying the festival. There is also an option to register for attending the International Puppet Festival only, without participation in the work of the congress. The theme of the festival will be water in all its metaphorical and literal meanings.

Puppet carving workshop

Posted by hil


Antonin Muller and Michela Bartonova from Prague’s renowned Tineola Theatre are making their first Australian visit this year, and they’ll be holding an exclusive puppet carving workshop in March. This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone interested in woodcarving or puppetry to learn from these acclaimed creative artists. The six-day workshop will be held near Bowral in the Southern Highlands of NSW, and numbers are strictly limited. You’ll need a basic set of woodcarving chisels, but experience is not necessary.

Dates: Saturday March 6 – Thursday March 11.
Cost: $630 plus cost of wood (tba)

For more information, or to make a booking, please call Lucy Turner on (02) 4871 2822.

Disney buys the Muppets

Posted by hil

‘The Walt Disney Company and The Jim Henson Company announced last Tuesday that they have entered into an agreement under which Disney will acquire the beloved Muppets and Bear in the Big Blue House properties from Henson.’ Kermit the Frog is included, but not the Sesame Street characters, such as Big Bird and Elmo, which are separately owned by Sesame Workshop. Somehow I doubt if Disney will do justice to characters like Kermit, but it would be interesting to hear other opinions on that.