Tieret

Today I sneaked into the theater with little children again. 

Once I mentioned that many Belgian theatres tour the cultural centres around the whole country. So I started to pay more attention to some interesting shows which are being played not far from where I live.

Theater Tieret made recently a new show under the directing of Neville Tranter (Stuffed Puppets). I like Tieret and I like Tranter. So I went on a little trip to a small town Tielt and I went to the theater with maybe eighty kids not older than 5 years and their teachers. Being probably recognized as one of them.

Rimpelwals means something like a waltz of wrinkles. We meet a grandpa and his grandson and we follow some memories of the dear grandfather... who is somehow dieing in front of our eyes, and nicely poetically leaves the boy and us while dancing his last waltz...
I've seen many grandfathers puppets, and many jokes with their teeth. But Rimpelwals is not dishonouring old people. And it is not underestimating those young kids watching the story. Above all I found it a very heartwarming story.
The tour of Theater Tieret's Rimpelwals continues in january in Netherlands, go and see and shed a tear...

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I saw a singing tent

A very  intersting object theatre workshop was happening in Brussel in november. Under the leading work of Agnes Limbos and Christian Carrignon, 12 people were bringing weird things to life. Funny and fresh. Strong and tragic. Singing tents, glitters and crashing cars... 

Pierrick De Luca, Jeni Barnard - Une femme amoureuse

Pierrick De Luca - Une femme amoureuse

Audrey Dero - Schneewittchen

Clement Montagnier, Jeni Barnard - Le cordon ombilical

Puppet of the week

Creepy Vladimir Putin by Christian Bailley for just a few milions of euros!

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Go and see: puppetry tips

If you are in Belgium don't miss the Art Day for Children or Kunstendag voor Kinderen this Sunday 16/11. There will be a lot of creative stuff to do and see. For example the show of Theater Tieret, they will play in a tent in Lint their short scientific show about dreams and dreaming Baraque Future. 

Or the show De steltenloper, which is a person walking on stilts... Those long wooden poles... sounds mysterious. (coproduction of De Maan and Nat Gras)

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It will be a special day for us too. Playing Popoty in Gent in the morning and The Cake Story - Koekensprook in the afternoon in Roeselare. May there be more Art days like this! See you!

Kukulu - Koekensprook

in the streets of Antwerp

While walking the streets of Antwerp with my parents, who visited us last week, I was just about to show them the building, which looks like a bacon. (Yes, it's on the Hofstraat and it looks like bacon, because it used to be a butcher's hall. So far our guide book says.) My dad suddenly calls my name and disappears in a tiny door going underground, just like Alice. I followed him and for my big surprise I appeared in an old, small puppet theatre. 

The curly puppeteer explained how lucky we are, because De poesje is normally closed. They play only on weekends and than for closed groups who book a performance. He showed us the marionette with big nose,  who's name is "The Nose" and he is one of the main characters. I asked if there is still one of the old original puppets. And than he showed us a puppet from (approx.) 1860. 

As I already speak some dutch, I was wondering why is the theatre called "kitten" (de poes - a cat, het poesje - little cat) I found out, that "poesje" or "poesjenel" is how they used to call the marionettes in the Antwerp's dialect. (Thank you, wikipedia...)

If you will visit Antwerp, check it out, stop by, there are more "poesje" theatres, but this one was so magic and tiny. Maybe the magic curly puppeteer will be there again and he'll show you the old heavy puppets. Maybe he will also show you how they can hit each other with a wooden stick! And maybe it'll be closed. Than have a look at least at the bacon building. And try again later.

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Back to the dark rooms

Finally it's again cold and dark outside and we can go hide in warm theatres and although it's dark there too, it's magical and special and we see beautiful things, or even scary things and things flying or falling or things in suitcases or things on strings...

I did it recently and went to see a show for the small ones called "Meer dan Beer" - meaning More than a bear. And here I choose three of my favourite moments of this visual/musical experience.

1. It all starts with this soft Teddy Bear waking up in his suitcase...

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2. The wallpapers!

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3. The most multifunctional/extremely professional puppet theatre stage!

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All of this is made by and performed by Maarten Van Aerschot from Tal en Thee figurentheater, Belgium.

Puppets of the week

Today I captured few nice "balloon - human" puppets during a Wednesday afternoon workshop with these children at zZmogh - a kunstfabriek here in Ghent. Next week we are going to show to the parents what we were doing during our puppetry sessions. Too early. I wish we could work all school year long. But even only after 5 sessions we have some funny material as you can see. I hope our balloon people are going to survive...

reminder

As promised here is the reminder for all of you interested in contemporary dance. Friday 06/06 and Saturday 07/06 at 20:00 in Theater Tinnenpot in Ghent performance BLIKVANGER. You can reserve your tickets via mileen@wisper.be.

Akhe

My ticket arrived!! This Saturday I make a little trip to Essen, Germany to the FIDENA festival to see the Russian engineering theatre AKHE with their show Gobo.Digital Glossary. Some years ago I had the chance to attend a workshop of object theatre with one of the members of AKHE. It was a great work. Now really curious to see the show! 

Anyway the program of the Fidena puppetry festival has much more to offer. Check out their program HERE. Enjoy the puppetry!

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tupera tupera

Do you know the feeling, when you have something beautiful and you want to play with it, but you don't want to destroy it? You don't want to use it so the fun wouldn't be over? I have it right now with this book from Japanese designers Tupera Tupera. Found it in muji store in Paris. You can put stickers of noses, eyes, moustaches or hair on to various faces. But you can also give a face to apples, or cookies or cups or shells or... or.. or... eggs! 

I will wait for the right time to come to play. 

Have a playful Easter!

Visit tupera tupera, if not for much of reading, at least for some joy of nice web design.

Sometimes you just need to dance...

... or watch dancers dance. For example on an open rehearsal of a dance class of Wisper or even better in June when their performance will be ready. You can see the result in Antwerp and in Ghent and I will let you know when!

mice and more

It is highly recommended to visit the Mouseland on the blog Mouses Houses. It somehow reminds me of my childhood. Maybe because the old school puppet films looked a little bit like this. And they weren't ignoring small details. Or because of the snow? Very very nice work... just come here and keep scrolling :)

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For the Belgian audience I have another hot tip for the second week of march! All puppetry lovers probably already heard of the BOZE WOLF festival (it means bad or angry wolf). This festival starts on the 8th of march in Aarschot. And the programme looks very very interesting! 

(And I won't be there... too bad. But than please all of you, who'd go, just let me know how it was, ok?) Have fun!

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sailor yoga

Yoga beats the Valentine! :)

*author of the puppet sailor: Alex Dubravicka
Thank You!

New show

Our kitchen turned this weekend into an atelier! Tereza (my Kukulu fellow) arrived with a car loaded with materials, machines, stages, bicycles, puppets, parts of puppets, parts of bicycles… Now we just have to bring it all together and make it work. So exciting! 

I will keep you updated, and tell you all about it very soon.

Tradaaadaa! Now back to work! ;)

(And yes, we enjoyed some ate amounts of belgian chocolate. I'll miss you Terezka!)

JUST A PAPER

I had the chance again to work with one of my favourite materials - the newspaper. 

Around ninety young people were supposed to master the work with muppets, objects and paper in five different workshops during four days. My job was to introduce them to the work with paper. Somehow it felt strange at the beginning. The paper doesn't have eyes, and mouth and it isn't colourful enough. It's just a paper...  But after some experimenting it became easier and we enjoyed preparing our paper show. Nice and smooth work with a good result. 

(And I must visit the container of the local newspaper again, I am out of material!)