Sunday, September 27, 2009

More pics Day 8






I post pics of my favourite ever street puppeteer Alex Barti, who I first saw on DVD in the puppet museum in Chuncheon Korea when on tour there with Krinkl Theatre in 2005. A dream come true to see him live! His marionette can raise his eyebrows, wink, frown, scowl, show his fangs, flick his tongue, raise his hair, and most importantly, is so cleverly manipulated 'in the moment', responding to street stimulus and the crowd- it is like watching a master improvisor/clown/puppeteer. I have video footage of him too, but don't think I have enough time to load it sorry. I had to take a photo of the crowd mobbing to give Alex money, he didn't say a word. He has perfected the art of street puppetry.

I think that has been the most important inspiration for me of this trip: seeing artists who are at the height of their puppetry powers, like Alex, Duda, and Frank. Of course, I can be utterly intimidated (the old "I will never be as good" voice), yet I can also be inspired to keep journeying, to keep creating and improving, to just "do my thing" and enjoy this fascinating field of work. Certainly nothing else does it for me like a well-manipulated puppet (apologies to the boyfriend).

There is also the camping ground at sunset, which is the place to stay, and 2 puppets on the opposite scale of technology: I came across a puppet party where everyone was wearing the recycled plastics puppets, and dancing in a frenzy to the live band! Then I went to a theatre show, where the queue was entertained by the animatronic creature you see, who wheeled himself around. It took me so long to work out who was doing it: a nondescript guy with two tiny controls in the palms of his hands.

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