On May 29th I was joined for a quick in studio interview by the multi-talented Jesse Orr. Jesse was in Smithers the last week of May as a guest of the Bulkley Valley Concert Association Youth Engagement Mandate. Part of her youth engagement was holding two puppet making workshops. Jesse graciously agreed to be interviewed for 15 minutes on ART BEAT before she dashed off to lead the first of these workshops at The Main Street Studio. If you missed the workshop you can see photos of the puppets here: https://instagram.com/p/3R4e8HOaTb/?taken-by=coatesandco
If you missed the interview, you can listen to it online here:
http://www.smithersradio.com/program-playlist/art-beat-playlist-05292015
[Click on the play button in the red box at the bottom of the page to stream the show]
ABOUT JESSE ORR:
Jesse Orr is a puppeteer, printmaker, scenographer, educator and community artist from Vernon BC who lives and works in Montreal. She is a graduate of the Theatre and Development Bachelor of Fine Arts program at Concordia University where she specialized in design and community arts. Jesse's theatre based practice is wildly multi-disciplinary and regularly combines design, curation, performance, puppetry and activism. She has worked with Vermont based Bread and Puppet Theatre, Great Small Works (New York City), and Runaway Moon Theatre (Grindrod, British Columbia). Jesse is currently creating puppet shows for youth with her company, Flying Box Theatre as well as continuing an ongoing series of experimental puppetry cabarets called Cafe Concret. http://www.cafeconcret.com/
Check out these links to the puppet theatre companies Jesse has been involved with:
- Bread and Puppet Theatre: breadandpuppet.org
- Great Small Works - http://greatsmallworks.org
- Runaway Moon Theatre - http://www.runawaymoon.org/about-us.html
After Jesse ran off to her workshop (she actually ran from the CICK studio down Main Street!), I spent the remainder of this week’s Art Beat episode giving a brief summary of puppet history, and playing clips of some of my favorite puppeteers.
If you think puppetry is just for children you might be surprised to learn that puppets have been used in religious ceremonies, in theatre performances alongside human actors, in animated art, and that contemporary puppet theatre tackles serious topics like the Holocaust and AIDS (e.g. Puppet Master Ronnie Burkett).
Did you know that currently the Lutheran Church in Canada & the USA has a Ministry of Puppets? It’s true! In the United States this kind of puppetry is often known as: Puppets of Praise. Here’s a link about one Puppet Ministry in a Hawaiian Lutheran Church http://www.clcmililani.org/Puppet-Ministry.html
C SHARPE’S SUMMARIZED HISTORY OF PUPPETRY
(or skim ahead to a cool clip of Jim Henson teaching you how to build a puppet)
Scholars believe that puppetry originated about 30 000 years ago when prehistoric people placed their hands near a fire to cast shadows on cave walls. Since this kind of puppetry predates written language we will never be certain exactly when it began but we know inventing animated characters is a primal creative instinct.
The earliest documented evidence of puppet use comes to us thanks to the discipline of archaeology (Hurrah Indianna Jones!) and is traced to Ancient Egypt. Wire controlled, articulated puppets made of clay and ivory have been found in Egyptian tombs as early as 2000 B.C. and Egyptian hieroglyphics describe 'walking statues' being used in Ancient Egyptian religious dramas. In the New World, the ancient Teotihuacan culture of Central Mexico, used figurines with moveable arms and legs as part of their funerary rites.
In Europe puppetry was first documented in Classic Greek texts by the writer Xenophon of Athens who wrote about a traveling man who used stringed puppets. At about this same time (380 B.C.) another famous Greek writer and philosopher, Plato, wrote about shadow puppets in his Allegory of the Cave found in section seven of the book The Republic.
