Australian puppetry links and news

Posted by hil

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 (pdf). 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?

Bird skeleton

Posted by hil

Seagull skeleton

This suggestion of a seagull skeleton is a prop for a new play I’m working on, but I rather like it as an object for itself. It’s given me some ideas for making some stranger ones when I get some time later.

By coincidence, today I happened across Chris Jordan’s photographic collection Midway: Message form the Gyre, a photographic documentation how albatross chicks on Midway Atoll ban in the middle of the Pacific Ocean often die because they end up being fed heaps of plastic junk. It’s shocking – only look if you are feeling strong.

Experimenting

Posted by hil

This is some new experimental sculptural work I’m busy on at the moment.

This face is essentially calico over foam.

New work in progress

The following one is foam at the moment, but I am going to try a cracked surface on it.

New work in progress

New work in progress

New work in progress

Gran’s Bag

Posted by hil

Baba Yaga puppet

(Photo credit: Tim Raupach @ www.cutflat.net)

There are still a few days left to take your kids to Gran’s Bag at Tuggeranong Arts Centre. It’s for preschoolers through to about Year 2, and the season ends on Saturday.  The story is told imaginatively by Chrissie Shaw, and it has an innovative and picaresque quality that comes both from work-shopping with kids and Greg Lissaman’s playful scripting and direction.

Some other strange and wonderful things come out of Gran’s big red bag.  Imogen Keen and I did the design and make.

Gran’s Bag premiered in Brisbane in 2008, and has since had seasons in Sydney, Canberra and regional areas, so look out for it coming your way.

Gran's big red bag

Cross-section wheat seed

Posted by hil

Cross-section wheat seed

I have some catching up to do on posting about my work projects.

First up is the cross-section wheat seed that I made for CSIRO Plant Industry, for their annual display at Floriade in September. In other years I’ve made a caterpillar and cross-section flower for them.  The wheat seed is carved out of polystyrene, and surfaced with a mixture of materials: fabric, paper mache, paint and latex. There is a photoset of the process.

I was pleased when I realized I could use a strange stretchy and very synthetic fabric for instant and variable cell textures.  I had used this fabric for skin texture on a goanna puppet in a TV pilot years ago.  At the time the pilot program was taken to a childrens’ program market in Cannes, and there was hopeful anticipation of it being sold to China. Someone with dollars in their eyes advised buying up extra fabric against the day when we went into full goanna and other animal puppet production, but there I was ten years later cutting into it for the first time!

The unlikeliest thing about the wheat seed was how cute it was. Everyone who picked it up cradled it like a baby, and admired its cute little tuft of bristles!

Special baby!

Interview with CTC’s Sonny Tilders

Posted by hil

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.

The hobbit by Figurentheater Wilde & Vogel in Seattle

Posted by hil

This is a taste of a German production of the hobbit that Figurentheater Wilde& Vogel and Florian Feisel are taking to Seattle in their first tour to the US.  I’d love to see this!

The company was founded in 1997 by the puppeteer Michael Vogel (graduate of Department for Puppetry Stuttgart) and the musician Charlotte Wilde as a professional freelance touring company based in Stuttgart, since 2009 in Leipzig. In 2003 Wilde & Vogel co-founded the Lindenfels Westflügel Leipzig, where they organize events and work as artistic directors.