Tag Archives: Edward Lears Nonsense

Shadow Shows and Workshops in Schools!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Earlier this year I visited Bramham and Shadwell primary schools in Leeds.

I was invited to inspire the kids who had been making their own puppets in class.

They were treated to a triple bill of short shadow puppet shows (“Jabberwocky!“, “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” and “The Interrupted Wedding“) followed by Q & A about the shows and the puppets and my life as a puppeteer.

Alice Bunraku style puppet

I also brought a variety of different puppet types for them to see and explain how they worked and what countries in the world they came from. As the children had been making glove puppets I mainly showed them some different kinds of glove puppets and we talked about the different hand positions you can use when operating glove/hand puppets and I also brought my Alice Bunraku style puppet to show them as it is probably the most interesting puppet I own. The kids always love seeing how the head goes on and off and has a wig made from my own hair.

The children were all very engaged and had lots of interesting questions. They seemed very inspired by the puppets and loved the music in the “Jabberwocky!” show.

All the teachers were very helpful and welcoming at both schools, so a big THANK-YOU to them.

Later in the year I visited Bishop Rawstorne C of E High School in Croston for their special Chinese cultural day. The Year 7s and 8s were celebrating many different aspects of Chinese culture and there were lots of different people running many different workshops including lion dancing, calligraphy, cookery etc. and I was employed to perform one of my shadow puppet shows and run a Chinese style shadow puppetry workshop.

As time was limited I opted to make simplified versions of traditional Chinese puppets by concentrating just on silhouette style puppets rather then translucent ones with colour.

I made a series of templates for the children to use based on the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac story and as there was very little/no time to actually rehearse with the puppets and the school were very keen to have the children perform a show I thought this story would be a good choice as they could parade their puppets from one side of the screen to the other to show the animals crossing the river and everyone who wanted to would get a chance to perform.

Below is the process of me making the prototype for the tiger puppet based on one from the V&A museum collection. The Victoria and Albert Museum have a very large puppet collection and the costume section is definitely worth a visit too, (CLICK HERE for my previous blog post on a visit to the V&A)

I did a lot of research on Chinese puppetry and puppets in preparation and discovered how much more there is to traditional Chinese puppetry than I realised. There is not just one Chinese shadow puppetry tradition but several different ones from different parts of China each with its own artistic style and construction methods. I also found out that Chinese Shadow Puppetry is on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, (CLICK HERE to find out more).

I searched for pictures of traditional Chinese shadow puppets and recreated my own simplified versions and in the process discovered lots of interesting things about the way the puppets were jointed. I found a picture of a Chinese Lion puppet (I know it’s not a Zodiac animal, but I did extra lions and dragons so that there would be enough puppets for all the children) and when I recreated my own version was astounded at how well it moved and in particular the fact that you could get such a huge variety of movements using just one stick on the lion’s head and one on its tail. It made me realise that when you see a picture of a Chinese shadow puppet, you are only getting a small appreciation of what it is like compared to seeing it perform, because so much of what is brilliant about them comes from the jointing and the way they move.

The traditional puppets were made so that one puppeteer is able to operate several puppets at the same time, sometimes with more than one in each hand!

If you would like me to visit your school for a performance or a workshop CLICK HERE to get in touch. You can find out about the different types of workshops we offer on our website by clicking HERE.

We will be starting to design and sell templates for shadow puppets that you can print out for yourself at home. I was thinking of basing them around traditional fairy tales. If you have any suggestions of templates you would like to see, please reply to this post with your ideas 🙂

A great first outing for Festa Italia Lancaster!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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I was invited to provide the family entertainment for a new festival in Lancaster (organised by Lancaster BID) by “The Melodrome Mobile Stage“.  It was an Italian themed festival called “Festa Italia” with food and entertainment in an Italian theme which would also hopefully promote interest in Lancaster’s Italian businesses.

I was invited to perform my two Shadow Puppet Suitcase shows “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” and “Jabberwocky!”, unusually with both shows within each 30 minute set.  I normally stick to one show per set to avoid having to swap 2 sets of puppets over mid-set.

My first set was in Church St. where a lot of the Italian businesses are and I started off with the Edward Lear’s Nonsense (as this has more puppets) and swapped to Jabberwocky afterwards.  This was relatively manageable as even though this show has scenery it only uses 8 puppets and Edward Lear has at least twice as many.  I also had Rough Magic Theatre’s Tim Austin as puppet wrangler (aiding me getting the two sets of puppets swapped around).

It had looked like it could be raining all day when we set out and we were worried no-one would be there but there were plenty of crowds and the occasional showers did not put people off.  We were also fortunate that it was dry at the times we were performing.

We met lots of the other acts in the Green Room in Lancaster Museum including a group promenading in Venetian Carnival inspired costumes:

Our second set at the Melodrome Stage in the Market Square attracted much larger crowds and we, the audiences and the Melodrome Stage were all very pleased.  We were very fortunate that at the time of day we were due to perform at the Market Square the sun was going in the right direction so we did not have to rely on artificial lighting and got really clear shadows.  Normally speaking when we perform this show that is not an issue as we just perform in the right direction for the sun and get the audience to move to the right position, (or perform for people who are already in the right position) but in this case there was already an area for the audience with seating etc. set up for the Melodrome stage so it was convenient things turned out as they did!

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It seemed to be a very successful day all round and there were crowds there for the bands and food etc. long after we had finished at 4.45pm.  This was great as at most festivals I’ve attended people start to head home at around 4.00pm!

We had a great day and were well looked after by the Melodrome team.  It was also a first successful outing for the Shadow Puppet Suitcase shopping trolley!

I had had an idea some time ago to do a new version of the suitcase theatre with a bigger screen and puppets by converting a pram, (you can see the previous post about it HERE).  I had been concerned that it might be too low down and David Goboff suggested I look into shopping trolleys instead.

It occurred to me recently that I needn’t wait to build a whole new theatre on top of the trolley but that I could simply strap my existing theatre to the trolley and be able to use it right away.  Feedback I have had so far suggests that not having the theatre strapped to me makes the shadows clearer as it is not moving around as much.  It is also easier to operate the puppets though slightly more challenging to lower the “curtain”.

I decided to try this set-up now as I am currently expecting another baby (due in February) and so did not want to be strapping the fairly heavy suitcase to me.  I am available for bookings up to the end of this year and from September next year and Rough Magic Theatre’s Tim Austin will also be available for his solo shows: Mad Hatter’s Tea Party walkabout, The Interrupted Wedding shadow puppet show and Jolly Rodger Pirate Parties for summer next year.

Please get in touch if you are wanting shadow puppet workshops in schools this year and family entertainment for Christmas events or Festivals of Light.