Archives for category: workshop
Newer Entries »

Look who is back

February 14, 2014 //
6

lost puppets

Out of the blue, Devil showed up. And can you believe it? He had Lizzie and Lil’Sculpture in tow. Phew, what a relief. But at the same time, everybody was very, very angry with Devil as he obviously knew all along where the two missing puppets had been hiding out.

Surprisingly, Sunny played totally cool now and said he knew all along they would not have met with an untimely end as the sturdy polystyrene man will outlast any Dede. But having observed him all week, I believe his change of mind only came after ArtistatExit0 pointed out that Lil’Sculpture’s distant cousin, the plain polystyrene coffee cup, will last for two hundred years. Right!

Everybody else stormed towards Devil and wanted to know what happend. Devil, back in a confident spokesperson mode announced he found himself a new job. From now on he will be the spokesperson of the trash puppets in the neighbourhood. Over the last two weeks the three of them had nutted out what they will to do in future. Life under the regime of Magician was too dangerous for trash puppets, so they had to set up their own union and run their own workshops. They have invited a very special guest to their next workshop and it will be on Saturday the 22 Feb in the studio…

“Hang on,” Magician interrupet at this point. “The Dedes have a workshop on the 22nd, the studio space is taken!”

“No it is not” Devil replied calmly and produced a booking sheet from under his robe “Here, see for yourself, we have made a booking for the space, where is your’s?”

At this point Mouse turned fire-engine red and said under her breath “I wondered where the booking sheet had got to.”

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

Pushing on

February 9, 2014 //
2

magician dede live

While most of the Dedes are still looking for Lil’ Sculpture and Lizzie, Magician doesn’t have much time to be sentimental and is pushing on with the jobs at hand.  Devil started all these projects over the last year, but never really finished – like the website for the dede workshops. I found Magician sitting at the computer burning the midnight oil last night. When I asked him what he was doing, to my suprise he answered, “I’ll let you in on a secret, there is actually no such thing as magic. Things only happen by sheer hard work.”

I looked at him in disbelieve and he obviously had seen this kind of look before. “Well, yes, my parents should have called me Determination, but they thought that would make my life more difficult!”

“And what about the funny hat?” I asked.

“That is another secret… You always have to look the part!”

Then he turned back to the computer and proudly announced: “Here, that is what we need, a website to promote the workshops.”

I have to admit, I was impressed, particularly since he has only been in the job for how long? Three weeks? Though on closer scrutiny, I had the feeling that Devil had done most of the work and it only needed a bit of tweaking to finish it off. At least Devil is still the poster boy. Magician had made no effort to start from scratch and come up with a new strategy. If you are interested, here is the link to dedelive.com

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Digital art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Social Network, workshop

Christmas film

December 30, 2013 //
4

Back from my Christmas holidays I had the best intentions to write more regularly again. Now sitting here, I realise, my mojo is still missing. I desperately hope it will come back in the New Year. In the meantime I will put up the little film we did during the holidays to lure the niece and nephew away from the computer games. It took us all afternoon to produce one minute of film. Phew… But it was great to watch them getting engrossed in the process. Ten-year-old Flynn in particular was tickle pink to see his name in the credits.

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

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.

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

Office man’s near demise

December 3, 2013 //
4

us as well

I thought everything is honky dory in my studio. All the puppets are delighted about the latest film. Even Lil’ Sculpture came down from his shelf last Saturday to take a minor part in “A Dede day @ the bank”. He hasn’t had this kind of attention for ages. The visitors didn’t tire to tell him what a cutie he was, and of course he was extremely cheerful when he climbed back onto his shelf after everybody had gone.

Much to my surprise I realised today that Office Man must have been terribly despondent. I found him hanging upside down on his strings. No idea how this happened. He was very much in disarray and couldn’t speak after I rescued him. Lil’ Sculpture must have seen everything (after all he is sitting right next to Office Man) but he keeps mum.  I hope Lil’ Sculpture wasn’t to boastful about his reception by the  crowd. It could have made Office Man feel inadequate. I promise, once he had a bit of a rest, I will get to the bottom of the story. I won’t let him off the hook.

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Hand Puppets, Life, Social Network, 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.

Tags , , ,
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?

 

 

Tags , , , , , , ,
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

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, workshop
Newer Entries »