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)
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!
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!)
Last preparations for the last Kukulu tour this last month of the year! Tomorrow I'll be on my way to Vienna again, and I will be playing our show about Lulu and Joshua. Lulu is Joshua's dog. He found him one day under the Christmas tree (of course!).
I wish you all a beautiful Christmas and I hope you will find under the Christmas tree a dog too!!
:D JOKING!! Have good one, enjoy, eat and relax! See you next year with more lemons and puppets and hopefully some good stuff to read about.
Shortly before leaving to Vienna for the Kukulutour, we managed to go see one movie at the Film festival in Ghent. We picked The Selfish Giant a British film by Clio Barnard. (Of course we had no idea, who she is.) But not only that the director was personally there and she introduced us a bit into the topic before the film, we could also ask a few questions after the movie. But as everyone was deeply moved after watching, not so many questions were asked. And you know what? The movie won!! So it's not just my subjective recommendation ;) Find the trailer here.
My recommendation number two is: Let yourself be portrayed by children. Look what happened in Vienna. This is me by three different kids, seeing me playing the show about Mia and her talking handkerchief at the very same time :) I just love the way my hairstyle changes...
Recommendation number three: Go to puppet theatre!
There has been done a new show by theater Froe Froe together with theater Tieret, both from Belgium. It's called Labyrint and it's a "VJ - acting - 3D - concert with all the masters of the puppetry". I am sooo curious :) They are going to be tripping around Belgium, so you better check out the play list HERE.
I know it's been months... But honestly the blogger wasn't really my best friend for a while and I was busy with many other amazing things (like festivals and drama and taking pictures of our cats and posting them on instagram... oh, and did I mention the flu?)
"Es ist so weit" and I am heading to Vienna, the heart of Europe, for a small tour again!! Well, not so small, 8 shows in one week, I think it's not so bad...
As I am already few days obsessed with packing and not forgetting anything for the trip, I decided to introduce you to the mystery of one traveling puppeteer. So here's just a fragment of all you need if you take your puppets (and yourself) abroad.
Absolutely the most important is a suitcase. Never leave your suitcase at home! It's the item which defines a puppeteer. Right?
You never know, when you'll need it. It totally solves many kinds of situations. It makes people wonder, it confuses, it makes children laugh and scream. (It manipulates them a little bit too.) And of course it makes bubbles!
How to make the 13 hours of driving a bit more bearable? Yes, I've got some music. And a radio. But let's be honest here. The german radio stations aren't really a pleasure to listen (and I am going to drive around 700 km through Germany). But this time I am having a great evil plan!! I will listen to audio books!!
Did you know it was snowing in Munich already? I chose Andersen's fairytale about the Snow Queen, here's the nostalgic slovak version. (Isn't it a bit disturbing, that I still don't have the winter tires?)
When I cross the boarder with Austria, and I will be able to tune FM4, I'll know I am close. And than they say: You're at home, baby. (It's their slogan. It's not like they would really tell me, that I am at home.)
But will it still feel like home? Let's see. Grüß Gott!
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!
Here is my article 'Puppeteers Diary' in the Austrian magazine for free theatre, 'Gift'. The issue arrived yesterday, thank you Freie Theater, you made my day! I called it a 'diary' because I'm writing about my personal experiences in Austria and Belgium, where I lived and tried to exist as a puppeteer. Yeah, such a happy topic :) Soon it should be possible to read the article online.
Once upon a time last summer, we were busy marrying our friends! :) No, they were marrying each other, we just got a very responsible task, to prepare their ceremony. And we did. We prepared for their wedding an extraordinary, superspectacular and original puppet show! We wanted to tell the people their story, but we also wanted to entertain them and make them part of the fun. The solution was to have a priest as a narrator. Our priest puppet is the most sympathetic, a tiny bit senile character.
Such show happens only once, but that's what makes it even more special and of course it makes the couple's day unforgettable ;) Let's see if there will be some more weddings this year, where Kukulu could bring some puppet - fun!
What a weekend! Our christmas show, Sonate for Lulu was part of the pre-christmas fever in the Ghent's shopping mall Zuid. I was affraid, that there might not be enough childern, because by this time the parents go shop alone. But no worries!! The rainy weekend was just inviting for some indoor activities, and surely many parents appreciated our show, to entertain the kids, while still getting the last Santa's secrets ;)
With the most beautiful snowy decoration of the shopping center, our show, was just like in a winterwonderland.
Mila, as any other cat, loves fish! She keeps constantly harassing those which we have in our aquarium. When she sees the puppet goldfish Gaga, she goes crazy. Yes, even animals believe in puppet theatre! It is quite a paradox, that Gaga's best friend is a cat, who learns to breathe under water, to be able to play with her. In the real world, our real cat would mainly bite her head off... Well, that's why we have fairy tales:)
Popoty is ready to surprise little children tomorrow in one library. I'm looking forward and I'm glad that Gaga survived the rehearsal!
Thursday, October 25, 2012
after the show...
When the show is over, the kids in kindergartens draw me some pictures. Not always. But if they do, I'm very happy. I already have a huge collection! Here are some drawings from the two previous days. Sometimes they also draw me. It's really sweet to see, how they see me:)
Popoty at the house of Mr. Proffesor
The cat Popoty and his fish
the gold fish Gaga
GAGA
Not sure..
Lena and the fish puppet
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Popoty returns
And here I go again, after 10 months, visiting viennese kindergartens and entertaining the little ones with my crazy puppets. The story about Popoty is somehow really working well. The kids are so enjoying. The kindergarten teachers too ;) My german is reappearing in my head.
Three wonderful shows are over. Three more still coming up this week! Exciting and nostalgic at the same time. It is sooo nice to be back!
On monday my friend Tereza joined. She is the author of the puppets and the stage. And she was spying on the audience during the show. I enjoyed seeing the kids from another perspective ;) Hope you enjoy it too!
