23 Jan 2012
Chinese New Year Inspiration: Underwater Dragon Dancing
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Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Chinese Spring Festival. Lion and Dragon dances featuring giant puppets are always a staple of the new year festivities in Chinese communities around the world, but to celebrate the Year of the Water Dragon children at a Bangkok aquarium were recently treated to this special, unique underwater Dragon Dance performed by a team of divers.

Underwater Dragon Dances seem to be a thing this year; another team of divers is also planning to perform one in Singapore.

Chinese puppetryfull body costume puppetsgiant puppets
19 Jan 2012
Great Puppetry in Toronto This Month
No comments - Archived in Live Puppetry

I don’t usually write posts about live/local puppetry here, but the next month or so is such great time to see some great puppetry in Toronto that I couldn’t resist. Not only is Ronnie Burkett (who chats about his new show in the video above) debuting Penny Plain at Toronto’s Factory Theatre, but an original production of Avenue Q just opened, the Famous PEOPLE Players are prepping a new show called Funkytown for a run at their dinner theatre in the city’s West End and the Toronto production of WarHorse begins an extended run on February 10th.

Come visit Toronto, we’d love to have you!

Avenue QCanadian puppetryinterviewsWarhorse
17 Jan 2012
Interview with Bonnie Erickson
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Tough Pigs recently sat down for an exclusive interview with Bonnie Erickson. If you don’t already know Bonnie’s name, you should; she headed the Muppet Workshop for many years during the Muppet Show era (she is credited as as the designer and builder of Miss Piggy, the Muppet Newsman, Statler and Waldorf among many, many other famous characters) and is currently the Executive Director of the Jim Henson Legacy.

Here are links to all four parts of the interview:

It’s a great interview and a must-read for Muppet fans and anyone els curious about what it was like to work in the Muppet workshop in the heyday of the `70s and `80s.

interviewsMuppetspuppet builderspuppet building
13 Jan 2012
Kinect Digital Puppet Parade
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Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille have taken their Kinect Shadow Puppet concept to the next level. Puppet Parade is an interactive Kinect installation that uses two Kinects to track the arm movements of children, enabling them to not only control on screen digital puppets, but also step in to a virtual environment and interact with them directly.

Have a look at a non-edited version of the video above so that you can hear the live sound and see how the hand movements are tracked and translated in to creature movements:

Via PSFK, cross-posted from Machin-X: Digital Puppetry.

digital puppetry
12 Jan 2012
Lejo in New York
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If you live near New York City (or if you can get there next week) you’re in luck because Lejo is coming! Probably best known for his insanely popular “Lejo DJ” video (which was originally a segment on Sesamstraat, the Dutch version of Sesame Street), Lejo is an incredibly creative and talented puppeteer who creates his characters and shows using his bare hand and a pair of eyeballs.

Lejo performs Hands Up! at the New 42nd Street Studios in Manhattan January 18-22nd. Tickets are available online at www.newvictory.org. This is Lejo’s first ever appearance in North America so don’t miss it!

Lejo
11 Jan 2012
Frank The Fruitcake
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I somehow missed Frank The Fruitcake over the holidays, but it’s hilarious!

Frank is the star of an interactive ad campaign that was created for Wal-Mart by unit9. It was an attempt to create a holiday Internet meme (think JibJab/OfficeMax’s famous Elf Your Self viral campaign) featuring a talking holiday fruitcake that you can put on your Facebook wall or send to your friends. Once installed, Frank becomes “annoying charming”; he won’t stop talking and tries to convince you not to send him away. I think it’s a really clever idea for a Christmas campaign, even if the connection between talking fruitcake and Wal-Mart isn’t exactly obvious.

Frank was performed by UK puppeteer Brian Herring and is voiced by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait. There are more Frank The Fruitcake videos on YouTube and you can watch a behind-the-scenes “making of” video on the unit9 website.

hand puppetsPuppetry in the UK
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