Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
usitt.org: Puppetry is one of the most exciting and evocative of the performing arts. For three days in early August, 36 brave and adventurous “puppet people” congregated near the Crossroads of America to experience the story-telling power of the anthropomorphic objects called puppets.
I find puppetry fascinating. When I was in undergrad my performing arts center hosted a French puppet company called (translated) "Theater Without Strings." It was a puppet re-telling of the Hobbit. Most of the puppets were life-size, with the hobbits being the size of a normal human and all of the other characters being scaled appropriately. There was a dragon puppet that took up the entire stage. It was fascinating to watch the company set everything up, see them run these puppets, and then get to talk with them afterwards. I wish puppetry was something more people were able to have more exposure to. There are a lot of different types of puppets and each has a different method of control, but they're all fascinating.
I wish puppetry was taught and shown more often, and I think workshops and opportunities like this one are so valuable. Theater has so many facets and aspects to its practice, and ideally all performers, artists and technicians would have the ability to be exposed to many different variations of theater, such as the participants of this USITT puppetry workshop. I know I would very much like a chance to discover the art of puppetry, having seen it but ever having done it myself.
It is interesting to me how scarce puppetry is anymore. It used to be such a cultural tradition that was extremely popular in the past, and it has really fallen to the wayside. I believe it is still fairly popular in some other countries, but here it has lost its power as an art form. I agree with Jess, I find puppetry fascinating, and wish there was more exposure to it.
3 comments:
I find puppetry fascinating. When I was in undergrad my performing arts center hosted a French puppet company called (translated) "Theater Without Strings." It was a puppet re-telling of the Hobbit. Most of the puppets were life-size, with the hobbits being the size of a normal human and all of the other characters being scaled appropriately. There was a dragon puppet that took up the entire stage. It was fascinating to watch the company set everything up, see them run these puppets, and then get to talk with them afterwards. I wish puppetry was something more people were able to have more exposure to. There are a lot of different types of puppets and each has a different method of control, but they're all fascinating.
I wish puppetry was taught and shown more often, and I think workshops and opportunities like this one are so valuable. Theater has so many facets and aspects to its practice, and ideally all performers, artists and technicians would have the ability to be exposed to many different variations of theater, such as the participants of this USITT puppetry workshop. I know I would very much like a chance to discover the art of puppetry, having seen it but ever having done it myself.
It is interesting to me how scarce puppetry is anymore. It used to be such a cultural tradition that was extremely popular in the past, and it has really fallen to the wayside. I believe it is still fairly popular in some other countries, but here it has lost its power as an art form. I agree with Jess, I find puppetry fascinating, and wish there was more exposure to it.
Post a Comment