FR24Co CAE Puppetry workshop

The artist asked the participants to form a circle of chairs, so that everyone introduced themselves; then the turns of speech wereguided by a mini improvisation scenario to be respected, which already implied work on imagination and composition of a character.

Several small concentration exercises followed. The next step consisted of discovering the various objects to manipulate, mainly puppet heads, into which you slide your hand to make them move: the first thing to acquire is to be able to look at your puppet without stopping, to find the way to disappear behind her, to let her guide us, while being in the acting game in order to transmit the emotions to her.

The morning ended with group exercises, more complex since you had to make your puppet react to other proposals.

The afternoon of the course was devoted to discovering another aspect of object theater: shadow theater. The artist presented us with the figurines created by his company, and used in these shows; we chose a cardboard character. Then, in small groups of 5, we had to imagine, then create a setting, in which our characters would evolve, in order to tell a very short story, in 2 or 3 minutes. Cutting, assembling, handling flashlights to illuminate the show's support sheet: a moment of intense manual activity in a group, where we had to exchange ideas to create a short performance. 

- Feed back and impressions of participants :  In a few hours, we discovered the basic principles of manipulating objects, puppetsand shadow figures, in a simple and friendly way. It was really very apreciated by everybody. 

Puppetry techniques require very precise mental and physical gymnastics, it is a very particular experience, new for all participants, disconcerting, very interesting. We all discovered how rich and complex this art could be.

- Vidéos, photos, blog, news letter of the theâtre.