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S A F
E T Y
The
practical work involved in devising celebrations requires the occupational health
and safety practices associated with the visual and performing arts. Always
put safety first.
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Puppets
[You
may also be interested in shadow puppets]
Puppetry can be used in a variety of ways and scales. This is illustrated
below by the puppets created by Charles Sturt University (CSU) Theatre
Media students as part of street festivals celebrating the October Bathurst
1000 car races from 1989 - 1996.
Principles:
Play around with scale, if you have a large image make a small one
of it somewhere.
Repeat images. Make a series of the same image and put them together in
all sorts of combinations.
Always put the safety of crew, performers and spectators first - no exceptions.
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- The smallest scale the students used for the street festival
was a puppet booth with one or two operators inside. The shows
would last from 10 to 15 minutes and contained information about
the race weekend based on published information and interviews
with drivers and officials.
- Puppet show material can be easily updated. They were a great
favourite with families and children. The booths were decorated
in designs that marked them as part of CSU's overall production.
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- Puppets were also made on human scale and operated from inside.
These included iconic images for the bush such as sheep and galahs,
but also gorillas and a variety of other characters that could
transform by changing the shape or adjusting the position of the
costume. Features could be exaggerated such as the feet and the
head.
- These might be found strolling the street, in street processions
and in the grand parade.
- They are largely made from fabric, foam plastic and closed cell
foam which can create self supporting shapes for costumes, heads
and hats.
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- Giant puppets three times human size were made over old cars
for the grand parade. These were articulated amd made from cane,
wires and fabric fixed on with a variety of glues.
- The students experimented with muslin, calico glued with PVA,
latex carpet glue and newspaper glued with flour and water. All
worked, though the flour and water only lasted for one rain-soaked
parade while the latex lasted two years before the puppet (left
outside) was finally taken apart.
- The paint protected the flour and water puppet which had been
laid over a wickerwork frame of willow wands harvested locally.
While this was a cheap way to make a giant puppet it was labour
intensive.
- Some of these puppets were operated from inside and some were
operated from outside through the use of rods. Some combined both
techniques. These were effective images in that they were playful,
could be seen easily from a distance and had a life of their own
because they moved.
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