Happy World Puppetry Day to everyone out there! This year’s WPD message (pdf) is by the great Catalan multidisciplinary artist, Joan Baixas.
Above, my puppeteer friend Gary Friedman is interviewed by Con Quest about how WPD is celebrated, and he tells how he has chosen today to launch his new more expanded website, Puppetry News, which will include web-based puppetry courses down the track.
It’s today… did you feel the earth move? Hmmm… neither did I. It’s worth reading Michael Mescheke’s international message for World puppetry Day, though: And all around us, this powerlessness is the true strength of the puppet. Because it is part of that “in spite of everything”, without which human beings would have perished long ago. (via Unima Australia, the blog I run for UA)
Though its not widely known, March 21st is World Puppetry Day! Dario Fo, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, released a WPD message through Union Internationale de la Marionnette, (UNIMA), which you can read on the Unima Australia website.
It was rumoured that this wonderful six metre tall Mexican skeleton puppet (made by Karen Hethey and Bryan Woltjen), which was part of the Joondalup Festival parade in WA last Saturday, was likely to make surprise appearances today in celebration of World Puppetry Day.
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 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
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.
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.
