Our visiting professional for today was a lovely puppeteer named Rebekah Caputo from the college. She is currently studying for a masters degree in Puppetry as she recently studied for a qualification in performing arts but was leaning more towards making something of her own creations move. She tried to involve us in some short puppetry activities that involved us "becoming our puppet", feeling for its personality and being, and then acting with it. It is important as an animator to BE animated, to be able to easily express emotion be it through our own given bodies or other matter.
She gave us each a piece of newspaper and asked us to scrunch it up as loosely or as vigorously as we wished in order to give our creation some mass, a shape, a personality. By using breathing techniques and small exercises, we were taught how to "feel" connected with the paper. Eventually, most of us found that our papers had life in them and developed their own unique characters.
Rebekah passed around some of her puppets to demonstrate to us how they were constructed, what materials were used and just how heavy and fragile they can be despite using many methods to keep them as malleable as possible. I found one particular puppet incredibly scary as its macabre glass eyes stared into my soul and almost sucked the life out of me! They all had unusual smells too. Rebekah was aiming for "the uncanny", attempting to make all her puppets a little bit odd and weird to look at.
She won an award in 2006, the Total Theatre Award. She currently works with Odd Doll theatre and puppetry to create original performance and puppets for their shows. One of their all-time favourites is "Worried Walrus" who seems very popular with kids.
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| http://www.rebekahcaputo.co.uk/performances |
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