Puppets of last week

Last week was an international day of puppet theatre. I was checking if google made any animated doodle with puppets, like they did on Women's day, or Douglas Adams 61st birthday. But I didn't find anything. I read the message for all puppeteers about Pulcinella and the melodies and rhythm of swazzle. By Roberto De Simone. (Who?) 

Than I tried to book a ticket to see the last show of Belgian puppet Theatre Taptoe. Apparently they are going to quit playing. But I didn't get any reply, and it seems, that it's already sold out.

So I decided, to spend some time with my own puppets and clean up a little in the atelier. (The little space, where I work and call it the Kukulu room.) And I found this guys! My very first puppets I used to play with as a child. They are somehow ugly and nice at the same time :) I think, they should get a little honour at least by appearing on this blog. 

The good guys

The bad guys

The small guys

(Made in Czechoslovakia 1988)

the magic of newspapers

One of many great materials to use in the puppetry world are newspapers. You can munch them, squeeze them, make big or small creatures out of them and they produce nice sounds... Plus, it's cheap and in the container of the local publisher (should I tell my source?) you can find a good bunch of them.

Together with these twelve girls we discovered the qualities of the material. Newspaper animals and monsters were all around. And afterwards the girls made these fantastic characters, Sammy, Lady Gaga, Smoking Guy and Gardener Lady :) Manipulating with three, they prepared short stories inspired by ... newspaper articles, of course.

Here's a little example of our work. I enjoyed it very much!! Thank you, girls, good job!

meotar portable

With permission of my dearest kukulu - colleague, Tereza, I am presenting you some of the very first experiments with our new toy - 'Meotar Portable'. A meotar is one of the basic tools of a puppeteer :) And now we have one too!! Looking forward to play with the light and shadows... And even more looking forward to the new show of which our meotar will be part of! I'll keep you updated!