Internationally acclaimed Kenyan puppetry group "CHAPS" have had their first'Puppetry for Television and Web Workshop' scheduled for October 2009 accepted as an official pilot project of the UNIMA Commission for International Cooperationin Switzerland. For further details, see here!
The two-week intense workshop, which will be conducted by African-Australian puppeteer, Gary Friedman, is due to take place during the International Puppetry Festival in Nairobi in October 2009. The workshop is aimed to give the already existing group of over four hundred East African puppeteers, who were trained by Friedman in the nineteen-nineties in 'Puppetry for Development' work, further skills to take their messages into the multi-media, via television and the internet.
How can we ever forget the Spitting Image hit in the eighties "I've never met a nice South African"?Spitting Image was the very successful British puppet satire television series, produced by renowned cartoonists Peter Fluck and Roger Law, which ran on the ITV network from 1984 to 1996. I loved the show and always wanted to introduce the concept to South Africa during those dark Apartheid years in the eighties, when I performed my own satire 'Puns en Doedie' (Puppets Against Apartheid) in the streets. It would never have been allowed in South Africa. It was, however, taken up at the time by Australia as 'Rubbery Figures'in various forms from 1984 to 1990 and even in France Les Guignols de l'info (English: News Puppets) is a satirical latex puppet show broadcast on Canal+, which soon gained a rival series on French TV, Le Bébête Show, starring François Mitterrand as Kermit the Frog.
Well, like it or not, two decades later, the renowned television concept is finally hitting Africa. Both South Africa and Kenya are currently launching their own versions of this political hit puppetry series. In Kenya The XYZ Show has just released a pilot trailer, which you can view on You Tube, although their website doesn't seem to be working. The official series is scheduled to launch on Kenyan Television on 26 May 2009.
The South African Broadcast Corporation (SABC) who commissioned political satirist and cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro to produce a new television series'Z News'are still sitting with the pilot seventeen months later.The pilot ofZ News was produced for the SABC in December 2007. The pilot is still buried deep in SABC bureaucracy and no decisions have yet been made as to it's screening. Is this a sign of 'the return of censorship suffered under Apartheid'? Let's hope a decision is made soon! You can also find 'Z News' on Face Book here!
Eighty years ago, on 20th May 1929 a group of like minded people from Bulgaria, France, Yugoslavia, Germany, Austria, Romania and the Soviet Union came together in Prague to form an organisation dedicated to the art of the puppet. UNIMA(Union Internationale de la Marionnette) in a short time built itself up from a small circle of friends into a world organisation. It is notable, from the point of view of cultural history, that UNIMA was the first international theatre body.
Over the past eighty years, UNIMA has had a rich and varied history, which took the organisation through Second World War, where many of its activities were taken underground in Europe, through the cold war into a completely new era. The strength of UNIMA was and will continue to be rooted in the fact that it was always able to rise above these problems.
During the eighties and nineties, there was an explosion of new Centres and members in all the continents beyond Europe, and these new Centres have resulted in new territorial groupings, for example the Asian, African and American Commissions, intended to facilitate communications and deal with new responsibilities. After forty years in Prague UNIMA changed its base for the first time: the General Secretariat moved to Warsaw, Poland, where it remained for eight years until 1980, when the headquarters were transferred to Charleville-Mézières, France. Charleville was already the site of a world festival and soon became the home not only of UNIMA but also of the Institute International de la Marionnette.
Since 1929, when UNIMA was founded, the world has changed and so has UNIMA itself. It is now a recognized and a respected world organisation. The spectrum of UNIMA activities has expanded to a great extent. The significance of this is associated with the far greater importance which attaches to puppetry now.
The puppet can nowadays be found in every genre of the contemporary performing arts including the mass media. In theatre, film, television, the world-wide web, celebration, ritual, education, and healing, like all art, a means of bringing peoples closer together and of fighting intolerance and violence.
UNIMA's long tradition does not stand in the way of its role as a dynamic force. It must, however, always remember the humanist ideals of universal friendship and understanding contained in the statement that introduces its constitution. UNIMA is responsible not only to its members but to all whose lives have been enriched by the spirit and beauty of the puppet.Viva UNIMA and viva the Power of the Puppet!
