What is puppetry?
For anything inanimate to appear alive. (This can be literally puppets, but nature and other resources are used as well)
Why puppets? Because they find them magical. There’s a feeling deep inside all of us that wants objects, puppets and things to be or appear alive. This feeling has roots deep inside since many, many years ago.As a puppeteer you can be anything, no restriction by your own human form. You can do anything. You can fly, move all around, be tall, be small.
Rebekah started off with an acting degree, but the study turned out to be more about theatre making (creating original performances). After graduating she set up with a theatre company. There she encountered extreme physical characterisation with their own bodies, participated in (contemporary) dance, clowning, characterisation and puppetry. This was the moment she started playing around with puppets and found a fascination. She then found another studio that turned it all upside down. Being able to create a world on stage and able to control everything.
After a short while the company split (it was a young company, still unsure of what to do) and she decided to create puppets on her own for two years, learning how to make good puppets and performing in small settings with small audiences, to learn how to do puppetry in front of an audience. This was a big learning experience.
She mainly created tiny puppets which are about 40 cm tall. She had created Lois as well, Lois was full body puppet. The puppet was taller than she is, her hand in the puppets head had to be raised at all times. All puppets are a bit dark and “strange”, influences by these studios:
Faulty Optic
Pickled image (not afraid to use darkness as comedy)
Folded Feather (object theatre, ordinary every objects brought to life)
Suspense festival —> biyearly puppetry festival in London.
Skipton puppet festival —> near Leeds based puppetry festival
Rebekah's other influences are people. She likes watching people, how they move, how they look, how their faces move and look different from one another. Sometimes in process when you get stuck, or you don’t know how the puppet should move —> looking at other people helps with something like that. Other solutions are to give yourself physical “restrictions” so the puppet will move differently because of it (for example to tie something heavy to your leg).
Other influences are
Masks. Exaggeration of the human face in an exciting manner.
Skeletons, looking at nature and how other shapes and bodies are made up for references.
Car boot sales/charity shops, lovely places to find all different kinds of objects, maybe obscure as well. The thought that they have a history (which can be made up again) is intriguing.
Professional practice
Odd Doll Puppetry Leeds based. Create performances able to tour. Unique but homely for audiences.
A quiet word: Leeds based. Shadow art (shadow puppetry) collaborative projects with dancers.
the importance of sharing her practice: enjoys sharing what she does. She runs a night: Animate Live. Every other month. Puppeteers and musicians come together to perform improvised together.
Creative practice.
She is a Master's student of LCA. Creative and professional practices have impact on one another. Celebrating the darkness within.
The uncanny (Freud) The sensation of the uncanny is when you feel weird about something, unnerve. (not really agree with Freud) but the sensation of the uncanny is strongly linked with the art form of puppetry.
combining objects and puppets. combining different looking puppets with objects to strengthen the “weird feel”. combining a body with wheels for example.
Collaboration.
for MA project working together with musicians to create a piece together, experimenting with the puppet, together with the music, but also experimenting with other objects interacting with the puppet like pieces of paper.
After the presentation she provided us with a tiny workshop for the ones who were interested. She taught us how to bring all your energy and focus to your fingertips, so when you lightly touch the object (in this case a crumpled page of the news paper), you get to see and understand how it moves. After interacting with it while it has no character, you had to look at the page and see how you could turn it into a character like thing, make it seem like he's looking somewhere, decide how he moves etc. I didn't participate for I wanted to watch and record it, but it was very interesting and it's real good reference for a later point in time when I ever get stuck with my work.
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