The
Logic of Movement
Presented by Puppet Centre Trust in collaboration with Upfront Gallery and Puppet Theatre and Lakes Alive
Puppet manipulation and movement workshop with Stephen Mottram
The Playhouse, Castlegate, Penrith
Monday 2 August 2010
10am – 4:30pm
£40 (payment to be made prior to workshop to PCT)
Email: emma.leishman@puppetcentre.org.uk to reserve a place.
A workshop about why things move in the way they do, and how, knowing about this helps the puppeteer and other stage practitioners to express ideas more successfully to an audience.
“The elements which lie behind our vocabulary of movement are quite easy to identify – responses to gravity, the need to move from place to place, tension patterns and changes in movement tempo linked to emotions like fear or pleasure.
Our ability to read this movement information lies deep in our animal past. Natural selection has favoured creatures with good survival strategies and knowing what the movement in the world around us means. As a result, we humans decode movement information with a mind boggling degree of sophistication.
However, almost always in puppet theatre, where moving things about is so obviously a large part of what is being offered to the audience, movement itself is given little conscious attention and at best is assumed to be produced by the intuitive ability of the puppeteer. Often this lack of attention to movement as a principal means of communication leaves performances far short of their potential
During our time together we will try to develop a conscious approach to creating credible movement with puppets and identify key issues in communication through movement.”
*Please note: The Seed Carriers will be performed on Sunday 1st August at The Playhouse, 7:30pm. This event is to tie in with the Lakes Alive international puppet festival in Penrith on 1 August 2010; for further information please visit: www.lakesalive.org
Stephen Mottram – biography
Stephen Mottram is an artist, craftsman and puppeteer. In 1980 he joined a traditional English marionette company and in 1982 won an Arts Council bursary, which took him to the Hungarian State Puppet Theatre School in Budapest.
Since 1988 he has been developing a unique theatre language, which exploits the relationship between electro-acoustic music and the movement-image. His performances are the result of detailed collaboration with the composers with whom he works. His solo show IN SUSPENSION has travelled all over the world. His performance THE SEED CARRIERS has so far toured to over 18 countries and won three international awards. Stephen’s most recent show, ORGANILLO, about fertility and birth, was launched a few weeks before the birth of his first child.
Stephen has also worked on a number of films including THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, TALES FROM THE DECAMERON and STRINGS – a marionette feature film whose UK premiere was at the London International Film Festival in 2004.