How To Hack Your Trash aka Instant Puppets

26 April sees Chris Pirie from Green Ginger present the day long version of his Trash Hack workshop. For those of you scratching your head over the concept of rummaging in the bin to create a puppet, think animated up-cycling. This is what Chris has to say about it:

What is a Trash Hack?

Trash Hack re-purposes domestic and industrial junk to create fantastical instant creatures. We then pull them apart to build another.

Do you have a favourite Trash Hack Creature?

“Not really. I really enjoy the energy and the creativity that is sparked by the fast pace of decision making, the creatures are always surprising. I bring a huge collection of junk that I know really well to the sessions. Every time I think that all the possibilities have been exhausted, someone comes up with something new. A recent discovery was a part of an espresso coffee maker: it usually becomes a head, but someone used it to create the locomotion for their creature, I had never seen that before and it worked really well.”

What if someone can’t make it to the workshop on 26 April – how do they do a trash hack for themselves?

“Grab an object, anything that appeals. Really explore the object, get a sense of its texture, what noises it makes, what movements does it have.

See how the object walks along the floor and gets up onto a tabletop. Grab another object, explore how it works with the first object to make limbs and create a torso.

You can use some instant fixings such as gaffa tape, sellotape, rubber bands etc to join the objects together to create a new creature – anything that you can reverse, deconstruction is as important as construction.

Find out how this creature walks, how it talks to other creatures. Dare to fail, make mistakes, go up blind alleys. You can do it on your own, but it’s definitely more fun with friends. There is no right or wrong, just have a go!”

Trash Hack with Chris Pirie

26 April 10am-5pm  The Elephant Room, Dean Lane Bristol

To book click here or call 0117 929 3593

What’s Coming Up Next Week?

It’s Friday, the rain has started and we’re all well wrapped up at PPHQ. Yesterday I had a quick catch up with Chris from Green Ginger (He is in the room next door so it’s quite easy.) about his workshop An Introduction to Puppetry Manipulation. This is what he had to say:

I like to emphasise the fun and risk taking. It’s about daring to fail. The workshop is intended to give people the chance to refresh skills and learn some new ones. It works well for a group with different skills levels, I’ve previously run it with mixed groups of experienced puppeteers and those still quite new to the artform.

For me, the basic building blocks of giving a good puppetry performance are making sure that as a performer you are comfortable and well-warmed up: aware of your own body in relation to the puppet, scenic elements and other performers. To breathe life into an inanimate object you need to be aware of your centre of gravity and your own breath. Without this it all starts to fall apart very quickly.

The next level is the fine technical skills of the puppetry performance: the manual dexterity to achieve good lip sync, eye-line and smooth multi-operator performance.

I like breaking rules and I love the fact that puppets are the ultimate rule breakers. They disrespect physical laws. Anything that an actor would struggle with a puppet can do!

I love the challenge of these workshops. After 26 years I still find myself challenged, still learning and constantly reminded that there is no one right way, the possibilities are endless

At this point Chris was looking through the workshop leaflet and he has asked that I add a further explanation to the sentence “Areas covered….transmitting pleasure in performance” (apparently some people have been sniggering).

This is what he said:

It’s about enjoying what you are doing on stage, letting that joy have life in the performance.

(Nuff said).

An Introduction To Puppetry Manipulation Saturday 8 Feb 10am-5pm  The Brewery Studio Bristol £55 / £45 members

Me, Myself and I will be hosting a Puppet Extra on Tour Negotiation on Wednesday 5 February 6.30-9.30pm  Puppet Place £15 / £10 members

In this session we will be looking at the fine art of tour booking with a particular focus on negotiating the contract and financial deal. As the after(current)math of funding cuts and recession continues to be felt, we all need to sharpen up our negotiation skills and become more creative in the way we get our work out into the public realm. At the end of the session you will have some practical tools on how to work out your charges and some tips on negotiation. This is an informal session and I’m really happy for participants to bring specific questions about their own projects along.

Information and booking for all our workshops and seminars can be found here 

Rachel

Next week, we’ll bring you further information on Mary Murphy’s Animation Weekends and Nic Prior’s Blagger’s Guide to Technical Theatre.

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What’s Coming Up This Weekend?

Puppet Place’s Workshop Programme kicks off tonight with Chris Pirie from Green Ginger leading the first Puppet Surgery of the year. This is a chance to talk puppets, drink tea and get some advice and help on all those little problems that crop up in a make. 

Although we generally ask people to book in advance, we’ve had a few spaces crop up last minute so if you’ve hit a wall with your puppet creation bring it along to Puppet Place at 6.30pm tonight (30 January) and we’ll see if we can help. (£15 / £10 members)

Then this Saturday Tobi Poster from Wattle & Daub Figure Theatre will be leading our first one day workshop Introducing The Basics of Puppetry at the Brewery Studio in Bristol

When asked the question, “So what’s it all about then?”, Tobi very graciously did not refer me to the title of the workshop, but sent me this email giving a bit more information about what you can expect and his take on puppetry:

“The session will give participants a grounding in single and multiple operator direct manipulation (bunraku style) puppets, all of which will be constructed in-class from easily available and inexpensive materials.

We’ll also be taking a look at the complicite techniques and body awareness necessary to operate puppets in a group, and exploring fruitful starting points for improvising and devising with puppets. It might sound like a lot in one day on paper, but more than anything it’s a chance to have fun playing with all these elements.

 My puppetry and teaching pedagogy has its roots in clown, so there will be a particular focus on the connection between puppet and audience, and how we can play with that connection in performance. And there will be puppet dancing!

 Every time I run this workshop I’m amazed by what participants come up with, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes out of the workshop on Saturday.”

We’ve still got a couple of spaces left for Tobi’s workshop on Saturday so if you are interested call us on 0117 929 3593 or email victoria@puppetplace.org

Our full workshop programme can be found here

Rachel