puppetry puppets

Disfarmer

Posted by hil

Mimi mentioned seeing Dan Hurlin‘s tabletop puppet show Disfarmer when she was in NYC recently.  It’s described as

a puppet theater inspired by the life of American portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer (1884-1959). Something of a small town “Boo Radley,” Disfarmer operated a photography studio in Heber Springs, Arkansas, where for years locals and tourists lined up to have their picture made.

In the press kit one gets more of an idea of how Hurlin has interpreted the character, and why he chose the medium of puppetry: because both the photos and puppets are ‘inanimate objects whose inner lives are supplied by the insistence of the audiences imagination’.

I love the detailed movement and expressions in the behind-the-scenes video above, and the way in which you very naturally accept the puppeteer’s hands as the puppet’s at times. And the way the things like the clock just appear when they are needed.

Update:

Here is a cool work-in-progress excerpt which allows you to see the puppet’s construction, to a degree:

Unima 2008 website launched

Posted by hil

In 2008, Perth WA will host the 20th UNIMA Congress, Conference and International Puppetry Festival. A new website for the 20th Unima World Congress has just been launched, and over coming months it will be the focal point for new information about the development of this wonderful event.

Updated 2015: broken links

 

Foam construction puppet tutorial at Bear Town

Posted by hil

I’ve been enjoying PuppetVision Blog for a while now. Based in Toronto, Canada, it casts its net much wider, and looks at video and film puppetry.

PuppetVision’s blogger, Andrew, is also creating Bear Town, a web-based puppetry project. Part of the ‘behind the scenes’ information there is a step-by-step series of articles documenting the making of Tumbles B.Bear. There’s a useful tutorial about a soft foam puppet construction method nicknamed ‘the wedge method’, (free pattern) where a series of wedges is used to a make hollow ball of varying shape, as well as information about how Tumbles’ arms, hands and mouth are made.

Updated 2015: some links broken, some renewed

Rough cut bunraku puppets

Posted by hil

I’m making some bunraku-style puppets at the moment. They are about 60cm tall. I’ve just got to the stage where they are more-or-less complete in construction and movement, but still rough in finish. This is a stage I love – there is something very aesthetically pleasing about it – and I think it would be really interesting to use them unfinished in a play. I always almost regret having to finish them.

Bunraku-style puppets-3

They are moving really nicely:

Bunraku-style puppets-1

A few other pics of them below: the woman, the man, bending. Now I have to paint their faces, forearms and hands and the woman’s leg and foot; and dress them.

Snuff Puppets: Nyet Nyet’s Picnic

Posted by hil

I wish I could be in Melbourne this weekend for Snuff Puppets‘ latest production, Nyet Nyet’s Picnic, which starts on Friday at Birrarung Marr on the banks of the Yarra.

In a collaboration between indigenous and non-indigenous artists, Nyet Nyet’s Picnic is a contemporary work that revives ancient stories from the dreamtime, and uses giant puppets, dance, and music in an exploration of local monsters, bunyips and spirit creatures. Described as a ‘genuinely scary, culturally enlightening and engaging night of theatre’, the performance is the cultural highlight of Reconciliation Week and is free to the public.

The photo above was taken by Ponch Hawkes, and there are three others here:
The Nyet Nyet Women
One of the Nyet Nyet Woman
The Nyet Nyet Men

UNIMA 2008 Logo Competition

Posted by hil

The deadline for the Unima 2008 logo competition has been extended to accommodate Tafe and other educational institution courses. The due date is now July 22nd, 2005. Details are otherwise as outlined here. Go to it!

The Unima congress and festival is held every four years, and in 2008 it is being held in Perth, WA. This is exciting, as it is the first time it is being held in the southern hemisphere. It encompasses a ten day international festival of puppetry, a conference, and the Congress of UNIMA where the Executives and Councillors from throughout the world meet to discuss organizational and artform issues.

If you are not familiar with Unima, it stands for ‘Union Internationale de la Marionnette, and it’s ‘an international organisation bringing together people from around the world to contribute to the development of the art of puppetry, and to use it in the pursuit of human values such as peace and mutual understanding between peoples’. Here’s the Australian branch site.

Making of Nature Band Parade Puppets

Posted by hil

Over at Puppetry Australia, Sean Manners has put together a pictorial account of the building of the parade puppets for Nature Band, a community puppet project that ran as part of the One Van Puppetry Festival earlier in the year, held in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains out of Sydney. The puppets, five yellow-tailed black cockatoos, four trees and three
waratahs, were made by participants in community workshops that were held over several months.

‘The puppets were initially designed by Jenny Kee; realized by Paula Martin, a local designer and sculptor; the workshops were facilitated by Sean Manners, puppeteer and community artist; and the performance and project as a whole was directed and choreographed by Sue Wallace of Sydney Puppet Theatre.’

The Victory Theatre Cafe and Antique Centre in Blackheath has a cool community mural along one side, that surely must also have been designed by Kenny Kee:

There is also a bus shelter on the edge of Blackheath that I liked because it has been painted to celebrate the puppetry festival (click on the thumbnails for larger images):

'One Van' Bus stop mural
'One Van' Bus stop mural

I heard the distinctive yellow-tailed black cockatoo calls when I was in Blackheath. They are wonderful birds, quite big – about 60cm – and I always feel its a good omen when they are about, though their calls are somewhat plaintive. In Canberra it used to be quite rare to see these cockatoos, but since the devastating bushfires in January 2003 they have moved into the suburbs. A few weeks ago, we had the first ones in our garden. They spent several hours ripping the bark and branches of a dying gum tree to bits in search of borer insects.

Little Golden Books: Tibor Gergely

Posted by hil

The following illustration is by Tibor Gergely from the Little Golden Book ‘Houses’ by Elsa Jane Werner. I’m posting it as a comparison to the one by Richard Scarry in another Little Golden Book, ‘Cars and Trucks’, over at Wee Wonderfuls. There is an interesting discussion there about how in updates of the book that particular illustration has been changed to accommodate a more feminist attitude to gender roles. This one obviously belongs firmly in the earlier era, and I wonder if it was changed in a similar way later on?

I don’t have an exact date for this book – its one of a set of four books that together make up a ‘Little Golden Book Library’ that I bought in about 1983, and the dates given collectively are 1948 through 1969.

I was interested to see in an online bio of Tibor Gergely that as a young man he worked for two years in a Vienna marionette theatre as a puppet designer and stage decorator :-).

Recycled Monsters: Meet Patrick and Esmé

Posted by hil

I had a lot of fun with April’s Month of Softies theme, recycled monsters; thanks, Claire. Firstly, please meet Patrick, who is channelling Patrick White:

Patrick

And now Esmé (‘don’t mess with me… I play bowls’):

Esme

They were made from an old bag and belt apiece, and Esmé has half an old cricket ball for a nose. There are more detailed pictures below. And thanks to Belinda for helping me see some extra dimensions to their characters!