[Jebus X Christ-on-An-Inequality-Crutch – even if *half* of the stats shown here are accurate, it paints a truly horrific picture. We need an Australia version created so we can compare our f$cked-uppedity situations, but in all honesty Oz probably ain’t much better. Watch the entire reality-wake-up-call video below.]
Enchanting, spectacular, beautiful piece of fairytale that I think I’ll ever see. Giant figure puppet girl doll stands at 11-12 meter high. So cool, and amazing.. You won’t believe your eyes.
What do you get when you combine American Puppetry Masters Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass, and 15 skilled and enthusiastic ‘puppeteers’? The answer is Returning – A collaborative puppet show based on the theme of ballads (which in essence is a song or poem that tells a story).
While there are many different kinds of puppetry, ranging from black theatre and marionettes to Bunraku and body puppets, it is the technical side of the art that is the most important. For in puppetry the puppeteer must merge and become as one with the puppet, so that at the end of the day it is not the puppeteers, but the puppets themselves that are telling the story. And in Returning there were many stories to be told.
VCA puppets peform Cruel Sister (Directed by Sabrina D’Angelo). Song of the Wandering Angus (Directed by Rachael Guy), and Lord Franklin’s Lament (Directed by Annie Forbes), based on a traditional ballad commemorating the loss of Sir John Franklin’s British Arctic Expedition of 1845.
Returning
VCA Studio 45, 45 Sturt St, Southbank
Dates/Times: Fri 14 & Sat 15, Tue 18– Sat 22 Nov at 7.30pm
Sat 15 & 22 Nov at 2pm
Cost: $20/$15
Bookings: 03 9685 9256 orvca-puppetry@unimelb.edu.au
Presented in association with the Melbourne Fringe Festival – THERE is a hilarious exploration of the pitfalls of public performance
Saturday, October 4, 2008 at 9:00pm til Saturday, October 11, 2008
Location: Melbourne Fringe Festival Hub, Lithuanian Club
Street: 44 Errol Street, North Melbourne
Description: Why must we puppet? What is it to animate? What invisible hands manipulate our strings? Might they fear us just as we fear puppets?
This is a show about responsibility. It is about shame. It possesses neither.
Devised and Performed by Emily Tomlins and Angus Grant and directed by Marcel Dorney