After coming back from the Puppets Up! Festival in Almonte, Ontario, I have been rejuvinated in my puppet passion and I have decided to write about some of the acts (and people) that I have enjoyed.  When the festival first started (three years ago) I was asked to help out doing puppetry improv from the balcony.  I agreed and did some puppetry on the balcony for maybe two or three 20 minute stints.  I can tell you it is hard work. 

 Talking for 20 minutes is challenging enough, but in the direct sun too, now that was hard.  But that is nothing compared to the other people who helped out.  One of those people is Jamie Douglas.  The truth is that he along with Will Richardson and Allan Martin, ended up being in the hot sun a lot longer than me. 

There is a great video interview of Jamie Douglas talking about The Balcony Puppeteers on the MuppetCast website here. The acts were a hit and before you knew it, they became their own puppetry team.  The are called “The Balcony Puppeteers“, and what is great is that the passion that these individuals have becomes infectious.  They are all super entertainers and have the ability to do it in the hot sun for rediculous amounts of time.  After my short stint on that balcony I have a huge amount of respect for the stamina it takes and for them as performers. 

I am happy that I was able to meet these guys and I encourage anyone visiting the Puppets Up! Festival to pull up a chair and watch them in action.

Many of the puppeteers that are part of the online community are involved in Christian ministries. For those who fall under this category, the Fellowship of Christian Puppeteers is hosting their annual conference at Winthrop University in South Carolina on July 23-27. Anyone in the area may find this an educational opportunity to refine your puppetry skills, learn new skills or perhaps gain encouragement and inspiration for your ministry as you use this powerful medium. Information and registration is available here.

A funny thing happend to me at work today.  Sitting at a table was a very nice woman with a set up for a shadow puppet performance and a selection of puppets.  After speaking to her for a short time I was surprised to find out that she was Anne Barber of Shadowland Theatre here in Toronto.

We spoke a bit and I mentioned something that she is involved in.  As a result it reminded me to post about it.  It is called Fresh Ideas In Puppetry and it is being hosted by Puppetmongers’ Toronto School of Puppetry.  It is a one day conference and includes some pretty great puppeteers, including Ronnie Burkett and Trish Leeper among others.  If you are interested in going, space is limited so sign up soon.  You can read more about the event here.

(photo credit: Bryan Woltjen)

The Esperance Festival of the Wind was held on 22 March this year. The festival began as an art-themed celebration of the positive energy wind brings to the town of Esperance, Western Australia, but it has now evolved into a celebration of ‘community, art, culture and shared fun’. Puppet designer and maker, Bryan Woltjen, together with animateur Karen Hethey, community groups, schools and individuals, made 8 fabulous giant puppet sea creatures for FantiSea, part of the festival. The frameworks are made from a mixture of bamboo and cane, with wire and gaffa joins, the skins muslin dipped in diluted PVA, and dyed. It is likely the puppets will make an appearance during the UNIMA 2008 festival in Perth.

It’s a bit crazy, even scary, to imagine a million puppets of all sorts in one place, but that’s the objective of the Million Puppet Project which was launched yesterday (on World Puppetry Day) by Spare Parts Puppet Theatre in Western Australia. Under the project, people from around the world are invited to make and send a puppet to Perth, WA, to participate in a new Guinness World Record: The World’s Largest Puppet Display! This will be part of the UNIMA 2008: 20th UNIMA Congress and World Puppetry Festival, which is being held in the southern hemisphere for the first time.

If you need a jump-start to make a puppet, there are various simple puppet design templates ready to dowload, or you can strike out on a design all your own. Let your imagination run free! Puppets will not be able to be returned to you, but they will be donated to charities afterwards. And when the display is being finalized in April 2008, you will be able to see the installation in progress via a web cam linked to the site.

The Red Festival in Toronto is a four day long event with over 300 performers celebrating artistic and cultural diversity. The 2nd Red Festival is being held in different locations throughout Toronto Canada. This year they are looking for 5 to 10 minute performance pieces of all diverse backgrounds; covering all different types of puppetry.

For all those interested please conduct the following:

• A 1 page description of the piece performed
• CV’s and bios of the artists involved
• Tech & Equipment needed
• Support (PR Material)
• Your name, phone number and a self-addressed envelope to send the support material back to you.

Mail them to:

GirlCanCreate: 88 Hallam Street, Toronto, Ontario. M6H 1W8  - Please no emails-

DEADLINE: Feb. 1st/07 

Don’t forget about the Copenhagen Puppet Festival in Denmark. It starts on the 7th of February and runs till the 11th.

The British are represented by 2 puppet companies, Pickled Image and The Garlic Theatre.

The full program of events include shadow, rod, marionette and hand puppets, as well as debates, films and talks. You can get more details from their website.

Great Small Works is a non-profit organization based in New York. They started in 1995, and perform using all types of artistic mediums including puppetry (giant and toy theatre). They receive countless awards and are backed by very nobel supporters. They are community driven, and provide workshops to school groups and other non-profit organizations. They have also announced their Eighth Annual Toy Theatre Festival running this Summer 2007 and ongoing performed Spaghetti Dinner theatres! Check out their amazing new website HERE!

 

For those of you in the New York area, there is a puppet event happening from October 2006 through until February 2007 that is beinng sponsored by Linux.  The event is called Passport To Puppet Theatre and allows individuals to purchase a “passport” that gets them free software from Linux as well as ticket discounts to the shows.  Now it should be noted that many of these shows are actually a part of  different festivals and events, but are also associated with this Linux promotion.  Puppet companies who are participating are Drama of Works, Bread and Puppet Theater as well as many others.  To find out more about this event you can go to their website here.

Puppet Rampage 2007! The National Puppetry Festival will be held at Concordia University, St. Paul, MN, July 17-22, 2007.

The National Puppetry Festival is a biennial happening produced by The Puppeteers of America. This is a great way to enjoy performances both traditional and contemporary from across the USA, but it’s also a chance to see some highly acclaimed foreign puppet troupes. Festival organizers already have verbal commitments from puppeteers in England, France and Mexico and are angling for Brazilian and Dutch performers as well.

Also, the performance proposal deadline is November 1, 2006 and the workshop proposal deadline is December 1, 2006. If you have something you would like to share at the festival, don’t hesitate to sign up!

For more information visit www.puppetrampage2007.org!