New Puppetry Centre for Israel

We were invited this week to visit the new Holon Puppetry Centre which is opening soon in the south of Tel Aviv. The centre will be run by the crazy talented Israeli puppeteer, Ilan Savir, under the auspices of the local municipality of Holon. The new centre has a 200 seater puppet theatre, an international puppetry museum, a school and library facility and will be the first centre of its kind in the Middle East. The centre is the dream of the local puppeteers, which has been to develop a central venue of puppetry and visual theatre in Israel, as well as a venue to host their International Puppetry and Film Festival. In the photo are Ilan Savir (right), Miri Peery, director of the museum and myself.

New Visual Theatre Production from Israel

Three Desires and Silence - I was invited by a friend to check out a new visual theatre production performing in a theatre in Tel Aviv this week. Three different episodes were woven together to create a mad, sensitive show. In each episode, the actress-puppet relationship is used to powerfully reveal an inner conflicted reality, that is concealed. From amongst objects and furniture emerges an internal force that can no longer be restrained. In the depth of a wardrobe, a shy, suppressed woman, unexpectedly meets a rude, inhibited character who drives her beyond herself. Seated in front of a letter desk, are a puppeteer and her "shoulder puppet". Two woman at a deadlock . For all their physical proximity and attempts to connect, they are doomed to fail.
A childhood memory unravels through personal objects and a human – doll. An autobiographical nightmare, a circle not broken, a music lesson, all come to life as beneath the sweet tale another story emerges and a secret is whispered. The production was created and performed by Yaara Goldring, Maayan Resnick and Yael Rasooly in English. I would strongly recommend this to any festival producer. For further information, you can contact the company here!