Archives for category: Promotion
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Fantastic News

February 17, 2014 //
6

push push and harvey

It is about time for some real feel-good news. And we finally got some. It was quite funny and very unassuming, but now all the Dedes are celebrating. Here is the story.

Late last night, Push Push the elephant walked up to Harvey and said, “Harvey, you are a sponsored puppet, aren’t you? What do you actually have to do?” Harvey looked at her from top to bottom and back again, and said, “You have to find yourself a sponsor, you silly thing!”

“No, that’s not what I mean” she said. “What do you do when you are a sponsored puppet?” Harvey still didn’t get it, but Mouse jumped in. “Does this mean you’ve got a sponsorship?” she cried. “Yes,” said Push Push and suddenly got emotional with little tears glistening in the corner of her eyes. “Someone is sponsoring me. But I have no idea how I can thank this person!”  Mouse jumped up and down with joy and hugged Push Push over and over again. “Oh, you lucky, lucky Dede! You might get out of here before it all falls to pieces.”

But now Harvey stepped in and pushed Mouse to the side. “Oh no, a sponsorship is not a ticket out! It is quite the contrary. You get a sponsorship so that you stay.” All of a sudden he was the cool dude, the old experienced hand in sponsorships, which is in fact true, as he found his sponsor last year at the exhibition in July. He explained to Push Push that she will have to send Christmas cards and birthday cards to her sponsor and hold her hand up as often as possible to appear in films and on the blog, so that people see her and her value increases. She also might have to go out to lunch with her sponsor from time to time. “I am having a lunch date with my sponsor this Friday. It is not as easy as it sounds. It’s bordering on work” he finished off and folded his arms across his chest, just a tad miffed that he wasn’t so special anymore.

“Oh no, I won’t go out for lunches, my sponsor lives overseas! And I am happy to write Christmas cards and birthday cards. I will write one every month, I am starting right now!”

“Oh dear,” Harvey rolled his eyes. “How on earth did she find a sponsor?”

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Categories Absurd, Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, Relationships, Social Network

What’s up?

December 17, 2013 //
7

lippy

I know, I have been pretty slack lately with writing on my blog. Last year around this time the Dedes were extremely busy having their Super Dede competition. This year they are moping about in their dark cupboard. Due to dramatic changes in my work life I am currently preoccupied with research. I have to re-invent myself yet again. The more research I do, the more I am convinced that I want to stay with puppetry in the future. The other day, I had to laugh when I read in a book by Kenneth Gross called “Puppets” what puppeteer Michael Vogel said. He said that  once, while working on a piece based on Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen, he felt many old, unused puppets in his studio asking for a chance for new work. Always, he said, even when he could not use them, “I try to be polite, so they are not annoyed or frustrated.” (p 76). I had to read this out loud to the Dedes. They shouldn’t get too precious, other puppets have problems too!

Personally, I am busy with heaps of stuff, but I am terribly superstitious. I don’t want to talk about half-baked things. I strongly believe if I talk prematurely, they don’t work out. But I can tell you, I will be really happy when 2013 is finally over. It was such a crap year, it can only get better next year :). My puppetry workshop has finally been announced in the Term 1 programme of Artstation. So if you are living in Auckland and want to know more about puppets: Do enrol! (grrrrrr, I hate blatant self-promotion). However, I need to get enough enrolments for the course to take place. I am definitely looking forward to it. Unfortunately puppetry is not very big in New Zealand.

The puppet in the picture is another project I can now start talking about. It is the prototype for the main character in a short film (a very short film, but longer than the flash dramas the Dedes usually do). The film is a collaboration between a therapist in Australia, a playwright in England and myself. An interesting way to work, it all happens by email and it’s working very well. We have submitted the film to a conference that will take place in April. So there is a definite deadline and it is a lovely project to escape the Christmas blues.

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Categories Art, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, Relationships, workshop

Puppet meeting

November 22, 2013 //
2

conference

Admittedly, communication between the Dedes and me hasn’t been so hot lately and I sensed there is a lot of uncertainty about what is going to happen; what I have lined up for them. I have a history of doing new things and just presenting them with what they have to do next. But I strongly believe somebody has to make the decisions around here. Personally, I am not a big fan of decisions by committee: when you try to please everybody you always end up with something boringly average. The majority of the Dedes, on the other hand, are a comfortable lot and are not very keen on change. So to debunk their fears I thought I would invite them to a full Dede puppet meeting and explain what I am up to, even though it only marginally affects them.