Meanwhile there are scholars who have traced the origin of puppets even further back and believe it first began in India 4000 years ago where the main character in Sanskrit plays was known as sutradhara 'the holder of strings'. China has had a flourishing history of puppetry for 2000 years, originally in pi-ying xi, the "theatre of the lantern shadows", or, as it is more commonly known today, Chinese shadow theatre. Japan has many forms of puppetry, perhaps the most famous is the bunraku. This developed out of Shinto temple rites, gradually becoming a highly sophisticated form of puppetry. Bunraku owes much to the two great puppeteers, Gidayu Takemoto and Monzaemon Chikamatsu. By 1730 it required three puppeteers to operate each puppet in full view of the audience. Originally, the puppeteers dressed all in black would become invisible when standing against a black background, while the torches illuminated only the carved wooden, beautifully painted and costumed puppets.
In early European theatre history, puppets were used interchangeably with live actors and in Italy during the Renaissance period puppets were used on stage as a compliment to live actors.
In The Middle Ages the Christian Church used puppets to spread church doctrine.
Monks and priests were the puppeteers. The name Marionette , meaning "Little Mary" may have come from the figure of The Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, in the telling of the Nativity story.
In the seventeenth century, hand puppets; figures with heads and a body of cloth which fit over the puppeteers hand were standard. Puppet characters like Punch and Judy became popular and shows centering around local politics became common. These puppets could safely comment on topics ordinary people could not.
I played a clip of a Punch and Judy show performed by Vermont based Bread and Puppet Theatre. This is a puppet theatre company my guest Jesse Orr has performed with. You can find the clip here beginning at 11:00 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcJabfxq2MM
If you are interested in learning even more details about the history of puppet theatre you may want to read the book Aspects of Puppet Theatre by Henryk Jurkowski (2014).
MAKING PUPPETS AND MY FAVORITE PUPPETEERS
This week's ART BEAT guest was puppeteer Jesse Orr. While in Smithers Jesse taught some puppetmaking workshops. The most common types of puppets are string puppets, rod puppets, hand or glove puppets, shadow puppets, and ventriloquists' figures. Puppets have been made out of nearly every imaginable material, including paper, cloth, wood, metal, and plastic.
On today’s show I played a clip from the year 1969 of puppeteer Jim Henson giving a lesson on how to make puppets. This is very special! If you'd like to try making your own puppet you can watch and learn how to from the great Jim Henson!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC440k6iByA
You may notice that Jim Henson sounds a lot like Kermit the Frog! Jim Henson was the performer behind the voice of Kermit, and thankfully his son Brian now performs Kermit’s voice. Of course if you believe in Muppets as I do, then you know that Muppets really exist and so of course they perform all their own voices!
:)
I grew up in the late 1970s and 1980s when Jim Henson’s The Muppet Show first hit television. At the time there was a great renaissance of puppetry seen in film and on television. Jim Henson was a huge part of the emergence and sophistication of that puppetry. He founded Muppets, Inc., in 1958 and became famous in the 1970s when he created the puppets for the children's educational television program Sesame Street. Henson also created feature characters in such blockbuster films as Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (e.g. Yoda) , and the entirely puppet acted movie The Dark Crystal.
Did you know that Henson’s Muppets were regular performers on the first season of Saturday Night Live (1975-76)? It’s true! http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live
In 1976 Jim Henson first produced The Muppet Show for television. He won fame for his creations, particularly Kermit the Frog and Rowlf The Dog. He also created advanced puppets for projects like Fraggle Rock (television series) and Labyrinth (movie).
During the later years of his life Jim Henson founded the Jim Henson Foundation (to promote puppet education http://www.hensonfoundation.org), and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He won two Emmy Awards for his work on The Storyteller and The Jim Henson Hour.
Tragically Jim Henson died of a rare bacterial infection on May 16, 1990. It is hard to believe he has been gone 25 years. Luckily his son Brian and other family members have kept his legacy alive.
Though their popularity comes and goes The Muppets have endured since their original TV appearance on Saturday Night Live 40 years ago. Meanwhile Jim Henson's legacy continues to build, for example, in 2014 a reality show called Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge premiered on the Syfy Channel to much acclaim.
