Lounge The Art of Puppetry

This article is from the Canadian Museum of History, enjoy

Hand puppets, rod puppets, puppets from here, there and everywhere ... fairytale witches, ancient mythological gods and lively characters from children's television shows - a puppet collection is something like a window, through which we have a glimpse of the wealth of puppetry, its history and diversity, even though, once the curtain falls, the show is well and truly over.

This module invites you to explore the Canadian Museum of Civilization's puppetry collection as well as specific aspects of the art of puppetry. The Museum's collection, boasting more than 2,000 puppets and accessories, along with extensive archival material, is unique in its ability to illustrate important facets of puppet theatre in Canada.

To help you make your way through the collection and search the database, we have grouped the puppets and archival documents by Canadian artist or company, or by country, or by type of puppet, according to each theme.

Qualities of a Puppet
Puppets exist essentially to evoke a character in a performance, whether that character is embodied in a human being, an animal, a spirit, an idea, a feeling or, possibly even a gesture.

Matter and form come together to create this character: tracing a sketch, sculpting wood, moulding plaster, twisting wire, sewing fabric, shaping foam, layering papier mâché, modelling fibreglass, cutting out paper, tooling leather, applying paint ... recycling a found object. There is an unquestionable connection between the making of a puppet and creation of the visual arts.

Next, this combination of matter and form needs movement: the essential pulse of life. Strings, rods, pulleys, joints and weights, the lightness of materials used, and a centre of gravity . . . a puppet's design and conception definitely call for some engineering. Whether the movements intended are simple or complex, construction must facilitate the manipulator in his or her task, which is to put expression into the puppet's movements. The engineering within the construction is rarely visible. Only the person animating the puppet can determine whether or not its design makes for easy and subtle manipulation.

A puppet's visual and technical qualities can, of course, only be appreciated in performance. In the theatre or on the sound stage, all the elements work together: movement, volume, colour and costume, facial expression - not forgetting lighting, music and vocal inflection. The puppet is truly an instrument destined for theatre.

But how can a puppet command such dramatic presence? How can this lifeless (despite all the artifices of animation) - and, in truth, quite rudimentary - object somehow move us? The puppet succeeds, it seems, not by pretending to re-create reality but, rather, by suggesting it, thus capturing its essence.



Types of Puppet and Manipulation
Setting objects in motion lies at the heart of puppetry. The means by which these objects are set in motion form the basis of the classification of puppets.

Puppets are most often broken down into six major families: marionettes, which are manipulated by strings, and their ancestors, rod marionettes, which are supported by a rod attached to their heads; hand puppets, which are slipped over the hand; rod puppets, which are activated from below with the aid of slender wands; shadow figures, which glide behind a backlit screen; and Bunraku-style puppets, which are usually manipulated in full view of the audience.

These six types of puppet are, in turn, traditionally associated with three major positions from which they can be manipulated:

• from below: the manipulator moves the puppet over his or her head, as in hand puppets or rod puppets;
• from above: the manipulator positions himself or herself above the puppet to operate it, as in marionettes and rod marionettes; and
• from behind: the manipulator stands behind or beside the puppet, as in Bunraku-style puppets and certain shadow figures.

If we look at the entire history of puppets from around the world, we find several types of puppets and theatrical forms that do not fit into any of the categories above. Is a water puppet a rod puppet? How do we work a body puppet? What about a limberjack? Furthermore, contemporary forms of puppet theatre, which encourage experimentation and a blending of genres, have generated an entire range of hybrid puppets, as well as recycled objects and ephemeral forms used as such, all of them difficult to classify.

This multiplicity of forms has led to the suggestion that puppets be classified according to their proximity to the puppeteer. Eileen Blumenthal outlines this typology in her work Puppetry: A World History, 2005.

First comes the family of puppets whose animation depends upon a part of (or even the whole body of) the manipulator, such as hand puppets, finger puppets or body puppets. Within this family, certain types may even transform part of the manipulator's body into a part of the puppet's body, for example, mouth and human arm puppets, where the puppeteer's hand becomes that of the puppet.

Next comes the family of puppets animated "beyond" the manipulator, from direct manipulation puppets to puppets that need devices, the most common being strings or rods. Within this large family of puppets, we can group together the two-dimensional puppets that share certain characteristics with the image, for example, shadow figures or silhouettes. These puppets can also be activated directly or with rods and strings.

 

I admire the art of puppetry

 

I also know someone who admires the art of lying, molesting children, urinating in public, and picking their nose....I wont say who....but he is a lonelyhorsestar.

 

OAB=pariah.

 

OH BY THE WAY, V

your pms are turned off by you I think...

 

OAB, do you know Cathy Woods?

 

Machete don't PM.

 

if you are saying you are the danny trejo type.....then you need to lose the flying dice shirt....that would be a start.

 

Do the clothes make the man, or does the man make the clothes?