Workshop Title
「ひと・糸・ピエロ」- Human-Idiot-Puppet Led by Richard Talbot with Kay Aika, with assistance from Emi Shimizu and Toshio Asakuma
Date/Venue
Saturday 15th July 2023、Studio Kura Itoshima, 9.30am-12.30
Participants in the workshop: Youtube video (8mins) sharing highlights and key methods
(links to an external page)
This public workshop exploring and contrasting Human Movement and Puppet Movement had ten participants included six local artists, and four international artists, plus the core project participants. We were also joined by the Matsuzaki children (aged 8 and 11) from Studio Kura. They participated, with their parents and two children (aged 6 and 10) of guest artists also visited along with their parents.
The workshop participants outside the rice store (kura)
which has been turned into a studio and gallery.
Familiarisation became very important with a group of mixed backgrounds, experience and ability. Part of the workshop took place outside due to the heat within the gallery space, although outside it was also around 32 degrees. Passers-by on their way to art classes could also observe the exercises. There was an easy going atmosphere, though some participants may have felt self conscious walking in unusual ways across the Kura yard.
Part 1 ("Program A")
After exercises to promote pleasure and happy "failure" we developed human movement exercises - points of focus, tempo, balance, and undulation - inflecting puppet articulation and strings. Marionette puppets are distanced by their string, and the pleasure for operators seems to be in how to achieve 'natural' movement in spite of the string. Puppeteers can often be seen untangling strings, and preparing, or looking down and concentrating hard on the puppets as they move. How does this relate to performances between participants and between leaders and followers? A link with movement was made by thinking how a puppet's string is attached to the head and Kay explained the constraints on articulation.
Image showing where the 9 strings are attached on Pino-kun.
For humans, if we move with a light head and use the idea of lightness in movement generally, we are not mimicking puppets, but moving - as Ikke-chan does in the video - with greater fluidity and range. However, we may be more conscious of leading with knees, head and feet, than with the solar plexus/chest. This influences the emotional range.
We can also works as followers or leaders, thinking about the interaction between the puppet and the puppeteer.
Kay Aika with 'Chris', a clown puppet.
This introduces a profound link, with notions of 'above' and 'below'. Rather than reiterate a modernist, existentialist predicament, we were interested in a literal process of winding, intertwining and the imaginary/mythical connection (expressed in Japan's collection mythological poems, the Kojiki for instance), through the term musubi - 結び. One participant pointed out that the drum signalled performance and permission to break through self-consciousness. There is generally a drum in Shinto shrines and this is a fundamental dramaturgical tool. Perhaps this underlines the opportunity to practice working with both a connection with 'objective' impulses and the art of constructing performance through movement and rhythm.
We asked participants to compare these kinds of movements and to share their experience with each other.
Walk 'with' and 'without' strings.
Walk with and without focus.
Walk with and without peripheral vision. Puppets do not use peripheral vision, but it's important in meditation states (you could listen to This Jungian Life on this), and essential for ensembles of performers.
Walk in a line.
Walk in a crowd, changing directions, increasing speed, like a shoal of fish.
Practice and elongate undulation of the spine, forwards and backwards, leading to an encounter involving mistaken identity, inspired by work with Norman Taylor (see previous posts).
'Flocking' like birds or fish and 'socking' (reverse flocking) with clown noses: this introduces the 'idiot' topic more overtly.
Using masks (a red nose, a costume). The demands of the pair work and group performance can shake us out of internal preoccupations and introduces a more self-conscious and 'responsible/responsive' awareness of impulses from 'outside'.
Reflections
We could have given more time to the puppets. I think we need to build a platform for future workshops - perhaps something that develops the structures used for Kamishibai.
I also wanted to talk about the tempo of walking, and specific movement scores (sequences) that connect with the story of Pinocchio: swimming and rowing, for instance.
In Part 2 ("Program B") we introduced the online workshop style:
Leading Part 2 of the workshop.
We explained the method of hybrid devising on Zoom, and post-production editing. We created a mock-up stream call using OBS, but kept things things technically minimal.
We simply set the participants the challenge of devising an interaction between Gepetto and Pinocchio when they are under the sea. The participants were allowed to use a basic encounter and the undulating movements explored in Part 1, plus simple hand gestures. The latter are inspired by the PADI diving school hand gestures designed for underwater communication.
'Hand Signals'. PADI Japan, extract from Training Manual.
Under water movement is slowed down, sound sources are difficult to detect, and divers cannot speak out loud. We asked them to include undulating movement to generate an interaction between puppet and person/clown even while they are in different screen frames online.
Noe Matsuzaki as Gepetto on a mock- up Open Broadcast Platform
One group came up with a whirlpool image which has gone into the video, another with tickling the whale's lips. The Matsuzaki children in particular came up with some lovely solutions for saving Gepetto and Pinocchio, and Noe was more than willing to perform the role of Gepetto, wig and glasses and all! Her idea was giving the whale medicine so that it would be sick and to flush Gepetto and Pinocchio out.
Reflections
We were let down by one of our camera feeds - the one pointing at the green screen, perhaps because the display was reconfigured for the artist presentation night. We found a work-around though, and the feedback was that people were still able to understand and enjoy the use of layers and streaming on the mock-up screen.
Thanks to University of Salford and GB Sasakawa Fund for financial support, ethical guidance and guidance on impact values, and thanks Studio Kura! Thanks also to Puppet House, Tokyo, for endorsing the project and the use of the puppets.