Shadow Puppets -- Sort of

Artist Michel Gagne created these as commercial bumpers for Nickelodeon's 2005 "Halloween Shriekin' Weekend." This was done with Flash:

It's Midsummer crunch time, so I haven't updated this blog in a while!

(That's okay. About three of you actually read it.)

So here's an interesting and informative link all about Toy Theatre:

http://www.kannikskorner.com/toytheater/theater.htm

It almost seems like scrapbook performance art to me.

In Juana, we will be using toy theatre to handle transition scenes and large group scenes. Two puppeteers will manipulate the puppets in the Fortune Teller's area onstage, and the performance will be projected onto a large screen upstage, via a small video camera.

Types of Puppetry: Pageant Puppets

The Puppeteers' Cooperative is dedicated to pageant puppets; the site has many photos, links and instructions on how to build these giants. It really gives you a feel for the diversity of this type of puppetry.

Performance Notes

First of all, a big "Thank you" to the attendees of last Sunday's Puppet Lab!

For those of you who missed out, we will be scheduling another Lab in September.

In Puppet Lab (the class) we are dealing primarily with the basics of puppet performance: Lip sync, eye-focus, arm rod manipulation, etc.

As the Puppet Lab classes progress, and as Juana goes into production, we will deal more with puppet acting.

In the meantime, here's Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Michael Frith (former head of design at JHC) giving a few pointers on the basics:

Puppetry Types: Pageant Puppets

Rooted in the Medieval and Renaissance Pageants, these incredible and oftentimes larger-than-life puppets and costumes found their niche in political theatre, particularly protest marches and assemblies.

Bread and Puppet is perhaps the best known troupe that utilizes this form. Here is a vintage clip from a 1967 protest held in Washington D.C.

The performance cuts off at the title card, and continues from 4:30 to 4:45.


Wow! Even at this scale, note how articulate the puppets are. Very precise movements and eye-focus add up to an effective illusion of life.

Here's a more recent example of pageant puppetry, just to give you an idea of how big these puppets can be:



This puppet was built by Andrew Kim, a fascinating artist who now lives in England. More samples of his work can be found here.

Types of Puppetry: Bunraku

Here's a brief clip:

The illusion of life is stunning in Bunraku. In this brief clip from Alien Resurrection, the aliens were actually bunraku puppets shot against a green screen, and composited in:

Here's an incredible video of a bunraku master showing how the traditional bunraku puppets operate:

I love this quote from the video:

For example, when the puppet is experiencing joy -- "How delightful" -- I am transferring my feelings of joy to her. If the character feels sad I feel sad, too.

- Kiritake Kanjuro

This is a very important point to keep in mind for performance.

Types of Puppetry: Toy Theatre

This is a new one for me. In the past decade or so, there has been a growing popularity for toy or miniature theatre performances. This artform started out as a domestic diversion in the 1800s, a way to recount famous operas and ballets in the comfort of one's own salon or parlour:



Ahhh ... wasn't life in a pre-internet world grand!

What started out as a novel pastime on lazy Sunday afternoons has become a very exciting vehicle for public performance, as seen here in a "trailer" for Chicago's Redmoon Theater's production of "Once Upon a Time (or the Secret Language of Birds)":



Accessibility to video cameras and decent video projectors certainly helps!

Types of Puppetry: Hand Puppets

A very old form, here presented in its simplest form:



This simple form of hand puppet still has potency, even in a post-Muppets world:



Daniel Striped Tiger is a bit mellow compared to Mr. Punch, wouldn't you say?

Types of Puppetry: Shadow

Shadow puppetry originated in Asia. There you can still find the most elaborate examples of this art form.



And here's a look at how it was done:



This is a more modern approach to the same artform:



Watch the whole thing! The second half of the video shows you how it was done!

To me, shadow puppetry has a sort of dream-like quality. It seems so ephemeral and abstract.

As you can see from the modern example above, it can be much more cinematic than other forms of puppetry.

Types of Puppetry: Marionette

This is video of a puppeteer named Eli who busks around Los Angeles.

Notice how subtle the movements are, how gravity seems to play a role in the performance. Eerily life-like!

This video is a bit different:



Pay particular attention to the puppets dressed in green and white. Very specific gestures add to the illusion of life.

This blog is the future online home of Write Act Rep's Puppet Lab.

Here you will find a distillation of web resources pertaining to the art pf puppetry.