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.