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I'm now in Yorkshire (I've been here for over a week now - how time flies!) and have settled into country living (and it's splendid). Everyday had been very busy though, as we've been doing project after project for visiting artists (we have a new one every one or two days). Over the past week, we've explored shadow puppetry with atmospheric filming; Theatre of the Absurd (creating a wonderfully surreal piece which incorporated a sombre, funeral type scene with "Wake me up before you go-go); and puppet choreography to an aria in Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" (which used a puppet that needed 3 operators, plus 2 other people manipulating fans and one person watching... but all of us swapping roles 5 times!). We also created some mock-up puppets for the masque scene in Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and did some physical theatre work incorporating movement pieces inspired by Philippe Genty (ie. lots of interesting movement and shapes using huge sheets of lycra and silk).
Amongst all of those projects, we've also had operating classes, where we've practiced using marionnettes, rod puppets and lip sync puppets. I love the music we use in those classes - there's the soundtrack from "Amelie", Gershwin tunes and the calming sanctuary melodies of Adiemus. We actually performed some marionettes (improvised) to a group of primary school children (on the same day we performed the Madame Butterfly aria choreography) and it turned out to be a mini assessment task on our operating skills. Thankfully, we all passed (I was first up and I was somehow miraculously able to make my puppet walk, kneel, fly, lie down and get up again!).
One other great thing we've done in Yorkshire so far was going to see a brilliant puppet show called "The 3 Little Pigs" by Mishimou. It's an adult show that subverts the seemingly innocent children's story into something quite sinister and quirky. The puppeteers (there were 2) used shadow, rod and glove puppetry in completely amazing ways (including a body puppet that did the salsa!). They also used new media - they projected animations onto their shadow screen, which looked fantastic. I was so glad we got to see the show (though unfortunately my navigation skills - or lack thereof - got us slightly lost). To top off the evening, I had my first English fish and chips experience after the show (at a 'chipper' which was also a Chinese take out place - go figure).
We've still got some more projects to get through - mine is coming up on Monday. I'll be presenting a project on making work for children, where I'll be taking a nursery rhyme and turning it into a show. I hope it goes well!
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