Bunraku Puppetry Workshop
Posted by: Ashleigh on: May 3, 2008
On Wednesday the 30th of April, we went to a workshop at the Polygot Theatre, to learn about puppets and Bunraku puppets in particular.
We first sanded down some wood blocks and sticks to use to assemble our puppet, then secondly, we designed what we would like our puppets to look like, which involved just drawing a face with facial features,then we drew them onto foam and used an electric knife to cut away at the foam to create the shape, we then refined the shape with the use of scissors, we then designed other facial features such as ears and a nose, and cut those out and glued them on. The eyes were made out of felt. After doing that we cut out some material for the puppets clothes, then designed a hand for our puppet. After doing that, we placed the puppets head onto the longest stick, then used string to attach the arm to the longest stick. After assembling our puppets, we learnt a bit on how to manipulate them. We got taught to move our bodies to suit the puppets, not to move the puppet to suit us. Anne Forbes, the teacher of the workshop told us, most puppeteers make the mistake of moving the puppet to suit their actions, they don’t move their bodies. It is important to move our own bodies, not the puppets because we are more mobile than a puppet, and the puppet looks more authentic if manipulated correctly.
Whilst working on our own individual puppets, we worked on our Bunraku puppet, who is nicknamed Baby, because of his baby face. We have much work to do to complete “Baby”, but he is fully assembled from head to toe.
I found this workshop extremely useful because I had little prior knowledge about puppets or manipulating puppets. I found it extremely interesting and fun, and I now feel more confident about manipulating puppets.
[Photos to be added soon]
May 8, 2008 at 9:19 am
Hello,
I’m also a 2009 IB Theatre Arts student currently in Japan. You can find me on youtube under “IB Theatre Arts”, but I don’t put as much up there as I’d like to.
Just thought I’d say hello :]
P.S. Do you know much else about puppetry now, other than Bunraku?