The puppet parade just took place at the University of Calgary as part of the Puppet Power 2007 Con-
ference. Last night the great debate about the uses of the puppet as a agent for social change began. I was privileged to be invited to be opening speaker and gave a background on puppetry in social change in my life and specially showed a video clip of our recent Paper Playback Workshops taken in Europe. The debate taking place this afternoon is the role of art in political action - facilitated by Colin Funk, the manager of the Banff Centre Leadership Learning Lab, in a little town west of Calgary, where we'll be doing a workshop next week. You can view our new Paper Playback video here!
To view a report in the Calgary press on the conference, see here!
Arriving in Calgary we were greeted by a snow storm this week. We were expecting Canadian summer, but down came the snow! On Thursday morning Calgary was white and for foreigners like us, we thought it was Christmas. Puppet Power Conference organiser, Wendy Passmore is gearing up to open the conference this evening with a weekend of activities centered around 'Puppetry as Agents of Social Change', with workshops, lectures, discussions and performances. Stay tuned - I'll be writing more about the conference over the weekend...
The Puppet Power 2007 Conf-
erence opens in Calgary next Friday. On Wednesday we fly from Montreal to Calgary to participate. This year's conference theme is 'Puppets as Agents for Social Change'. This has always been a subject close to my heart. One of the things I'll be discussing is how puppetry is used to reach out and touch people across the globe, in often profound ways, to create transformation in their lives. The puppet allows difficult issues to be discussed in a safe and often light-hearted way, which opens people up and gives them the ability to accept messages from puppets, which are often too difficult for their human counterparts to tackle. The perfect example of this was in dealing with HIV-Aids, politics, corruption and many other tough social and politically sensitive issues. Today in our workshops, we use the puppet to help people express stories from their own lives, often personal issues, which need closure and this is achieved through the puppet being another step removed from the real world of our everyday lives. See you in Calgary!
The photo is from Puppets Against Aids, taken on tour in Southern Africa in 1990.
Arriving in Montreal late last night after a two-hour British Airways delay in London was a relief. We are staying with our friend, Canadian puppeteer, France Chevrette in a small town outside Montreal. France has done interesting work throughout Canada. In 1992, she accompanied our 'Puppets Against Aids' on its Canadian Tour to rural and urban areas throughout Canada. She continued the work afterwards, especially in northern Quebec, working with Inuit puppeteers for the Katavik School Board TV series in Inukjuak. Some of the videos of France's cabaret performances can be seen here!
We arrived in London on Monday in time to begin an intensive two-days of workshops at the Central School of Speech and Drama. We worked with two groups, each one on Tuesday and Wednesday. The groups were made up of the puppetry students and the drama therapy students and the quality of both groups' work was really impressive. In two days, we did both Paper Meditation and Paper Playback and the final performances made very powerful theatre pieces out of their personal stories. Tomorrow we fly to Montreal!
In Berlin we met up with an old friend and renowned inter- national puppet critic, Hartmut Topf. (in the photo right) Hartmut has been a journalist and puppet enthusiast since escaping East Berlin as a youth. Across the river, you can even see fragments of the old wall that divided East from West until its demise in 1989. We are in Germany until Monday when we fly to London to conduct a two-day workshop at the Central School of Speech and Drama, before flying on to Montreal next Thursday.
The 15th International Figurentheater-Festival in Erlangen, Nürnberg, Fürth and Schwabach will open today here in Germany and run till 20 May.
One particular production which caught my eye on the programme, particularly because of our Monster project, was by a group from The Netherlands, Hotel Modern who are producing a piece entitled 'Camp'.
An enormous scale model of Auschwitz fills the stage. Overcrowded barracks, a railway track, the gateway with the words “Arbeit macht frei” and thousands of small puppets. In an attempt to imagine the unimaginable, the actors move through the set like giant war reporters, filming the horrific events with miniature cameras; the audience becomes the witness. For this the group uses a medium they call 'live animation'. This involves us filming scale models, with digital cameras and mini cameras, and projecting the results live on a large screen. In the models we can suggest characters with, for example, puppets and voice-overs. Using a mixing table to go from one camera to the other enables them to edit in a filmic manner to bring a cinematic, illusional reality to theatre. You can see their work here!You can also watch a short film on the attack on the Twin Towers in NY. With the help of juice cartons, clay dolls and cardboard furniture, the viewer sees through the eyes of the hijackers, the aeroplane passengers and the people in the towers. See here!
Arriving in Berlin from Prague yesterday and discovering puppet sandwiches running around the city is a frightening thought, but its happening right now. You can see some of these puppetry commercials right here, if you can't get to Berlin now. Check it out here and here! (Our thanks to PuppetVision for the awakening!)
While in the Czech Republic, we continued the long process of searching for the places where the young writer Hanus Hachenburg lived, before being deported to Terezin in late-1942. We tracked his high school, Yachimova Ulize and the orphanage in Belgicka, where he lived and also travelled back to Terezin, the concentration camp, 60 km north of Prague, where he wrote his puppet play. All the new material found will be included in our film 'Looking for a Monster' which will be launched internationally early next year.
In Prague, coincidence has it that we met with a great puppet maker, designer and performer, Michaela Bartonova this week. Michaela runs Tineola Theatre and has worked as artist, puppet designer and performer throughout Europe and Japan since 1989. Michaela also runs workshops in Europe and Australia for puppet design, carving and communication through puppetry. She has recently worked on a production Étaín- based on a Celtic Myth and The Haywain - a production about the fantastic world of Hieronymus Bosch's painting performed with wood-carved Czech figures, through an interpretation of Bosch's painting by figures, music, light and rhythm. Check out her website.
Another innovative Paper Playback Theatre workshop took place in Prague today. After the usual Brain Gym, warm ups, Paper Meditation, we moved right into stories which members of each group shared with the workshop held at the International School of Prague. Some of the stories told by the participants today, reflected personal incidents from their lives - included being invited by their peers to partake in smoking drugs, drinking at a party and a close escapade with drowning at the beach. These become very powerful theatrical pieces, when played back by their peers using the paper puppets they create during the workshop.
Here we are in the Czech Republic once again! There's nothing like a beautiful spring day in Prague to welcome you to this unique city, in which UNIMA, (our international puppetry organisation) was formed in 1929. We arrived on the train from Vienna to be warmly received by the International School of Prague where we have a workshop on this worker's holiday. We strolled over the famous Charles Bridge into the old town with all its puppet shops, containing carved traditional Czech marionettes. This country is steeped in puppetry tradition, with famous Czech puppets, Speibel and Hurvinek seen everywhere.
The puppet parade just took place at the University of Calgary as part of the Puppet Power 2007 Con-