Would you believe it? A mere five puppets showed up. Out of how many? 63, 64. Isn’t it pathetic? Behind closed cupboard doors they whisper and complain. You would think they are planning a mutiny. But when they could come out and have their say, hardly anybody showed up.

They had their chance, and not showing up is not my fault. I still went ahead and told them what I have planned for next year and why all these strangely constructed actors have shown up. These are samples for a puppet workshop I am holding at a community artschool in Auckland in the beginning of next year. The course follows my own path into puppetry from the visual arts perspective, rather than from a theatrical point. I am keen to convey the self explorational properties of puppet making and it’s magical uses as a problem-solving tool. In one session I will use the Dedes, but ultimately I want the students to unleash their own creative thinking when it comes to puppet making. And by the end of the course we will have made a stop motion film. I am quite excited about this project.

But wait, there is more. I was invited by the manager of Estuary Arts Centre in Orewa (just north of Auckland) to co-curate a puppet month in July next year. We envisage a festival of puppet making, story telling and performance, and not just for children. This week I put an EOI note on Big Idea. It would be amazing to bring a bunch of puppeteers together and further object theatre in New Zealand. Needless to say I am equally excited about this project.

So, fingers crossed, I can find enough students for the course to run and enough puppeteers to make puppet month happen…

The Dedes didn’t say much. They just wandered off when they realised my plans really didn’t involve them. I guess they didn’t know what to think about all this and have to confer with the other lot that stayed in the cupboard.

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Categories Art, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, Relationships, workshop

And here is the film

October 28, 2013 //
12

Here it is: The film of the Dede Dada do!

First the link and then I’ll tell you all about it.

The film is dedicated to fellow blogger Tony who has the blog x-raypics.  Tony kindly sent me a Dada poem when I first floated the idea back in June. He works in radiography and uses a speech recognition program to convert his spoken notes into written text. He found out that when you feed this program with real poems it spits out Dada type text. So he kindly provided me with a sample called Dada Jack and Jill. (Figure out the original text :))

On Saturday, finally, a few people gathered in my studio to create a short film around the poem. Professor loves the arts and held his hand up to perform. A good disscussion ensued as not all the Dedes share his enthusiasm for this type of art. While Cash Cow is also fond of the arts, for her it has to be accessible and make sense. (Only the initiated will know why she is wearing a feather boa). I don’t know how many of the other puppets clapped and cheered only because that’s what you do when you watch a performance. Needless to say we had a lot of fun on and off the stage and thank you Tony for your wonderful poem.

We ran out of time on Saturday to record the spoken words, but I always thought it might be nice to do the full circle and use a TTS (text to speech) program to read out the text. I spent yesterday afternoon putting the film together and the first program I used was difficult to understand. Originally I considered it wasn’t important that the conversion back into voice was turned into unrecognisable mumble jumble and uploaded the file last night. But then, if you watch the film without knowing the background story, it might be viewed as poor quality. That irked me all night. This morning I found a new program and replaced Professor’s voice. Apologies to all the people I have sent the link to already. I really owed it to my collaborators to make the best possible film out of the material we’d produced on Saturday.

And now I have the sequal in my head, I guess I have to run another workshop. Any takers?

 

 

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, Social Network, workshop

Dede Dada do

October 27, 2013 //
0

Yesterday was the big day. The official opening of the Dede studio space! And what a wonderful day it was. I am not one for big parties and hadn’t invited many. Even thought the Dedes want to pull a big crowd, I prefer it when everybody can talk to everybody and rather have a few little parties than one big one. Much to the dissappointment of the Dedes there was just a handful of us to watch them perform their Dada poems. Of course, there was a long discussion about the sense and non-sense of Dada poems and in the end we ran out of time. Therefore I can’t show you the film of the show yet :), but it is in the making. Watch this space.

action

I really should have had the camera out in the run up to the event. Then you could have seen Witch throwing her wooden spoon a couple of times while she was preparing the food for the guests, Nothing seemed to work for her. Thankfully, one of the Dede fans brought some tiny muffins that we were going to eat after the show. Guess what? By the time we wanted to have some they were all gone! We suspect Pig can’t read.

pig pigging out

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, workshop

Film: Elephant in Tutu

October 23, 2013 //
6

I had a hard time last night convincing Push Push to publish her video. After all, it is her performance and she has to okay it. (Note to self: Ask for signature before start of recording!). Last night she was exhausted and utterly dissappointed by the reaction of the audience. “They’re Philistines! All of them!” she exclaimed.