To date there have been a total of 12 Muppet movies. The most recent, Muppets Most Wanted (2014) recaptured the great balance of celebrity led subtle adult humour/innuendo, combined with intelligent child appropriate themes that the original Muppet Show television series was known for. Stay tuned to your television this Autumn (2015) when the USA based ABC network will launch a new Muppet television series The Muppets. Learn more about it here: http://www.hitfix.com/harpy/the-muppets-return-to-tv-for-a-new-snarky-genre-savvy-generation
RONNIE BURKETT – Canada’s Puppet Maestro
A contemporary Puppet Master whose productions are crafted for a purely adult audience is Alberta’s Ronnie Burkett. Ronnie Burkett has gained worldwide recognition for excellence and his contribution to the world of puppetry.
I first saw a performance of Burkett’s work in Calgary in the mid 1990s in a major production called Tinka’s New Dress. The production was based on the illegal puppet shows staged in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Burkett, dressed all in black, performed live on stage manipulating every one of about twenty marionette style characters. As the performance began it felt strange to see the puppeteer standing on stage in full sight, but within 20 minutes I forget he was there at all. I believed his creations were alive. I am sure I was not the only one in that sold out theatre who felt transported to a secret far away place, a witness to a magical world. I sat on the edge of my seat gasping and sobbing as the story of Tinka and her friends unfolded in a 1.5 hour non-stop performance.
Burkett’s puppets are exquisite works of art and are made in marionette style. He designs and builds all his own stage sets and puppets, is playwright for his stories, and performs every character live on stage. He truly is a maestro. New York City’s Village Voice says:
“Ronnie Burkett is one of the geniuses of the world. Seeing his troupe every few years has just become a necessity of civilized theatre going.”
Here is a link to the clip I played on the show from a rehearsal of Ronnie Burkett’s production Penny Plain at The Factory Theatre (Toronto) in January 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i3kQ-2KdXQ
After winning a regional Emmy Award in 1979 for the puppets in "Cinderrabbit" on PBS in the United States, Burkett formed his own theatre company in Alberta in 1986. In 1994, his work Tinka's New Dress was his international breakthrough, winning two Dora Awards, four Elizabeth terling Haynes Awards and a special citation from the Obie Awards. Performed internationally, Tinka's New Dress was the first part of a trilogy which continued with Street of Blood in 1999 and Happy in 2000. He also won a Chalmers Award in 1996 for Old Friends, a piece commissioned by the Manitoba Theatre for Young People.
Here’s another clip worth watching that I did not have time for on the show. Here, Ronnie Burkett shares his thoughts on contemporary puppetry with World Puppetry Today, from a series of workshops filmed in Melbourne, Australia in 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oxvhFrw-Ps
Puppetry is a vast topic, and one that is almost endless to explore.
- Who are your favorite puppets or puppeteers? I’d love to know. Share your favorites on the Art Beat CICK Facebook Page. https://www.facebook.com/ArtBeatCICK93.9FM
And....Does anyone remember this slightly creepy Canadian TV show?
The Adventures of Snelgrove Snail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EjfrLCiu1k
I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of ART BEAT, and my blog with more information.
Below are even more links about puppetry and puppeteers that I think are great:
Thanks for reading and for listening!
Colleen Sharpe
LINKS
Learn the Five Basic Skills for Good Puppetry from this vintage film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5OO6QSiCpw
Jan Å Svankmajer: A Czech animator extraordinaire who studied at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s.He is award winning for his puppet based animation films
http://www.awn.com/heaven_and_hell/svank/svank1.htm
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE and HANDSPRING PUPPET COMPANY (South Africa)
http://www.handspringpuppet.co.za/handspring-productions/ubu-and-the-tru...
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/williamkentridge/flash/
One of my favorite Puppet Companies: THE OLD TROUT PUPPET WORKSHOP. You could still enroll in a workshop this summer taught by The Old Trout Puppet Co. in New England! Check it out
My favorite by The Old Trout Puppet Workshop is “The Tooth Fairy” Brilliant!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hol3e8rkG5c
and last but not least more about an international puppet sensation...THE MARIONETTES of France’s ROYAL DE LUXE THEATRE
http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2012/05/the-giant-marionettes-of-royal-de-luxe/100293/