Marionettes in Strasbourg!

Kay and Celia recently had an outing in Strasbourg, France for some street puppetry. The 'stage' was a bridge nearby La Petite France (a quaint area in downtown Strasbourg with cobble stone streets and flavours of yesteryear). Celia performed her marionette piece (The Beat'Box) for an encouraging audience of passers-by (many of whom were in the area to enjoy the famous Christmas markets). Even with the cold winter weather and light rain, the show was well received. Go Celia! Well Done!

Marionette Madness Continues in London

The London students continue to progress in their marionette pieces. This weekend they worked on operating the puppets, as well as doing some more movement work with Wendy Cook.

Klaus, Angeliki and Peter operating their puppet sequences on a grid.

Introducing the London Marionettes:

Without further ado, here are the marionettes made by the London students Angeliki, Klaus and Peter. We look forward to seeing their progress!

Angeliki's puppet (who is affectionately known as "Pantaloni", which means 'trousers' in Italian)

Klaus's puppet

Peter's puppet

"Marionette and the Actor" Mini Course a success

On Monday 24th - Wednesday 26th November, the school ran a mini course in London exploring "The Marionette and the Actor". This course was also linked with the Su4 marionette module and its theme of Futurism.

Edward Gordon Craig thought that every actor and opera singer should train using a marionette- he thought it was a way of making the artist less egoistic and to make his/her work more sincere. Under this premise, this 3 day course was designed for actors and puppeteers alike to train with marionettes. The course explored kinaesthetics, the movement and muscle memory of the artist and how this enables him/her to develop puppet action. We worked with music, marionettes and the vital principles of marionette work.

Under the influence of Futurism, we created short, dramatic scenes using stringed everyday objects. Through this exercise, we learned (among other things) the importance of giving each character enough time to be introduced to the audience; of balancing action and voice in a group piece (making sure characters don't dominate over others); and the importance of pauses.

This is a crawling exercise we did, which also involved overcoming obstacles (quite literally).


Wendy Cook led us through some movement exercises exploring different actions in our own bodies, which we then transferred to our puppets (this often involved modifying/reinterpreting our actions to better suit the marionettes' abilities). We then worked individually and in small groups to create short sequences of actions.

On the last day of the course, we invited members of the public to come and view our work. Some of the London students did a short skit demonstrating skills they had learned during the mini course, and the diploma students performed their solo pieces. This final puppet performance was also the 'final curtain' to our module. We can all say that we have worked very hard, learned a great deal, and had a lot of fun along the way!

A Theatre Outing to Remember: War Horse

A few of us went to see "War Horse" at the Royal National Theatre on Monday night. It has been the most succesful show in RNT history, and has sold out every performance - making it even more of a treat to see it! The true highlight of the show is the puppetry (especially the life-sized horses), all of which was orchestrated by the Handspring Puppet Company.

Here is a short summary of the plot:
At the outbreak of World War One, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. he's soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.

We lined up outside the theatre at 6.30am (for those who are unfamiliar with the RNT, the theatre has about 30 tickets reserved for every performance at only £10 per ticket. They only go on sale on the day of the performance, at 9.30am - with tickets limited to 2 per person. The earlier you queue up, the better - make sure you wear plenty of warm clothes! We had a sleeping bag, hot water bottle, mini blanket and coffee... and we were still cold). Despite the freezing conditions we put ourselves through in the queue, we all agreed it was well worth it. We had front row seats (centre), which was the perfect viewpoint for seeing the puppets being operated.

For those in London and enthusiastic about puppetry, this is definitely a show not to be missed. You have until January 24th 2009 to go and see it (and we thoroughly recommend you do!)

'Star' Performances at the Living Room Theatre

On Thursday 2oth and Friday 21st November we held our Living Room Theatres, where we invited people to come and see us perform our finished marionette pieces. Our breakfast room was transformed into a 'starry' wonder, complete with fairy lights on a sweeping black backdrop.
After the performances we enjoyed delicious food and drink provided by the wonder-chef duo of Caroline and Kat.
This event also marked the end of our time in Yorkshire, and we have now headed down south to London. Tomorrow we will attend a 3 day mini course on The Marionette and the Actor, with our final performances on Wednesday.

Our marionette 'chorus line'

These puppets were made by (from left to right)

Kate, Kat, Celia, Kay, Nat and Sif

Stars (and Stripes!)

Last night we celebrated the election results in the USA. It was an especially big night for Kat, our American. We made her this cake (pictured below).


So, a couple of things about this cake.
First of all, it was intended to celebrate Arizona (Kat's state) becoming Democratic. But as it has remained Republican (which is symbolised as a donkey in the press), we wrote "U might be an ass but we still love you").
We also 'slightly' modified the picture of Obama to try and make it look more like Kat (hence the beanie and Dr Pepper).
And yes, we accidentally did the stripes on the flag going the other way (it was still tasty though).




The Marionette Module group (from left to right: Kate, Natalia, Katya, Kay, Sif, Kat, Celia, Caroline).

Here is a video taken when we cut the cake: