Working with Professional puppeteers and getting up to speed on our own play!

Right, this is a bit of a late post but I'll try my best! On Tuesday 12th and Thursday 14th we made our own Bunraku-style puppet out of paper and masking tape, otherwise known as Monty. I say Bunraku-style because our focus was to have a working puppet that respected three key points. It had to move in a lifelike manner, puppeteers could breathe life into it (so manoeuvrability) its head had to be movable to assist with eyeline. This was all done in preparation for a masterclass on Friday 15th with the three puppeteers from Ouroboros that we spoke to on Thursday 7th. They had the kindness to come in to our small class and teach us the basics of puppetry. I was in charge of Monty's head and left arm.

This whole experience taught me that to perform a puppetry piece, it is incredibly important to rely on the BERPI technique I describe in my previous post. BERPI stands for Breath, Eyeline, Rhythm Physics and Intention and I described their roles in my other post so I won't go into detail on them now. However, the workshop made me realise that to perform a play with a Bunraku puppet, you need teamwork more than anything. I noticed that even if a the beginning we were having trouble coordinating our movements, practising made us gel more as an ensemble and we were able to show a mini performance without any major flaws (It was far from perfect but it was a beginner's piece). However, I noticed that Lydia, who was doing the feet, looked to be in a very uncomfortable position, to which the puppeteers answered "You have to die to make the puppet live". This has shown me a different aspect of Theatre and will make value and appreciate the true efforts of actors and puppeteers and dancers in the future.

This was a case where we learned by imitation, and proceeded to do exactly as the puppeteers told us in order to learn  the movements and conventions of puppetry.

In the following week, we started talking about our blogs and devising our own piece. We learned that in Theatre, copying is an essential way of learning. The three key ways of learning are imitation, influence and inspiration. We used imitation in the workshop. Our new devised pieced was influenced by the puppetry we saw in Ouroboros. Our play focuses on food wastage by primary students. We were inspired to add the shadow puppetry element after watching Ouroboros.

We decided to devise a puppetry play for primary students because they were very receptive to puppets and thouroughly enjoyed orking with them. They know us and what to expect from a puppet show.

The beginning of our Superman performance!

Tuesday I had no lesson because I had my final English oral :(

Thursday lesson we spent going through the blogs and how we need to improve and go into more depth! Our blog is going to be very important when it comes to our TPPP's and it is also a part of our course to have a journal.
Mr Fearnehough asked if he could use my blog as an example to correct and know where to add more reflections and examples. I don't mind using my blog because it will help myself and everyone else.
After going through my blog again, I understand that the things I need to improve on is :

• making links to other parts of the course
• going into more depth
• explaining the points I make

After such a busy week with tonnes of advice and points with the workshop, I did not talk about everything that I should have. It was good to go through the blog and talk about what we needed to improve. I have corrected the blog and will now continue to keep my blog updates with many examples and in depth because it is important that I understand things for when I go back on for my TPPP.

Friday in our double lesson, we had two hours to create our Action Plan for Bunraku and also come up with our next moves!
Creating the action plan now was quite good because it meant that we had to think about everything we had already done and this also meant we ended up reflecting of these things as a result because of discussion. We then had to think about what we need to do now for our Bunraku project and that is to create a performance and then perform!
Having the double session gave us chance to think about all the things we need to think about for our performance. We don't have long to create and practice so I find that we got a lot done in this lesson.
As we already did a short performance to some of Primary, we know that we want to go back there and do something bigger and better. They also demanded we do a performance that they can see!
As we knew our target audience, we had to think of a message and idea that is suitable for a younger audience. We have main goals and that is that we want our piece to be entertaining and educational!
We thought about the problems a younger child would be facing and wanted to create a piece that can be educational. Some of the ideas we came up with were:

• cheating on a test
• waste of water, food, electricity, paper...
• being friendly
• manners/respect
• Being left out

Our idea we like the most because there is more of an issue to do with school life and home life, also it will be something educational.
As we only have one puppet and we need three people to operate one puppet and there is only three of us, we had to think of solutions to the way our story would go with just one puppet and if it was actually possible.
We know that children love super heros and goodies/baddies so we took this idea of having our puppet waste food and then a devil and angel tell him what is right and he is persuaded to not waste things, he then becomes a super hero.
I think that our idea is brilliant because it fits perfectly to children and is also fun and educational which are our main goals! Thrashing out all these ideas on paper really helped us to share our ideas and combine ideas together.
We were influenced by the handspring puppet company to add some shadow puppetry into our piece too. They used it in their show and we think that it would be good to add in more types of puppetry into our piece and it would also work very well to show the devil and angel part.
Having all of these ideas come into place makes me excited and I hope that they work out well! We should start to work on our performance physically now!

Tuesday's and Thursday's lesson was spent creating a puppet made out of newpaper and masking tape in preparation for Friday’s workshop with the 3 Ouroboros actresses. We managed to create a pretty good puppet (which we rushed at the end). I think we did a good job in making a puppet that we were able to manipulate well.

Friday the 3 puppeteers came in, we started by learning each other’s names with a warm up exercise. We stood around in a circle and said our names to a clapping beat; we then said it in a different voice and then went on to add an action. This helped create the ensemble feel and make us feel more comfortable with the 3 actresses. We then watched the Ted Talk Video about Handspring Puppet Theatre. On this Ted Talk we were shown a puppet of a hyena and we were explained about the movement and manipulation of all puppets. The video then went on to talk about War Horse and a horse puppet was shown on stage. It was so life like and the characteristic of a horse was portrayed amazingly by the movement of ears, the legs and even the breaths and sounds.

 I learnt that you have to understand the body of an animal or human to be able to manipulate a puppet which is an animal or a human.

Before working with our puppet ‘Monty’ we worked on ‘eyeline’. Eyeline is the second most important thing when it comes to puppetry. We used teddy bears and each had an actress pointing where to look and we would have to make the teddy react to where the actress was and move to that point. At first I found this hard but then when I put my eye near to where the teddy’s eyes were it was much easier for me to get the Eyeline right. I realised how important eyeline is and if it is off it can change the whole thing the puppet is looking at so maybe changing the story.

After this we started working with ‘Monty’. I was the right hand puppeteer, Lydia was the foot puppeteer and Axel was head puppeteer. I think I had the easiest role to do, because Axel had to speak and remember to control the eyeline and keep the puppet alive. Lydia seemed extremely uncomfortable in the positions she had to do. My role was to only love the right hand according to to left and what axel was doing. Even though I thought my role was easy it was quite tricky to be coordinated with Axel and what the 3 puppeteers said ‘you have to die in order for the puppet to live’ is very much true.

We spent a long time focussing on our puppets movement; we were all focussing but sometimes forgot even if the puppet id lying down it is breathing. We also learnt that we have to think about our own actions so that we can portray the correct actions of the puppet in order for it to be realistic. If we did not do the actions properly it would not be as effective.

After we worked on the movement of ‘Monty’ we all created a short piece to perform to years 2 and 4. We wanted to make our little piece funny because we thought it would keep the children intrigued and it would be more successful than if we did something serious. We had the idea of using lazzi which we learnt when we studied Commedia last year. We thought that ‘Monty’ could have his own puppet show and that things could go wrong. We decided on him making a pancake and then making him drop it which would be slapstick and then we got a volunteer from the audience to have a go at flipping a pancake. Of course this pancake was not real but it was still enjoyable and didn’t stop the flow of our piece. We got lots of laughs off the children which was our aim. During the performance I thought that we succeeded with the way we worked together and manipulated the puppet.

After the performance we helped the year 4’s and 2’s make puppets for themselves, we helped them create the puppets and explained to them how to move the heads and body parts. I saw that the children understood about the movement of the head and I saw a lot of them manipulating the heads.

It was so amazing to have 3 professionals with us, I think it will help us with future work and their experience and knowledge helped us a lot with our own puppet ‘Monty’. It was very exciting to work with the young children again and I am excited to possibly work with primary again this time on our own showing the things we have learnt from the 3 puppeteers

Ouroboros

First, I’ll concentrate on my RI. IT’S DONE. OVER. FINISHED. I won’t lie and say I’m not relieved it’s over, because I am. Very much so.  ON Thursday, we handed in our final drafts, after some last verbal feedback from Mr. F, who was (for our own good) being the pickiest person alive. Nevertheless, I feel that the RI has taught me a lot about researching a particular subject. What was especially interesting was that the subject was completely new to me, meaning I had to do extra research just to understand the subject (in occurrence, Japanese Noh Theatre). As well as teaching me about research, this benefitted me as an IB theatre student in that during the research and writing stage of my RI, I was able to draw up comparisons between the theatre I was studying and the Theatre I had studied, leading me to a better understanding of Theatre in global terms. 

However, this was only the minor story of the week. We also went to see Ouroboros, the new production by the Handspring Puppet Company, made world famous by their West End hit, War Horse. This play was interesting, to say the least. This piece focused on telling its story through the movement of the puppets. AS such, it had no dialogue, except for a narrator reciting the poem ‘Aristotle’ by Billy Collins. It told the story of life, its beginning, middle and end. The play’s story was that of a love story between poet Andre and dancer Nokobonisa. However, both struggle with commitment due to unresolved childhood issues. Andre watched his parents’ marriage dissolve as a young boy whilst Nokobonisa lost a person she loved dearly when she was just a child as well.  AS they try and build a relationship, their tormented souls (shown in the play by smaller puppets representing Andre and Nokobonisa as children) try and stop them in order to protect them. For me, what made it particularly emotive was the realism displayed by the puppets movements. In particular, the scene where a young Andre plays with his toys was very evocative as it reminded of my own childhood.

In our lesson on Friday (the show had been on Thursday night) Mr. F asked us to think of three words to sum up our feelings in the play. After class discussion, my final three words were surreal, truthful and coordination. Surreal because the puppets and what they represented transcended the medium of stage and were real. I called it a “painting come alive” because that’s the only way I could describe it. Truthful because the message was timeless, universal. A similar sort of message can be found in Charlie Chaplin’s “the Great Dictator”. Something that can be relevant anywhere, anytime. Coordination simply because of the effort and teamwork shown by the puppeteers. With three puppeteers per puppet, it was obvious that it was tiring and hard work yet the puppets only seemed all the more real for that. This was just my opinion, my interpretation of the play. Yet this play has many interpretations. Like “Oh the Humanity” that we saw last October, “Ouroboros” was trying to show its message to anyone who would hear, and everyone came out with a different idea of what the play meant. This has shown me as a theatre student that some plays have dual messages. One is universal, for everyone to grasp and understand. The other is at a much more personal level; every person takes back something different from this play, something to mull over on the drive home.

However, the highlight of the evening came after the play. Mr. F arranged for us to meet three of the cast, or the three actresses in charge of the Nokobonisa character. This means three puppets, with a different head puppeteer for each. This hierarchy is essential because it means that the actors (actresses in this case) are always fully invested in the emotion of the character they’re representing. This is only one of the requirements that have to be fulfilled in a puppet. The acting system they use is called BERPI. However, as will soon become apparent, many of the skills needed in BERPI can be transposed into other styles of acting. In BERPI, the B stands for breath. There are two kinds of breaths in puppet theatre, stop-breaths and go-breaths. Much like their name states, they dictate when the action stops and starts. They are always performed by the head puppeteer. However, as well as informing the other puppeteers of what’s about to happen, they breathe life into the puppet by the style of breathing they use, like scared breathing. This extra degree of emotion really makes the puppet come alive. The E in BERPI stands for eye-line. Eye-line is vital in displaying the puppet as a real person. The puppet’s line of sight means it’s concentrating on something, which means it’s alive. The R stands for rhythm. The puppet must never be still. If its still, its dead. This can sometimes means difficult and awkward movements for the puppeteer, but as one of the puppeteers said in our meeting “the actor must die in order for the puppet to live”. The P stands for physics, or an awareness that puppets can only move in certain ways, so due care must be taken to make them seem real. Finally the I stands for intention. The puppets purpose defines its place in the play. All of these are vital to make a puppet become alive. 

Workshop with HandSpring Puppet company!

We spent Tuesday's and Thursday's lesson creating a puppet made out of newpapers and masking tape in preparation for Friday, where we had a three hours with three puppeteers that we met after the Oubouros show last Thursday!
We thought we wouldn't be able to finish the puppet in time because we only had two hours and I think the way we were working was a bit slow but we managed, we didn't want to let our guests down. I never thought that we could be so creative but we were and we managed to create a puppet that we could actually use too (walk, move, bend) but all stay together.

Friday-
We began our workshop by doing "the name game". We went round the circle and said our names to the clapping beat. We then said it in a different voice and then added an action. In the end we had to remember all the names and actions. This was a good ice breaker and it also helped us to know the girls names too. Ice breakers are important when doing workshops with new people because it makes everyone more comfortable with eachother, more trust is built in the class and it can physically create more energy which is needed for a theatre workshop.
We then watched a Ted Talk video on Handspring Puppetry.
It was an amazing video and it showed us the horses from warhorse. What I learnt from the video was that every aspect of the puppet is important. You have to understand the body perfectly in order to copy it correctly and understand every inch of the actions. For example the horses ears in warhorse, the ear is something you wouldn't think off that much to show an emotion but for a horse it is and the ears move in many different ways that show emotion in Warhorse and it is essential!
We tried out some eyeline activities to begin with, this would help us to know how to control an object and be able to have eyeline between the puppet and something else. Eyeline is key to make that character interaction and create emotional pauses in a puppetry piece.
We each had a teddy and walked around the room getting eyecontact. We had to understand that our movements for the puppets had to be simple instead of hugely expressive otherwise it isn't as realistic. They said that less is more for puppetry which is true because they have to be like humans and we cannot be too expressive otherwise it is unrealistic. This links into other work we have done like the mask work for Commedia, we could not be too expressive because we had to make the maks come alive.
We went into pairs and they guided us for where our puppet should be looking. I struggled to move m puppet but I was okay at the eyeline. I realise how important eyeline is because it creates the human in the puppet. I really struggled to do this with my teddy because it was really stiff, I couldn't move it to get the correct eyeline and it was also very small. I was told to switch and I was much better afterwards.

We tried out walking the puppet first. I was the foot puppeteer, It took me a really long time to find the most comfortable but moveable position I could get myself in. I realise that if I am doing the feet, I will never be truly comfortable. But as the three puppeteers said before " you have to die in order for the puppet to live". I feel like it is important to be comfortable because it can be difficult to concentrate when you are in pain and this could distract you from the actual puppet. I am a beginner at puppetry, so I found it difficult to do because you are put into many different positions and can struggle to get out of them in time and keep up with everyone else.
We spent a long time walking round with the puppet, making it sit down, lie down and do normal human things. We learnt obviously how to do that but we learnt that it is important to always be thinking about our own actions when moving the puppet to know the true actions of a human.

Axel, Bekki and I created a short performance for the yr 4 and yr 2 class. It was our puppet Monty having his own cooking show. We wanted audience interaction so the children would feel that the puppet was real and we wanted some comedy for the children. We got lots of reactions and even though it was only a short performance, we felt that we succeeded in our main goals (just for us) which was being successful in manipulating the puppet. With just two hours practise of learning how to move our puppet, I felt we did an amazing job. I found it went well when we involved the audience, when we flipped the pancake and it went wrong because it added to the human which was one of our main goals. The way we moved monty was not perfect though because sometimes the legs weren't in time with the head. I think we need to get used to understanding not to go too fast because it is hard to keep up with for the feet. But with only two hours practice, I think that it went pretty good!
We then did two workshops with the children where we helped them to create their own puppet. I realise that the puppeteers only was telling them how to make it but I decided to help the kids know how to move the puppets by feet and head. They followed my fingers to get eyeline and this helped me talk about my own knowledge so that someone else could understand it even if they were only young.
I learnt so much about how to manipulate the puppet and having the three puppeteers themselves be there to correct us and praise us when we were practising helped a lot because they gave some amazing advice like:

