African Puppet Festival opens today!

A unique festival of African puppetry is opening today in Cape Town, South Africa. Out of the Box Festival organisers, Janni Younge and Aja Marneweck have put together what appears to be a bumper programme this year. The opening ceremony will be lead by Les Grandes Personnes, a troupe of 4 meter high puppets, formed in 1998 in Aubervilliers (France) and Boromo (Burkina Faso). The program here is filled with many international and local groups offering a combination of puppetry, dance, object theatre, culminating in a new work by South African theatre artist Bret Bailey's 'House of the Holy Afro' described by the Scotsman as "The Soweto Gospel Choir on Acid" performing next Saturday. You can catch a sneak video preview here!

'Puppetry Madness' coming soon!

Watch out for our next 'Evening of Puppetry Madness' coming up on Wednesday 10 September in Sydney.
If you are interested in attending this event, then get in touch here!

Giant Puppets continue their journey throughout Africa

It's a really heartening experience for any puppeteer to witness their early work spreading throughout the world. I supposed that's the whole point of using Puppetry for Development.

While searching on You Tube today, still in bed recovering from a nasty flu, I came upon a short film of a puppetry group in a little town called Yei in Southern Sudan, not far from the Uganda border. The group are run by an organisation called 'Capor', who are engaged in development and community programmes. It didn't take me long to realise that the giant puppets they were using, were similar to what we used in the late-eighties in southern Africa, performing 'Puppets Against Aids', which was later transported to Kenya and many other African countries. In the film is an interview with the information officer, Sheriff Maguro, one of the original Kenyan puppeteers from CHAPS, whom we started training in the early nineties. Watch the Sudanese group here!

While we were visiting South Africa in 2006, I were invited to fly to Lesotho for the opening of a puppetry group, again using Giant Puppets parading through the streets. I was informed that the Lesotho group had also recently received training from the Kenyan puppeteers. You can see them in the short film clip below!

Then the third coincidence this week was receiving a Face Book message from a puppeteer from a rural group in Uganda, also having undergone recent training by the Kenyans. The few years we spent training puppeteers in Kenya seems to have really paid off. In my eyes, it is one of the major puppetry success stories to emerge from the African continent in many years.

Another Evening of Puppetry Madness

Another Evening of Puppetry Madness will take place on Wednesday 10 September 2008 at 7pm at the Wesley Institute in Drummoyne, Sydney. Our first one in July proved so much fun that we have been requested to run them every two months, so here we go! Check it out here!


We shall have some puppetry improv for the camera, a few short international puppetry films and a bunch of snacks and drinks available and all are invited. You don't have to perform, but if you so desire, bring a puppet or get one there and do something. You might just become a You Tube star! It's a lot of fun and there's a $10 cover charge to cover costs. Please let us know if you interested in coming, so we can cater accordingly!

Advanced Puppetry for Film and TV Course

Our next Puppetry for Film and Television course is an Advanced Course, which will take place in Sydney from 8 October 2008.
The course will focus on manipulation of the puppet for the camera and the production of short scenarios which will be filmed and edited for the web.



Dates: Eight consecutive Wednesday evenings from 8 October to 26 November 2008 Time: 6.00 to 9.00pm
Venue: Wesley Institute for the Arts, 5 Mary Street, Drummoyne, NSW 2047, Australia
Cost: $699 incl * *Early-bird $99 discount for bookings before 5 September 2008.
For more information and bookings, contact me here!

Israel gets HOT puppets

A little rough and little wierd, but highly enter- taining to say the least, this new series to hit HOT, Israel's premiere pay TV channel RED BAND looks like it promises some HOT puppet satire. I laughed at the American Rock Star arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport from New York - here - and the Rock Star complaining that he's not on Google in Israel - here - and he get's a bit pissed off with traditional Israeli dancing to say the least - here!. I think the fact that Israeli culture is becoming over-Americanised is one of the subjects being played with and it works a treat! I just wished I knew who was behind this lot... and how it was going down with the audiences in Israel?
So stay tuned!

Bernie Brillstein - Muppet Mentor Dies

Bernie Brillstein, a true friend, mentor and agent of Muppet giant, Jim Henson has died of heart disease in Hollywood at the age of 77 this week. Although I never personally had the opportunity to meet this great Hollywood legend, Bernie spoke of Henson as a true genius of his time in a recent Talent Managers Awards ceremony. It's the story of a fascinating friendship which Jim Henson always talked about. You can watch a short interview with Bernie Brillstein here!