puppet collection 1 traditional New Zealand Maori puppet

Suppose that is part of the interest and work with the marionettes, you collect the ones from around the world. Most people will have seen the shadow puppets from Indonesia that are a standard tourist take away. Let me show you one closer to home.
Here is a Karetao, beautifully carved by Riki Manuel for my production 'YES'. You might like to look at the other websites too

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/object/39358/karetao-puppet-early-1800s

http://www.spiritwrestler.com/catalog/index.php?artists_id=29

The figure is 460 mm tall. The photo does not show the lower extension where you hold on to it. By moving the hand piece and relaxing and tightening the string holding the arms you get a lot of movement. Put this into an environment with a natural light source like a small fire in a whare, they must have had an amazing powerful impact. Very few old ones are in collections in New Zealand and overseas.

Marionette Gallery 10 - the doctor saved the horse

The last blog entry told you about the terrible accident the horse had. Loosing a leg is no easy matter for a horse. Shooting it was one option, though the brilliant surgical skills of our resident marionette doctor, Norbert Hausberg, saved the animal and like you see in the image, it is healed and fully functional in a day. That is close to a miracle.

This is one of my oldest marionettes still on active duty. It did remarkably well with all the touring in New Zealand and around the globe. Certainly you might argue about the likeliness to the real thing, but that is not what it is about. When it strides out for the first time it creates laughter each time. With another Marionette on its back, like Brotha M, it makes the audience question how it is done. Why don't the strings tangle with the other Marionette jumping on and off?  Just those little tricks of the trade!

And to make sure it is not photo shopped, the horse in full flight, ready for the next show. Hopefully near you! Cheers and stay tuned

On the road in Hawkes Bay and accidents do happen

The week in Napier and surrounds was very successful with many highlight and funny stories do happen too. During Rumpelstiltskin at the Century Theatre in Napier, Brotha M left the forest on his horse and one hind leg fell off. I looked over the backdrop, picked up the leg and ask 'is there a doctor in the audience'. Everybody started to laugh and yes you have to make the most out of the situation. It was a marionette I did make in Germany before I immigrated to New Zealand all this years ago. I suppose the Horse did quite well functioning without fail all those years.
Snow White in the afternoon, with a lovely family of voluntary dwarfs, was nearly sold out just fantastic!

The marionette making workshop at the Museums Education rooms was a lot of fun too. All the participants created a three string marionette and some showed them at the performance in the afternoon.

Here the group photo in the Museums foyer.

Until July we will be working in the greater Wellington area, no more Hotels, Motels and friends couches for a while. In July you might like to catch up with us in the Waikato! Looking forward to it.

Trick Marionette 2

This footage is certainly not the best, but excuse me, how often did a real alien got banned on any film??  The pleasure of Puppetry and Marionettes in particular is the possibility to invent and create characters. They don't have to stay in the earthly realm. This little????? whatever was created for Mustava and the Moon a space show I did some years back. Technically its a rod marionette. They are in various forms very traditional and popular in Sicily, the Amiens area and Prague. Rod marionette simply means that a strong wire or in my case a aluminium tube are directly attached to the body to facilitate manipulation. This of course opens up different possibilities of movement.

Here is a link to Wikipedia and a nice overview of possibilities in the area with many additional links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marionette

enjoy!

must read news and touring update

Saturday June 7 is a day to be in beautiful arty Napier. We will spend the week from the June 3rd to the June 7th touring in Hawkes Bay. The highlight will certainly be Saturday and don't miss out to see the shows and participate in the workshop

http://www.mtghawkesbay.com/about/news/article/63

Something for the German speaking readers of my blog.

http://nzdeutschland.info/norbert-hausberg-puppenspieler-zwischen-zwei-welten/



And who or what is this in the photo?? More about her/him/it in the next blog entry!

touring diary 4

The mighty Wanganui River and the majestic Mount Taranaki are just some of the sight I am fortunate to see and experience on touring through this fascinating and beautiful country of ours. Meeting teachers and parents, shopkeepers and other locals is a great experience. The farmer in his ute with the sheep carcass and a huntaway on the back of it are sight that you can not match in a lot of other places in the world.

Certainly the sun does not always shine and you now a lot of motels too. Though seeing the captured audience, the smiles, laughter and their unique experience makes it all worthwhile. The most amazing thing was also the parent that remembers seeing you when they were a child. 

touring diary 3

And here we are the last part of the South Island was the Nelson Tasman region. Yes it was good to get into the sun to beautiful Nelson and surrounds.

Here we are in Motuekas Parkland school and as obvious, the great new magnet stickers that arrived the night before the tour, decorate my car. In the afternoon I gave a marionette making workshop to the teachers. It is so cool, the teachers can record the workshop on their ipads and show the pupils.

The Dwarfs in St Joseph's School Nelson that participated in Snow white and the seven Dwarfs. They are the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday Dwarfs. My Marionette is the Sunday Dwarf and they had great interaction and talked about the hard daily grind of their work.

Nelson and surrounds has a great mix of people. It was so nice to see a number of house trucks on the road. Sort of reminded me on my first ever OE in the US in the early seventies. The great thing when you get older, your memories increase. 30 years ago on my first tour here the region was still very much a potters paradise with I say 100 or so, now you really have to know where to go to find one.

From now on until December the touring will focus on the North Island. Though hope to be back down south early in 2015.