I discovered this short film today in which CCBN presenter, Con Quest, introduces Limmud-Oz 2009 - a festival of Jewish Learning and Culture, taking place at the University of New South Wales in Sydney from 6-8 June 2009. It looked like a good commercial, so I thought I'd share it with you. If you want to know more information, check out their website here! Corporate CreaturesBusiness News presenter, Con Quest, can be seen here!
Our February to April 2009 Beginner's Puppetry for Television and the Web Course has just been completed. Our talented students work can now be seen. They also completed a short film called "Ruddlink", about the world economic recession and the Australian Government's decision to hand out the $900 stimulus package, bringing the country into greater debt. Check it out here!Enjoy.
How can emerging media help children learn? This question was asked forty years ago by a great innovator in the United States, Joan Ganz Cooney. She was the woman who started Children's Television Workshop which produced Sesame Streettogether with Jim Henson in 1968.That question is as relevant today as we try to get inside the minds of young children and how they are looking at our world and figure out the engagement points in the new digital media to educate them in this 21st century. Cooney's legacy was to improve children's lives a little more urgently and figure how we can all contribute to this goal together. You can watch a short documentary of the Joan Ganz Cooney Centrehere!
You can watch a full interview in nine parts with Cooney in New York, recorded in 1998, here!Many famous people have appeared on Sesame Streetin recent years. Michele Obama even recently promoted a healthy lifestyle on Sesame Street. You can watch her here!
One of the greatest innovators in World Theatre of the twentieth century, Augusto Boal, who travelled the four corners of the earth scattering the seed of the Theatre of the Oppressed, died last Saturday at the age of 78.
Oppression, according to Augusto Boal, is when one person is dominated by the monologue of another and has no chance to reply. Boal's life was devoted to giving those who are in this one-down position, the tools with which to express themselves and discover a way out of their powerlessness. He does this through the medium of theater. A native of Brazil who has been jailed himself for his political activities, Boal is the founder of a movement known as Theatre of the Oppressed.
On 3 May, a farewell ceremony was held at his home in Brasil. His cremation marked the start of a new phase of the Theatre of the Oppressed, in the physical absence of Boal. His wife, Cecilia Boal, with all her strength and vitality, told the world that her husband should be remembered as the warrior that he always was.
Today, Saturday 9 May, from 5pm to 8pm (Brazilian time), there will be a homage, at the Centre of the Theatre of the Oppressed with music, poems, performances and videos. At 7pm we stop to make a minute of ovation to Boal´s honor. We will celebrate the life, the struggle, the productivity, the work of Augusto Boal and the continuity of that work.
It will not be easy to follow this Master in the Struggle. But what has ever been easy in the trajectory of the Theatre of the Oppressed?Ethics and Solidarity will be the foundations and guides. Multiplication will be the strategy. And the goal will remain the mounting of concrete social actions to bring about the transformation of oppressive realities. You can watch an interview with Boal on Democracy Nowhere!
The full seven-minute version of the Corporate Creatures™ Promo has finally been released for all those interested in this exciting new project. It can also be viewed onVimeo, but because this is a large video file, it might take a while to download, unless you have a fast internet connection. So please be patient! There is also an interesting short film on the making of Corporate Creatures™, 'The Humans behind the Creatures'which can be viewed hereand the entire collection of the Creatures short films to date can be viewed here! The Creatures are also now on Face Book and the Corporate Creatures Business News(CCBN) presenter, Con Quest, can also be followed on Twitter! So the gang are finally ready to go... keep posted for updates!
Canadian puppeteer, Frank Meschkuleit has been a television puppeteer for 25 years. I came across his work on the net this week and was very impressed by his short films, which show great innovation and really good manipulation. Frank's Puppets and Voicesfeature films of his live one-man shows which tours Canada, and in my opinion, works as well on film as it would in front of a live audience. The Left Hand of Frank can be found here!Enjoy.
Internationally acclaimed Kenyan puppetry group "CHAPS" have had their first 'Puppetry for Television and Web Workshop' scheduled for October 2009 accepted as an official pilot project of the UNIMA Commission for International Cooperation in Switzerland. For further details, see here!
