I chanced upon Mika Kindstrand's Acting with Puppetry workshop hosted by Wushiren. It had been a long time since I had interacted with puppetry, the last had being a puppet construction workshop with The Finger Players (2019).
The team re-working and refining with Mika after each mini presentation.
HIGHLIGHTS
The three 3-hour sessions were a creative challenge and stretch as I revisited the basics of puppetry with breath and expanded on the ensemble aspect of working together in teams to choreograph scores for movement as one puppet. Making an dead / inanimate object into a living, breathing thing is one of the most interesting creative tensions.
First Puppet Improvisation
In this exercise, we literally let a character unfold from random pieces of scrunched up paper. And then, 2 (or more) puppets met each other in an improvised scene. I was filled with such joy as the improvised scene flowed, and more by the sense of sentimentalism to the crushed up paper after the scene.
Standing, Walking, Running, Jumping
This exercise will stay with me because of the importance of choreographing a score with fellow puppeteers. I kept being reminded of a lesson from 2019 about the ergonomics / comfort of the puppeteer influencing the energy with the puppet. I was reminded about the age old saying of how we have to learn to walk before we learn to run!
Spiderman
This vignette was a total creative challenge! I would name the challenge, "Gravity", thinking of how to puppeteer gravity for a very light weighted (paper) puppet and how the - false! artificial! - gravity plays out. I was reminded about the need to bring clarity for the audience from the abstract world of the puppets.
The Creep - puppet acting with the actor!
And then, we improvised a piece between the puppet and an actor. The thought sown in my head was about how the theatricality of a puppet also relied on a rhythm and comedic timing. Relooking at this clip fills me with embarrassment about how I was such an overbearing presence even though I was not the head puppeteer (or the puppet's head), a need to balance care for the puppeteer and the artistry.
Taken together, it was a refreshing class to be re-learning about puppets after such a long hiatus. Puppetry was such an interwoven form that could require such tight ensemble work, a more acute physicality in manipulation of the puppet and in the care for the puppeteers body. And all this is just the craft before thinking about the narrative and the dramaturgy of a performance. Looking forward to the day when I get to put together a puppetry performance! Until then, fingers crossing for the continued opportunities to explore puppetry.