Also at Flickr today is swestdahl’s photoset of images taken at XPT 2006, Xperimental Puppet Theater, which is on this weekend at the Centre for Performing Arts in Atlanta. There is a brief description of the 8 pieces here, and the XPT blog is giving a nice look at the whole process behind the scenes. I’ve been enjoying putting the two sets of images together, for instance, seeing a puppet behind the scenes, and then in performance.
Pickled Image: The Chatterbox
Skip the Budgie at Flickr has a cool photoset of action images taken during a performance of the Pickled Image show, The Chatterbox. There is more information, pictures and storyboard illustrations here on their site. They make and use various styles of puppetry and puppets. One of the styles I like is where the puppet has one hand that is actually the puppeteer’s, and one not.
(The image above is from Pickled Image, and shows Billy with Sherlock Holmes, and Billy unaware of Jabberwocky behind him.)
Puppets for Sale!
My puppetry colleague Samantha Ferris has more than 20 cool puppets that she would like to sell – hand puppets, large rod puppets, and some flat puppets. They are perfectly suited to the professional puppeteer or anyone interested in experimenting with puppets to create a magical piece of theatre.
They were all made in Hungary by a professional puppetmaker, Zoltan Lenkefi. The puppets range in price from $50 – $300, and the price is negotiable if you are considering a bulk purchase. Samantha also has staging and blacks for sale. You can see photographs of all the puppets (click on the thumbnails to enlarge), and check out prices and contact details here.
Classic Sesame Street: Telephone Rock
The irreverence and exhuberence in this classic Sesame Street video clip is such fun. I love it! (via Project Puppet)
Its no longer available :(
Emmanuel Bourgeau: sculpting the Sultan’s Elephant
The find of my week was the discovery that Emmanuel Bourgeau, a sculptor in Plogonnec, has a small gallery of photos (> la gasette de l’atelier>Septembre 2004 – mai 2005: un elepahant et une petite geante) of the construction and carving of the huge elephant and girl in Royal de Luxe’s spectacle, The Sultan’s Elephant, which paraded the streets of London last week. Isn’t the net wonderful? I’ve added this link to my collected Royal de Luxe links.
(Via Royal de Luxe).
Updated links 2015
Tyger
Tyger from Guilherme Marcondes on Vimeo.
Tyger is a terrific short film directed by Guilherme Marcondes. While William Blake’s poem, The Tyger, was the starting point, it ‘doesn’t attempt to illustrate or pay homage to the original text’. Marcondes interprets the tiger as symbolizing ‘a hint of wonder along with a fear of progress. The tiger is as much dangerous as it is marvellous, and this ambiguity makes us avoid the pure romantic vision of society’.
The story is about relating city to jungle and people to animals, and it is achieved with a wonderful mixture of imagery – a great bunraku-style puppet tiger, used with black light technique; Sao Paulo’s urban landscape as a photographic setting; drawings with a lino-cut quality that morph people into animals, and order into chaos; and animated glowing lines that sprout and twine like jungle vegetation. The music is cool, too.
Joao Grembecki and Cia.Stomboli in Sao Paulo, Brazil, made the tiger, and the puppeteers are Joao Grembecki, Cassiano Reis and Fabio Oliveiro. The full credits are here.
Updated links 2015
Spitting Image puppets of Genesis
Speaking of the Man of Steel, here is a video of Land of Confusion, by Phil Collins and Genesis, from 1986.
Oh Superman where are you now
When everything’s gone wrong somehow
The Man of Steel, these men of power
Are losing control by the hour
As well as the music and the political nature of the song, it’s also interesting because it features puppets of the guys in the band, and a host of others – Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Thatcher, Gadafi, the Pope, Michael Jackson (still black!) and so on. The puppets are instantly recognizable as being made by Roger Law and Peter Fluck from Spitting Image, the renowned British satirical puppet TV show from 1984 to 1996’s, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the puppets in the video had been made firstly for Spitting Image episodes. Wikipedia has information about the song and the video.
Men of Steel
I was delighted to find Liz Christie’s cool Flickr photoset sequence of Men of Steel in full flight at the recent Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Men of Steel made its debut at Art for Puppet’s Sake, the production that showcased the work of the Victorian College of the Arts inaugural class of postgraduate puppetry students in 2004. It’s wildly raucous and messy: a funny, high energy piece of object theatre, by Hamish Fletcher, Tamara Rewse and Sam Routledge.
Men of Steel refers to the little cookie-cutter puppets whose only language is of cries and grunts and shrieks. They perform a miniature circus act of their own with eggs and various kitchen implements, out of which comes dough, out of which come little dough puppets.
— review in The Age
And there is also the giant cookie cutter and the broccoli forest! I saw Men of Steel at the One Van Puppetry Festival in Blackheath in 2005, and it was also on the bill at the Big West Festival last year.
Liz has some other fine photos. I love her backyard set as well – lorikeets, a beautiful grub, and other stunning macros.
Links updated 2015
Live-blogging the rescue: Our trapped miners are free at last!
It’s 5.10 am here in Canberra. I woke up and turned on the radio wondering how the rescue of the trapped miners in Tasmania was going, and was delighted to hear they have been freed from the 1.2 metre cage and cavity that they have been in for the last 14 days, a kilometre deep in the earth.
They are not above ground yet, but apparently it’s immiment. It’s just so hard to imagine being in those circumstances. Now they will have the media to contend with.
Updating:
5.22 am: They say the streets of Beaconsfiled are filling with people waiting for the miners to emerge. The church bell has been ringing. It’s wet and windy, and still dark. The media is interviewing anyone they can.
5.27am: Bill Shorten, the Australian Workers Union leader who has been looking after the families and handling much of the media attention has announced the men will be coming out in about an hour. They have been medically assessed as being pretty fit: #3 on a scale where the average is #4. They are cleaning up and then being reunited with their families at a station below ground. People are allowing themselves to cheer!
In a slightly earlier interview, Bill Shorten kept emphasising that it was the families that should remain the focus. He’s right.
Not surprisingly, there is a lot of symbolism involved in this situation. Much emphasis on the miners wanting to walk out if possible, instead of being taken on stretchers, and wanting to move their work tags from the green to the red side of the board that indicates whether you are ‘on shift’ and down the mine, or ‘completed your shift’ and safely up from the mine. Also much speculation about whether the miners will push hard to attend the funeral today of their fellow miner who died.
5.49: announcement that the miners will be coming out after 6am EST. Or in 15 minutes…
The media has staked out everything fromBeaconsfield to Luanceston where the hospital is. A channel 7 reporter is saying that the 40min drive by ambulance to Launceston will be the longest drive in their lives. Somehow I think thats not true and she is projecting some of herself into that comment!
5.54 am: The wives have been seen heading down into the mine to meet their guys.
There will be a guard of honour as the miners leave the mine.
5.58 am : thewy are out! tags taken! families being embraced!
Todd Russel hugging Bill Shorten
Walking proud. If a little stiff!
much hugging, back slapping, hand shaking. Very blokey :-)Brant Webb getting into the ambulances with their families
6.06: Todd Russell hugging his boy and now going to the ambulance
Todd has chucked his boots off and is joking. Kicking back in the ambulance. People milling around. Obviously talkative and humorous. Much clapping and whistles.
6.12 Miners forming a guard of honour. Ambulances driving out slowly. Police car first, then the two ambulances, then a van for more family
6.17am: They are on their way :-)
