Basic Puppet Techniques

Subject is not scheduled Not scheduled

Code Completion Credits Range Language Instruction Semester
204PUPT ZK 3 56CS English

Subject guarantor

Name of lecturer(s)

Learning outcomes of the course unit

They will learn the different techniques of moving puppets: from below (with gloves, rods or gapits), from behind (bunraku) from above (marionette) and the contemporary trends (e.g. table puppetry).

Mode of study

Practical exercises

Group work

Individual work

Prerequisites and co-requisites

None

Course contents

It develops the animation skills of the students through the study of different puppetry techniques. The aim of the course is to create a short scene within each of the styles. It helps to improve abilities in animation, abstract thinking and onstage creativity and to practice basic puppetry systems and methods. Students will be able to consciously apply knowledge gained in other parts of the training program (movement, speech, singing, acting etc.). They will be able to work together on stage and to work on a high artistic level. They will learn the different techniques of moving puppets: from below (with gloves, rods or gapits), from behind (bunraku) from above (marionette) and the contemporary trends (e.g. table puppetry). The starting point is the hand and the play with hands, followed by plays with balls (Obrascov exercises), and later applied to the classic types of glove puppetry (fairground puppetry, play with one or two hands). Students will learn to use the technique of rod puppets above the folding screen and they will see how the different tools

(rods, sticks, gapits) require different animation. Through the animation of the bunraku puppets that are animated from behind, they will learn how to animate together with other people in a concentrated process. In learning the marionette technique they will learn to deal with the biggest distance between man and puppets (cords). The learning of each

technique starts with basic animation exercises (sitting down, standing up, walking, turning around…), followed by characterization and the study of rhythm.

Recommended or required reading

Bunraku: the Puppet Theater / by Tsuruo Ando; with an introduction by Charles J. Dunn- New York & Tokyo: A

Weatherhill Book , 1970

Present trends in research of the world puppetry: a collection of papers / Red. Marek Waszkiel.- Warsaw: Institute of Art

of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 1992.

John McCORMICK, Bennie PRATASIK: Popular puppet theatre in Europe, 1800-1914. Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge, 1988.

Luman Coad Marionette sourcebbok. Theory & Technique, Charlemagne Press, North Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 2007

Kobayakawa Keiko Bunraku, Bunraku Kyokai National Bunraku Theatre, Osaka

Metin And: Karagöz: turkish shadow theatre, Dost Yayinlari, Ankara, 1975

Assessment methods and criteria

Practical exam

Further information

No schedule has been prepared for this course

The subject is a part of the following study plans