Sunday, August 14, 2011

Making Friends at the Rogue Workshop

As part of our tour to the Center for Puppetry Arts, we were asked to present a workshop in puppetry craft. The workshop, attended mostly by staff members of the Center, was fully booked. I was pleased to see that such a great variety of people had come to see what we had to offer. Our resident workshop expert Christina led the charge and knocked it out of the park with our tried and true newspaper puppet class.

Newspaper puppets are very useful, especially in a workshop setting. When you have a swiftly approaching deadline and a shoestring budget, why waste precious resources constructing a puppet that may or may not truly serve your story? A newspaper puppet can be built in minutes, costs almost nothing, and is simply captivating when put into action. And if it doesn't work, you can just throw it away.

One such puppet is featured prominently in "Bird and Girl," a short scene that the Rogues created during a workshop with the students of UC Irvine. We still perform this piece on occasion to this day; in fact, the little girl puppet makes a cameo in our Puppet Car Wash fundraising video.

After a demonstration of how a newspaper puppet behaves, we showed the group a video of "Bird and Girl." The video was taken at the HYPERBOLE: gravity/anti-gravity workshop with UCI students. Setting up the projector was my modest contribution to the evening's event.

And so it was time to get started.

Christina guided our workshop attendees step by step, attentively making sure the no one was left behind and no one was stuck waiting, sitting on their hands.

The other Rogues helpfully wandered around with rolls of tape, swooping in and answering questions now and again. Thanks, Amy!

The puppets began to take shape. Even in their early stages, you could see people asserting their creativity on their little, flammable friends.


Miles assisted in displaying effective build mechanics.

Tyler held his puppet up to demonstrate one of the aspects of his favorite method of newspaper puppet construction. Notice that the puppet's arms and legs remain upright due to the particular way that he has jointed the limbs. Of course, there is no single correct way to make a puppet.

Before we knew it, we had a room full of completed puppets. We asked everyone to circle up and introduce their creations. Everybody in the room had given their puppet a name, a unique personality and, in some cases, an elaborate back story. Amazing!

With a little bit of time left, Christina decided that it was time to get these puppets up on their feet. Together, Amy, Miles, and Tyler gave a short tutorial on important Bunraku techniques and principles. I was impressed at how clearly and simply they were able to communicate fantastic tips for a truly complex art form. Of course, they are professionals.

It was great fun to see our workshop attendees implement those techniques with their newly built puppets. In less than two hours, we had a room full of tiny creations wandering about. I saw a newspaper puppet with a cane and a monocle jabbing at some crotchety youngster. So much personality for having only been born minutes ago.

When it was time to go, many attendees hung about to talk puppets a little more. We received a lot of great feedback for our presentation. One attendee remarked that ours was her favorite workshop - and she has been coming to workshops at the Center for Puppetry Arts for the last 8 years. That's quite a feather in our cap.

I know that I am lucky to have such talented friends. And what a great opportunity to be able to share our art with enthusiastic folk from lands far from our own. Christina, Amy, Miles, Thu, and Tyler: way to show Atlanta how it's done!

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