Blog 3

There were many interesting puppet characters highlighted in Chapter 4: Casting Characters.  The chapter really showed how many different types of  characters puppets can be used to represent; and why they can be better than human performers.  For example, animal puppets can be more effective than real animals because they can "talk" and puppets can be created in the likeness of the character.  I particularly found the thirty foot tall puppet from A Giant Dropped From the Sky really interesting because it showed how puppets can better tell a story than humans.  In a play, there would be no way to present a human-sized actor as being thirty feet tall, but puppets make that possible. 

However, my favorite puppet featured in Chapter 4 was Richard Bradshaw's kangaroo puppet from Superkangaroo, a show about a kangaroo superhero who fights for what he believes in.  I could not find what the puppets were made of, but I think it's possible that the shadow puppets were made from Plexiglass or craved leather, similar to Julie Taymor's The Way of the Snow.  Bradshaw is an Australian puppeteer and created Superkangaroo in 1972.  The reason this puppet stuck out to me was because I thought it was very interesting for a puppet show to be involved with political tones.  In the photo of Superkangaroo in the book,  the superhero is shown blocking a bulldozer sent by the government to knock down an aborigine's hut.  With everything that has been going on politically in our community lately, it was interesting to see how puppets could be used in a form of social protest.  Another political theme in Superkangaroo is that, initially, his cap is the Australian flag, but Bradshaw eventually removed the Union Jack portion from the kangaroo's cape because he didn't want it to appear as though the superhero support the government's politics. 

Blog 2

I thought one of the most impressive parts of the video was Basil Twist's abstract puppetry.  His show was called Symphonie Fantastique and was preformed in a giant tank of water.  The puppeteers were hidden from the audience and the puppets were constructed from fabric, feathers, mirrors, and other various materials.  He studied puppetry at a school in France, which inspired his work.  Since water puppetry first developed in Asia (the shows took place in the rice patties, because the puppeteers had to work with their environments), he was also taking Asian puppetry concepts and incorporated them into his style of American puppetry. 

Another puppeteer featured in the video was Ralph Lee.  He turned parades into puppet shows, which impacted the way puppets can be used in American festivals.  Spanish and Asian cultures frequently use various types of puppets in celebrations and festivals, and Ralph Lee incorporated this idea in American puppetry culture.  His use of body puppets to portray myths also combined other cultures with American puppets. 

Blog #1

While I don't have a lot of experience with puppets, one of my favorite TV shows as a child was Sesame Street and I also loved the Muppets.  I think it was a mixture of how convincing the characters were and my childhood imagination, but I actually believed that the puppets were real.  Even though I was only about four years old at the time, I distinctly remember my older brother pointing out to me that there were poles attached to Elmo's arms to make them move, which consequently shattered the illusion for me.  I did eventually recover and continue to was Sesame Street, but it broke my heart to learn that the characters I loved so much were not real.  One of my favorite Muppets movies was (and still is) "Muppet Treasure Island".  I particularly liked the opening song and the way the puppets were used.  (The link below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSXciBh8KoY

As an adult, my favorite use of puppets is from Beck's tour in 2006/2007.  I've been unable to find a good video of his performance, but here is a picture of one of his performances:

 

For his live performances, he had marionettes made in the likeness of himself and his band.  There was then a small stage on stage with him and the puppet versions of the band performed along side them for the whole show.  He performed like this when he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live and the puppets were so dead-on and creative that when they appeared on screen I was so enthralled that I wold forget that they were not the real performers and get mildly confused when the camera would pan back to the actual musicians.