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Adult puppet theater: puppet intervention and uprising

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Bread and Puppet Circus has spawned generations of fabulous puppeteers

I first met up with Bread and Puppet Circus in the mid-1970s, because I was singing Sacred Harp music (as well as Balkan music with Laduvane) and performed with the Word of Mouth chorus, based in Vermont near the puppet folks and interwoven with them.

Their tall, ponderous, eerie figures fascinated me, so it was with great delight a few years ago that I realized we had a local troupe here in North Carolina carrying on the tradition.

I wanted to share a few adult puppetry resources with you. (When I say "adult," I don't mean in the unsavory sense - I simply mean, the story lines of the shows are not specifically geared towards children.)

Really, REALLY big elephant puppet...

The Sultan's Elephant by Jean Luc Courcoult

Visit Royal de Luxe Puppet website to see more of their work.

More from Royal de Luxe street theater company

The Little Giantess

Royal de Luxe street theatre company titled "The Berlin Reunion". Part of the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Reunion show featured two massive marionettes, the Big Giant, a deep-sea diver, and his niece, the Little Giantess. The storyline of the performance has the two separated by a wall, thrown up by "land and sea monsters". The Big Giant has just returned from a long and difficult - but successful - expedition to destroy the wall, and now the two are walking the streets of Berlin, seeking each other after many years apart.

The Giant (friend of the little Giantess above)

Carrboro's own "Paperhand Puppet Intervention"

Go to the Eno Festival or one of the street fairs in Hillsborough and you will hear the sound of wild music and the majestic approach of huge puppets, some operated by several people. The Paperhand Puppet folks hold workshops, teach people how to make their puppets, and then welcome them into community spectacles.

About their 2009 summer show, The Living Sea: "Remembering and reclaiming fragments of our collective story. This show investigates and celebrates the richness and complexity of our inner life, our dreams, and our connection with all that is; using giant puppets, painted cardboard, masks, stilts, shadows and more, all performing to live music by the Paperhand band. "

Documentary film about Paperhand Puppets: "A puppet intervention"

Mark Barroso is the film-maker

Fork in the Road Films has made this dvd, subtitled: "A documentary film about making the world a better place with music, cardboard, paper mache, dance and a whole lot of sweat."

From the website:

A Puppet Intervention takes you behind the curtain of one of the most innovative and original theatrical events in North Carolina. Radical puppetry as alternative community theater - all to a killer soundtrack..

Bursting forth with dance, shadow puppets, stilt walking, masks, music and even a little vaudeville, this film follows the tumultuous creation of one show, the 2007 production of "A Shoe for Your Foot."

Since 1998, Paperhand founders Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger have been recycling discarded cloth, donated paint and cardboard found in dumpsters to create spectacular summer shows and festival pageants. Theater doesn't get any more grassroots than this.



He's screening it around the country. Contact Mark at info@apuppetintervention.com

More about "A Puppet Intervention"

Filmmaker Barroso followed the Paperhand Puppet people as they put on a show.

Buy the dvd from Fork in the Road Films. From the press release:

From chaos comes art, and from art, a community.

For thousands of people in the community of Chapel Hill, NC, a picnic and a puppet show under the stars is an annual August tradition. That's right. A puppet show.

Not the Captain Kangaroo variety, but a spectacular production featuring giant, other-worldly creatures, original music performed by a live band, and stories that seem simultaneously ancient and modern - all performed in a primitive amphitheater made of stone.

Paperhand Puppet Intervention not only tells stories with recycled cardboard, found fabric and donated paint, but weaves together a grassroots community of art, music and environmental activism. "I've lived in a lot of different places and it's hard to find something that connects you to the community the way something like this does," says an audience member in the film after a performance. "I can't imagine this existing in a whole lot of places. It's just very special."