When I showed her the film, she had to admit, that she was slightly out of time. She turned round and blamed me for this. Could you believe it? She had in fact practised with a totally different and very nice classical piece. It was me who made her change it at the last minute as her first choice was copyrighted. Note by Push Push: Never let anybody bully you into last minute changes!

She lamented that you get judged by the result, and the result only. The viewers have no idea how much time and hard work goes into practise, practise, practise. And worst are the critics. They sit on their silly red sofa and with one shake of their head they can knock your confidence for good.

I tried to console her. It wasn’t that bad at all… but judge for yourself.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Creative Writing, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion

Monkey’s “help”

September 8, 2013 //
8

lartiste mitzi monkey

The rucksack must have become uncomfortable during the night and they found their way out. But they only made it a few steps to the side, to the rolled-up yoga mat. There I found them in the morning. L’Artiste staring depressed into space, Mitzi squinting up at me, I don’t know what she  is thinking, but she seems to be okay as long as she has a lap to sit on. I have to admit, I am not particularly good with depressed puppets, so pretended I didn’t see them as I walked past on my way to the kitchen. Monkey, who was right behind me, stopped and told L’Artiste in clear words he should snap out of it. Life is hard for everybody. L’Artiste said lamely, “Leave me alone, I want to wallow in my sorrow.”

Monkey shrugged his shoulders. “Ah well then, you can’t be helped!”

And I thought: what happened to my poor Dedes? They were such a fun bunch to have around. I really have to engage them in new projects.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Creative Writing, Exhibition, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, Social Network

The outing

September 7, 2013 //
2

lartiste and mitzi

As Lil’Piggy and Farmer John decided to stay at the Depot Artspace, L’Artiste saw his chance for an outing. “Pick me, pick me” he called every time our paths crossed. “Artists need new impressions. You know this just as well as I do, don’t you?”  How could I say no, particularly as he is featured in the short film that is now showing on Waiheke.  I didn’t need to think twice about who I should take as his partner. I always knew I had to take two Dedes to give a good performance. As it happened, L’Artiste got himself a Lil’Dede cat recently, called Mitzi, and the two of them became inseparable very quickly. So Mitzi  was the second lucky one to come.

We started off in beautiful sunshine here, but by the time we arrived at the wharf a blanket of dark clouds covered the sky and we could see the rain coming down over our suburb in the distance. Pretty much all day we were just a little bit ahead of the weather. It was a pity because the threatening clouds seemed to keep people away and not much happened on the island. There was a busker in front of the gallery and L’Artiste danced his little heart out to the beautiful tunes, but he just couldn’t create much interest.

He was very quiet on the way home and when we finally arrived back, he didn’t want to come out of the rucksack.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Exhibition, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, Relationships

Cultural Excursion

September 4, 2013 //
0

farmerjohn_lilPiggy excursion

Farmer John complained last night that our house wasn’t very stimulating. There’s no pictures on the wall and no furniture in the room where they are staying, only a heap of discarded newspapers in one corner. How can a good farmer educate his piglet? A piglet who hasn’t even learned to read yet?  I guess he has a point. I have to offer them a bit more excitement as they are the only two lil’Dedes who stayed behind when the others went overseas to Waiheke Island. Even though we have no idea whether they are having fun over there, Farmer John just assumes that, having not heard anything, they must be having the time of their lives. And Lil’Piggy and him are loosing out!

As I had to go to Devonport today, I let them tag along to see the current exhibition at the Depot Artspace, where the big Dedes had such a good time. They absolutely loved it. Here Farmer John explains the painting “Indian Spices” by Paul Burke to his mate, who is such a grateful listener. The gallery manager, Cath O’Brien, took the picture and we were both surprised how well Farmer John interpreted what he saw. He sounded quite the expert. When it was time for me to go, they weren’t finished looking around and virtually begged me to be allowed to stay. I reminded them they are supposed to come with me to Waiheke for the artist’s talk on Saturday.  But no, they well and truly had their heart set on staying at the Depot. In the end I left them there. I believe they found a nice vantage point on a shelf.  I only hope they don’t want to go to India next…

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Categories Absurd, Art, Exhibition, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion

Big screening

August 30, 2013 //
12

film still

Remember the little film about L’Artiste’s woes? It looks like it is going to be shown on the big screen at the Waiheke Cinema. I hope the quality is good enough. I’ve changed the ending to advertise that the Dedes are currently being shown on the island at the Upcycle Gallery and that I will have a talk there next Saturday. The Dedes are starting to take on yet another dimension.

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Categories Art, Exhibition, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion
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