Report from the Puppet Centre
Trust
March 05 - Director Beccy
Smith
It’s currently arctic in the Puppet Centre –
a few of our puppets, perhaps in a bid for freedom, seem
to have loosened the window frames leaving a chill wind
rattling through. This will be fixed soon in the new improved
Centre (see below), but in the meantime we’ve been
keeping warm by keeping busy.
In January we were pleased to set up, in association with
London International Mime Festival, the second in our masterclass
series for Animating the Animators - The Logic of Movement,
led by Stephen Mottram. The session was well attended with
18 participants coming from all across the country and giving
excellent feedback on the day’s work whose focus distilled
more than twenty years of practice as Stephen explored his
means of communicating meaning through the way the puppet
moves. Over the next couple of months we will be setting
up a new section of the PCT website which will focus exclusively
on reports and images from the AA project and a more detailed
survey of the session, written by Stephen himself will be
housed there (you can expect to see reports there from all
of our masterclass leaders in due course). We’re in
the process of recruiting a new web administrator to work
alongside our dedicated Animations Online team, so expect
to see a revamp of the PCT pages of the site coming soon,
and any of you who have emailed me in vain over the last
few months to ask for links – this section will be
getting a complete overhaul at the same time. Sorry about
the wait!
Our next two masterclasses are branching further afield.
First, we have a session focusing on Vocal Skills for the
Puppeteer led by internationally renowned Neville Tranter
as part of Bath Puppetry Festival. This will be held on
March 31st 2005 at the Ustinov Studio – for details
on how to apply see the Training section (link to Training
and CPD page). Secondly the Puppet Centre will, for the
first time, be making an appearance at the National Student
Drama Festival, where Rene Baker (freelance puppeteer and
educationalist currently teaching at CSSD) and Rachel Riggs
of DNA will be holding two full-day sessions intended to
introduce the possibilities of puppetry to the theatre students
there. These will be open sessions and we’re extremely
pleased to be taking work there this year: there has never
been a solid puppetry presence at the festival but with
the increasing trends towards devised and visual work amongst
emergent performance students we feel the timing is very
apt for a ‘puppetry intervention’ to inspire
the next generation of theatre makers. I’ll report
back in the next e-dition of Animations.
On a related note, the three-month application period for
this year’s bursary scheme is now closed - we had
a flurry of applications throughout January. Forty-three
applications were received in all and the shortlisting process
was held at the Centre mid-February. The standard of proposals
submitted from applicants, whose background was extremely
varied, was, according to the judging panel, outstanding.
We’ll be announcing the winners of both the £8500
professional development grants in mid-March and the scheme
for 2006 will be open in November 2005.
We’ve also been hard at work setting up a new project
for later this spring. As part of Soho Theatre’s annual
New Writing Festival, and as a pilot for a larger commissions
project we’re hoping to run later in the year, we’ve
set up a one-day guerrilla-style event throwing together
5 puppeteers with 5 experienced new writers to collaborate
on creating short new performances for puppetry. This will
be a groundbreaking event for Soho’s audiences and,
we feel, a very positive step in bridging the perceived
gap between creating work using puppetry and other theatre
methodologies. You’ll be able to come along and see
the outcomes on April 2nd, 4pm in the Soho Theatre Studio
(there’ll also be an enlightening talk on the innate
connections between puppetry and writing and an opportunity
to discuss what you have seen). Tickets are available through
Soho theatre’s box office and are a snip at only £5.00
(£3.00) – hope to see you there!
In March the Puppet Centre Trust is getting a new look!
We’ll be completely renovating, repainting and reflooring
our space…and we need your help! If you can spare
one day, half a day, a week (!) and a squirt of elbow grease
you could help transform the Centre’s historic rooms
in BAC. We’re looking for volunteers who can offer
time between 10am and 5pm March 15th – 23rd inclusive
(except for weekends) so if you can offer any time at all
during that period we’d be enormously grateful. We
simply can’t do the work without your help. And we’ll
also give you lunch! Please pass on this plea to anyone
you think might be able to help and contact me at the Centre
if you’ve any time at all you can spare.
We were very pleased to be able to host two performances
of A Word in your Shell-Like by emerging company Sorcerer
Baklava over the weekend of February 19/20 –there
will be a report by Cath Connolly in the next e-dition of
Animations. The aspiration is for us, through the transformation
of the space, to be able to offer greater services such
as this to the puppetry community, with the space operating
as a function rehearsal room as well as (small – we’re
licensed for audiences of up to 50) performance space. If
you have any ideas about how you could use the new space
after April or if you’d like to discuss this or anything
else in this report further, give me a call or drop me an
email
and I’ll be happy to chat in more detail.
Finally, please note that PCT’s office will be closed
from March 14 – 23rd inclusive and the Library will
also not be accessible on those dates. We can assure you
however that it will be worth it in the end! I look forward
to hearing your news and responses – don’t forget
to keep us in the loop about upcoming / current projects
and developments. Here’s to spring!
Beccy Smith,
Director
Puppet Centre Trust
