Big learning in puppet manipulation today!  We did little scenes with the neutral puppets reacting to an object.  We were put in pairs so that we could have an outside eye make suggestions.  My partner was so helpful and creative in helping me make it clear that there was an unseen character that my puppet was talking to!  Then our teacher checked in and got me to divide up each moment in my scene so that each movement was distinct and specific.  For example:
See the rope.    Kneel.    Pick up the rope.   Shoulder the rope.    Struggle to your feet.   Huff.    Lean back in preparation.    Pull forward with effort.   Huff.
Just as I struggled with getting my students to make their beats distinct this year, I was bleeding one moment into the next, so the puppet's inner monologue was lost.
Breathe.  See.  React. Make each moment distinct.
A puppeteer is not an island.  Everyone needs an outside eye. Videography might help, but a living adviser is such a delight.

We made various kinds of joints today in our building class.  I chose to do simple joints that I knew my students would be able to try too.  Lots of great ideas.

The puppet must breathe to live.  It doesn't do any good to huff and puff oneself if that breath isn't transferred down the arm to the hand. Start with the breath.
 The puppet must see.  It shouldn't just turn and go.  It needs to have a gaze.  Figure out where its eyes or antennae are and let it follow its gaze.
Every movement must have meaning.  Acting is reacting.  The puppet will 'see' and then react.  Turning and running has no meaning if the puppet isn't seeing and reacting.
The armature and material from which the puppet is made is both limiting and liberating.  Embrace the limitations of what the puppet can do, and that will lead to greater creativity.

"Don't be interesting; be interested," Faye Dupras says, quoting one of her teachers.  If the puppet is focused on and reacting to something, WITH BREATH, the audience will focus on the puppet.

Today we got out of our heads and connected our heads and bodies with breath and movement.  We drew expressionistic movement pictures of fabric manipulated by our partners. Then our partners drew fabric we manipulated.  Then we found faces in the expressionistic drawings and went over the faces with a darker color of crayon.  We took our drawings to the prop shop, where we learned how to carve a puppet head from a block of Styrofoam.  Here's mine:

 Another marathon day, but, as promised, here is a description of the rest of yesterday's activities.  We continued with an exploration of object puppetry.  First, we played the game in which everyone uses and object as something other than what it is.  After a few objects were passed around, we turned various objects (scissors, blocks, fabric scraps, etc.) into puppets. Then we brought out all the objects at once and had them interact.  We experimented with blocks as puppets.  We attached one string and explored what the block could do.  Then we attached a 2nd string.  We removed the strings and attached rods -- Rods give much more control, but the serendipity can be lost.  We interacted with another block and then made up a circus act for our blocks.  I was a clown on a trampoline.  My partner and I jumped and flipped, jumped and flipped, jumped and jumped and  - kersplat!
I regret that I have no pictures from this exploration.  I was so focused on what everyone was doing, that I forgot to take any.
After watching and discussing videos of some terrific puppet artists, we all went to the prop shop and built our neutral puppets.  It took a long time, but none of us would quit until it was completed!  
 
 

We have to pace ourselves!  This was a marathon day  We had a warm-up to help us with alignment and to get us out of our heads -- or to connect the head and body more effectively.  Then we moved around the room to various prompts in groups, while the other group would sketch our movement - not sketch us, just the movement  Interesting, freeing exercise.  Then we cut up the paper we had sketched on and investigated the attributes of the paper.  We shaped it and commented on what we observed in each other's 'sculptures.' We re-shaped it and discussion, then we made it into a puppet and experimented with the movement, the breath, the focus, and the thought.  Several of us became very attached to our puppets but most 'cut the cord' when we combined two puppets into one and experimented with its breath, focus, and movement.  This exercise was based on the process of Gary Friedman, who has done workshops in puppetry all over the world.  It really gets to the essence of what puppetry is all about.

 
I'll have to post the rest of today's adventures later.  Tomorrow promises to be even more rigorous.

Today was orientation and the beginning of class.  We all introduced ourselves.  There are several visual artists here who will be great resources for the rest of us.  There are also directors, playwrights, seasoned puppeteers, designers, and novices here.
We played an ice breaker to get to know more about each other.  One is from Australia.  Another is from Trinidad.  Yet another has been to 18 different countries.  My roommate is a fibers and textiles major at MICA. One works at the Factory Theatre. It's a mixed bag - That makes for more creative projects in puppetry.
Ann Powell of Puppetmongers showed us the van load of puppets she has built or bought from around the world.  Hand, rod, string, and shadow -- She starts with the story and then develops the kind(s) of puppets that will best convey the narrative.  That was a repeated theme today.  It's something I have to remind myself of as I become enamored of a particular kind of puppet.  ...Still, I so want to create a set of bunraku-style puppets with multiple heads and costumes!

 

 
 
 
 
 
Just seeing such an eclectic collection of puppets is inspiring.  So many ideas start generating.  tomorrow we will begin with the breath.  Ours and the puppet's, I assume.
One thing all my classmates and I have in common: We were all wiped out by the end of today.  Got to gear up for a longer one tomorrow.

I spent the night in Hamilton with a wonderful woman whom I met in Detroit at the Puppeteers of America Great Lakes conference.  She and her partners in Studio Babette Puppet Theatre Co. were doing two of their fairy tale puppet shows in Ancaster, ON -- The 3 Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the 3 Bears.

What a lot of stuff to unload, unpack, and set up!  This puppetry biz is not for sissies!

I feel so lucky to have had this lead-in to my puppetry intensive.  Terry and Helena explained their choices in telling these stories and adding in various songs and rhymes and puppet actions to give a show that had the children sitting in rapt attention.  Thank you, Studio Babette!

I  am anxiously packing for the Puppetry Intensive Worksop at Humber College in Toronto.
http://creativearts.humber.ca/continuing-education/courses/puppetry?q=continuing-education/courses/puppetry
This is a 2-week workshop that covers manipulation and building of all kinds of puppets.  I have fallen in love with what puppets can achieve that human actors cannot and what puppets can make possible for my students.

So here I go.
I have my lightweight, easy to move in trip clothes, my yoga pants and t-shirts, my blacks, my whites -- I'm prepared for anything...I think.  This is such unknown territory, in spite of the wonderful conferences I have attended with the Puppeteers of America. I took a workshop in shadow puppetry with Faye Dupras at the PoA conference in CT, and when I learned that she was one of the instructors for the Puppetry Intensive, I was hooked.