Category Archives: Networking/social networking

Skipton Puppet Festival 2013!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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The weekend before last I had the lovely experience of attending Skipton Puppet Festival as a visitor rather than a performer.  As I had performed at the previous 2 Skipton Puppet Festivals Liz Lempen thought (quite rightly) that it was time to give some other people a go.

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Automaton of “Shakeys Grand Day Out” by Keith Newstead in Skipton Museum where the PUK AGM was held – Click to see “making of” Blog entries by Keith

DSC00335I also attended the Puppeteers UK AGM at the Town Hall on the Friday.  If you are not aware of this wonderful group, it is a collection of different puppetry groups such as BrUNIMA, B.P.M.T.G. Punch & Judy Fellowship etc. and has various useful benefits such as a directory of members and an extremely useful weekly newsletter which pools up to the minute puppetry info. in one place.  Members even flag up job opportunities to each other as well as being an opportunity to advertise performances that you are doing currently.  I have found it very useful indeed becoming a member and would recommend it to anyone.

I got the opportunity to finally meet the editor of the newsletter Peter Macdonald with whom I have had many email discussions over the 2 years I’ve been a member.  I also got to put a face to the name of Pauline Venables a lady from Doncaster who is very active in the toy theatre scene.

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Via Via

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Via Via

Tim and I saw two excellent shows “Via Via” by a Dutch gentleman and “Do Fish Drink Tea?” by Garlic Theatre.

“Via Via” was very excellent physical theatre and clowning combined with very skilful, intelligent and funny puppet manipulation, but not really one for the kids as a lot of the nuances would go over their heads.  Though the more obvious slapstick elements would obviously appeal to anyone.

"Do Fish Drink Tea?"

“Do Fish Drink Tea?”

"Do Fish Drink Tea?"

“Do Fish Drink Tea?”

“Do Fish Drink Tea?” was very professional and skilfully performed.  I particularly liked the live music and sound effects.  It did not have a strong narrative but was very surreal, fun and playful.

I returned on Saturday with some friends and family and made a point of seeing Ronnie Le Drew’s bag show.  I had missed this when he did it in the LSP tent 2 years ago and had been very disappointed.  I was not disappointed this year.  Among a host of charming puppet characters the highlight had to be seeing 2 of the original Sooty and Sweep puppets that Ronnie had inherited from Matthew Corbett.  Matthew was the host of the Sooty and Sweep show that I watched as a child.

Other highlights of the day included the Pulcinella show which was a slapstick masterpiece and it was fabulous to see the Italian roots of our British Punch & Judy tradition.  The Italian language was no barrier at all to understanding what was going on.

I also finally got to see “Plain Bob” by Noisy Oyster.  I have been at numerous puppet festivals where this show was on and didn’t have time to watch because I was performing!  It was absolutely charming and I still do not know how Bob managed to move on his own without the puppeteer laying a finger on him while he was sat on his little chair.  There was something extremely clever going on there all right!

Below are some videos of the festival that I have found made by Melvyn Rawlinson and Andrew of Puppet Vision fame.

Are Arts Professionals doing enough to Advocate the Value of the Arts?

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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I recently attended an X-Trax Street Arts Networking Event in Manchester.  A point was raised by one of the people there in response to a newspaper article that was suggesting that attempts to make the arts appeal to the masses were failing.  The article justified this position by looking at the audience numbers and demographics for traditionally elitist art forms such as Ballet and Opera.

Unfortunately I have been unable to locate the article in question.  It was suggested by people at the meeting that we, as street arts professionals, should be doing more to highlight our success in reaching huge numbers of ordinary people.  It was also suggested that we should try and counteract the possible dearth of work and funding next year, (in the wake of the olympics) by blowing our own trumpets.  We should try and highlight all of the good work that we have done this year with the cultural olympiad money.

While searching for the article in question, I found another article which questions whether arts professionals are using the right approach to advocate the arts or whether they just come across as elitist and “luvvy”.  It also raises the issue of whether Equity’s approach of concentrating on the economic benefits of the arts is missing the point.  A lot of art that is truly in touch with ordinary people in the community is not about making a profit, but about wellbeing and quality of life; but are the government interested in that?  CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE.

While I was perusing this article I saw an interview with Liz Pugh from Walk the Plank in a “culture professionals network” sidebar which seems to be doing exactly what was advocated at the meeting.  CLICK HERE FOR LIZ’S ARTICLE

If you are an arts professional, or anyone who values the arts and are concerned about the lack of artistic subjects in the new EBacc, there is a petition and other resources for campaigning on the “Bacc For The Future” website.  CLICK HERE FOR WEBSITE

On a different subject, we have peformed our Hansel & Gretel Toy Theatre show for the locals at Low Bentham Victoria Institute.  Everyone who attended really enjoyed it with 2 children who came back to see it a second time!  A big thankyou to everyone who came to support us.

Our next appearance is also a local one.  Our popular Shadow Puppet Suitcase show “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” will be seen in High Bentham for the first time at Santa’s Late Night Shopping Evening from 6pm on Friday the 7th of December.  There are lots of other exciting things going on, particularly for children.  CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO.  I will have more specific details of where in the town centre I’ll be performing soon, so watch this space!

We’ll also be taking the Hansel & Gretel show to a birthday party and to a Pupil Referral Unit (where they’ll also be making their own shoe-box toy theatres).  And, in what I expect will be it’s last outing of the year, our “Alice in Wonderland” show is giving a North Yorkshire Primary School a Christmas treat.

As a little topic for thought and discussion.  Please leave your comments on the question “What is the best way to demonstrate the value of the arts?”  If you have comments on anything else in this post please feel free to stray from the question. 🙂