This film documents the tumultuous creation of the 2007 production of "A Shoe for Your Foot." As puppeteers and musicians fish in a swirling tidal pool of ideas, everyone must persevere through extreme heat, exhaustion and creative differences. Indecision and physical illnesses threaten to de-rail the show. While juggling day jobs, the puppeteers rehearse in an abandoned cotton mill with no air conditioning while the band practices at night in an empty school room.

PHPI is the creation of Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger, two artists in their 30's who, since 1998, make a modest living by creating environmental puppet shows for children, cajoling pedestrians into parades and staging an annual performance on the campus of the University of North Carolina. Their work also shows up at peace rallies and street protests.

Whether a shadow puppet a few inches high or a massive dragon 30 feet tall, a PHPI performance is inspired by a deep love of nature and the storyteller's drive to find meaning in everyday life. A Puppet Intervention features original music by The Paperhand Band, a talented and eclectic group of musicians who can shift from roots rock to polka to world beat rhythms - all within a single show. The Southern Documentary Fund is the fiscal sponsor for the film.

Puppet Uprising - based in Philadelphia

"Dedicated to the art of the puppet underground"

From their website: Since June of 2000 Puppet Uprising has hosted more than 75 events in Philadelphia featuring hundreds of puppet shows by scores of different artists, many coming from other cities that boast thriving puppetry scenes of their own. Lots of them bring their shows on the road, hopping from town to town, performing in all kinds of places along the way.

They also promote "cheap art" - Cheap Art Bazaars enable artists to offer their work to people who might not otherwise buy art.

Just as bands sell recordings and t-shirts at their concerts, touring puppeteers sell their art to help with travel expenses and to offer up a momento of their performance.

Other artwork comes from Puppet Uprising's organizers and other artists who operate outside of the gallery system. Prices range from 50 cents to 50 dollars and artists sell their work directly without the intervention of a middleman or gallery taking a cut. This helps keep art cheap!

Posters from the archives of the Philadelphia Puppet Uprising shows

Read the posters and discover the world of adult puppetry in America













"Wise Fool" puppet intervention

From the Wise Fool website:

Wise Fool evolved out of an effort to heighten the visual impact of the Hiroshima Day Action at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in July 1989.

Currently Wise Fool artists have moved on to other vital arts and community projects and rejoin occaisionally to host puppet events. Wise Fool Community Arts continues as a fiscal umbrella for several community projects.

"In the traditions of public art and processional theatre, we combine giant puppetry, mask, stiltdancing, wild costumes, eclectic sculpture, music, movement, fire and song to create highly participatory, issue-oriented, outdoor theatre that is accessible to all.

We develop and produce full length theatre works, visually support a wide range of community and cultural organizations and offer free and low cost workshops in puppetry arts, stiltwalking and processional theatre.

It is our intention to use art as a vehicle for community building and education, to promote cultural diversity and to gain media exposure for vital issues by creating striking imagery that cannot be ignored. Wise Fool's work is the distillation of many voices and concerns. We continually seek to create opportunities for people to experience playfulness, magic and hope."

The NEW Wise Fool Handbook

A 100 page booklet with detailed instructions on making masks, building giant puppets, walking on stilts and more! See their website, below.

Paperhand Puppets' 10th annual summer show: the Living Sea of Memory

I went to see them Saturday, August 15, 2009

I'm a mentor, and so I took my "mentee" and her sister to see the show tonight at the Forest Theater on the UNC campus. There were four short pieces:

  • The Living Sea ("our version of the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation epic) with fabulous huge monsters;
  • The Quest ("inspired by the tale "Iron John" and carrying forward gifts we all received from the passing of a dear friend and teacher)
  • Memory ("created by asking the cast to share with us their own family stories")
  • Beginnings ("from the Mayan writings of the Popul Vuh. We discovered these stories through our readings and travels to southern Mexico")
We were all rapt. We hooted and hollered. The band was exceptionally fine. Goallllll!



























Have a great time and help a kid: be a mentor!

Puppet making (or watching) is a great thing to do with children and teens.