• eyeline is important in character interaction and audience interaction
• less is more - don't exaggerate too much in the movement
• don't walk too fast because other parts of the body cannot keep up
• always keep the puppet alive with breathing and tiny movements!

The things that I struggle with when being a puppeteer is:

• when I am the foot puppeteer, I struggle to keep up with the other puppeteers
• trying not to exaggerate too much
• don't use that many movements in one go.

The things that I feel I am good at :

• using my own emotions and transferring them into the puppet
• understanding key things a puppet needs to have throughout the performance
• staying on the floor being very uncomfortable

Ouroboros 

On Thursday 7th of November we went to watch Handspring Puppet Company in their piece 'Ouroboros'. This show was incredible and the puppets were so realistic it was so intriguing to watch. After the show we had the amazing chance to meet 3 of the actresses manipulating the puppets, we had the chance to talk to them about the process of rehearsals and teamwork and they gave us advice for how we could work to make our own puppets. One of the actresses talked to us about 'BERPI'  which stands for:
Breath - Breathing life into the puppet.
Eyeline - focus of the puppet itself.
Rythm - how the puppet moves
Physics - shows the realness of the puppet
Intention- what is the point of the puppet.
The actress told us that 'BERPI' was important to keep in mind when we would be performing with our puppets. It would make it the piece more realistic.

We found out that head puppeteer is always the same for the specific puppets which is something i certainly didn't know at first so was useful to know so we can do the same when we will make our puppets. Another actresses suggested we should do trust exercises to get us started before actually using a puppet, which is what we exactly did so it was good to know we were on the right track. One of the actresses told us that when manipulating a puppet it requires mental sharpness and being in sync this links to the concentration exercise we did about our mental focus on what we are doing and being in sync for manipulating the puppets.
We were also told 'The actor must die in order for the puppet to live' to me this means that the actor must be in pain in order for the puppet to look realistic, in some  performance the actor will be put in painful positions they will have to maintain in order for the puppet to work.
We then talked to the actresses about rehearsals and we were told that it only took 4 weeks for them to rehearse which surprised me because i thought it would of taken much more longer because of the manipulating of the puppets. They told us that for a few days they spent on testing eye-line, which i had never considered before but i realized quickly when one of the actresses brought the puppet out that it is very important because if the puppet does not look in focus on what it is specifically there in the piece it will not look believable.
We were told one of the most important things is that the puppet should always be breathing and always moving if not then our belief is broken and we cannot believe in it which ruins the piece.

The next day we talked about the piece we saw the previous night and were told to write 3 words down about the piece, the words i chose were.
Intriguing - to watch how the puppets come to life through the actors. 
Focus - of the puppeteers on the puppets and being aware of whats around them
Trust - in each other, how they work together to make one puppet come to life and tell a story.

Other words that were thought of by Lydia, Axel and Mr.Fearnehough was:
Imaginative
Surreal
Authentic
Truthful
Coordination
Ensemble

These words more or less connect together to show that we all came out of the performance with a certain feeling and emotion to what we saw.

What I realized: 

- All in breath - Breathing life into the puppet is one of the most important things to do.

What I already knew: 
- Concentration  and the trust exercises needed to work together and gain trust.
- How BERPI can be put in any sort of acting.

As actors we cannot give up on the puppet mentally but also we cannot give up physically unless we want to fail. Whilst talking as an ensemble we talked about the pauses in the piece which we realized was marking the moment, so that we took away that specific moment which would help us with a meaning of what we were watching. The marking of some of the moments was when death was shown on stage through the puppets, which reminds the audience that death is so close to everyone and everyday people could be joking death or be very close to it and no one being aware. This is interesting to realize because it reminds us that we have to live to our fullest but still be reminded of whats important in our lives which id life itself.

Talking a bit more we realised that these moments conencted to Brecht, Bertolt Brecht wanted to make an audience revolt about what they saw although in 'Ouroboros' the director wanted to mark the moments she did it in a way that people would be reminded of life. 'Ouroboros' had an important message just like Brecht's plays people leave understanding that message.

Talking more about the piece we realized that dialogue was not always important in a piece and does not offer more clarity. 'Ouroboros' did not have much dialogue which i find made it better because i thought it showed that it was a representation of everyone because it looks at life and death so everyone in the world is involved, if dialogue was added i think it would break the belief of the puppets and how realistic they showed to be.

Beginning of Second term yr 13

Tuesday 6th November

Thursday 8th November
Today was the deadline for our RI's. I thought I was going to like this assessment because I like finding out about types of Theatre I don't know much about, but I didn't like it that much. I stuggle finding good research and I hate how perfect all the referencing has to be!
I do realise that it has to be done and I want to do well so i just got on with it. When we came to handing it in, we realised there were little things that were wrong with our essays that needed to be changed otherwise we could lose little marks that count a lot. I was getting a bit frustrated when I found out about these marks but I just got on with it during the day and we all handed in our RI's at the end of the day which was good. I am glad that it is out of the way and we can move on with our other assesments now.

We went to see a production on Thursday night in the TNT to watch the production of Ouroboros by the Handspring Puppet Company. I thought that is was an amazing production, better than what I thought it was going to be. We were lucky enough to get the chance to have a half an hour chat with three of the puppeteers after the show and they even got out a puppet to show us how it works. Our class, as there is only three of us, all controlled a part of the puppet and made it walk. It was an amazing experience and we are very lucky to have had it.

Friday 9th November
Today we were going to make puppets but instead we discussed about everything that happened at the production, what we learnt and what we thought. You would think talking about a play that was an hour and a half for two hours the next morning would be a waste of time but it really wasn't!
Three words that I think represented the play and why:

• emotional-I thought that it was emotional because it made me think about life and death more than you would. There were no words and you had to think much more about what was going on and this made the whole story more emotional and a personal experience.
• reflective- You think a lot about your own life in connection to the story and think about the future and past. Everyone has their own take on the story.
• imaginative-Everything was creative from the story to everything on set. Created a surreal experience with no words, all actions.

I found that it struck me more than other theatre productions that I have seen because even though it was puppets, it seemed more human. There was no dialogue, no people trying to be something their not, no accents, no onstage voices. It didn't seem fake, the puppets emotions and actions seemed much more true than a human actor.
I learnt that there was a relationship between the puppet and puppeteer because I thought that they were just their to control what the puppet did. But now I realise they have to physically and mentally be there with the puppets. The puppeteers have to know and understand what emotions their puppets are meant to have, in order for the puppets to be able to pull of the emotions.
All the suttle little movements that the puppets made the whole show because that's what made it realistic and made the story hit you. The puppets took time to look at things and stare. This had impact on the whole show because it created a relationship with the audience and it marked a moment. The puppets eyes had no white, it was all black. This helped because when it looked towards you or something, it could look at more than one thing but to the audience it looks like it looks just at you, which is skilful and helpful for the puppeteers.
Everything i saw about how the puppets are, how they work, how to make them work, is going to impact all my own work with puppets.
We found connections to Brecht's epic theatre. The director like Brecht made the puppets freeze to give emphasis and deliver the message just like Brecht wanted to in his performances. ANother link was Brecht 'Epic' means episodes, each scene had a meaning, just like the performance we saw. There was a message all the time and lots going on but only a couple of climaxes.