Somewhere close by, there's a 4th grader who could really use a buddy. I love being a mentor and look forward to the time I spend with Jeimy. We inspire each other. You have a lot to gain!
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Giant banker puppet riding a cardboard horse

Picture from Andrew Ciskel's flickr photostream

Links related to adult puppetry and "Carnivalesque" theater

Fork in the Road Films
Buy the documentary about Paperhand Puppet Intervention; two other dvds of their shows also available.
Paperhand Puppet website
Pictures, information on shows, etc.
Puppet Uprising - North America
Since June of 2000 Puppet Uprising has hosted more than 75 events in Philadelphia featuring hundreds of puppet shows by scores of different artists, many coming from other cities that boast thriving puppetry scenes of their own. Lots of them bring their shows on the road, hopping from town to town, performing in all kinds of places along the way.

Puppet Uprising North America is a web page dedicated to this thriving community of puppet happening-makers. Click on one of the region buttons above or scroll down to see listings of upcoming puppet events, tours and festivals around North America.

This page promotes puppet shows primarily for adults, though most are suitable for people of all ages.
Wise Fool Puppet Intervention
They sell a book on puppet and stilt making.
Book: "68 Ways to Make Really Big Puppets"
Line drawings of big puppets to show how they are constructed and manipulated. No detailed, step-by-step construction information.
1600-today: Radical puppetry | libcom.org
... Czechoslovakia, now an undisputed leader in puppetry, began its saga in the nineteenth century. The Czech language was banned by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, but puppeteers performed in Czech as an act of defiance. During the Nazi invasions, puppeteers resisted, despite the forced closing and banning of literally hundreds of theatres. Anti-fascist plays by Karel Capek were staged in underground venues along with theatrical interpretations of modern poetry. During public performances, they used allegory in order to slip subversive (and with audiences' expectations, anticipated) remarks past the censors...

wise fool radical puppetry

A History of Radical Puppetry ending "So the last years we have seen another surge of political puppetry and puppet events--The Insurrection Landscapers, Spiral Q, Shoddy Puppet, Puppet Uprising and the Black Sheep Festival on the east coast, Puppetropolis and Red Moon Theater and the Combustible Puppet Cabaret in Chicago, Cry of the Rooster, Risk of Change and the Illuminated Fools on the west coast to name just a very few names.

And here we are today! We continue forward in history as the unnamed puppeteer, hidden behind the mask of the puppet, giving voice to the people.
Educate. Agitate. Animate!!"
Wise Fool puppetry: "Circo de Manos: Report from Chiapas"
... Circo de Manos wove traditional circus with puppets and masks to create a show which entertained all ages regardless of culture or language barriers. Images included a stiltwalking horse, jaguars, a strongman, a trapeze artist, tap dancing birds and a "super abuela" or super-granny who raced against kids from the crowd with her son on her back...

Das Puppenspiel Theatre with Puppets
Das Puppenspiel Puppet Theater is a professional touring puppet theatre offering award-winning mainstage productions and other programming to theatres, schools, arts councils, museums, special events, and Îliveâ orchestras throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Some of my other puppetry lenses

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Puppet-making on Amazon

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This lens is part of Chapel Hill Fiddler's Puppets & Masks CollectionPunch and Judy • How to Make your Own Punch & Judy Dolls • Casting a plaster mold to make a paper mache head • Punch & Judy show: the other characters • Bread and Puppet Circus • How to Make a Handmade Parade • Adult Puppet Theater • Make a La Llorona paper mache mask • Scary Masks from Afar • How to make a giant puppet and an El Tigre head • The giant head masks of Jane Filer • Make a space alien head from papier mache • Creep masks for Halloween inspiration • See all the puppet lenses at once • The scary recycled puppets of artist Michel Nedjar

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Some of my music lenses

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ChapelHillFiddler

Musician in Chapel Hill with two bands: Mappamundi, a world music - klezmer - swing band, and the Pratie Heads, a Celtic - British Isles - early music... more »

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