Units of Study.
Currently there are six Units of Study available. These provide the building blocks of the training. The course structure allows for additional threads to be developed in puppetry in education and therapy.
The Units are at Professional Level on completion. LSP training is taken intensively in very small groups enabling every student to reach their full potential.
List of Units:
SU1 Shadow Puppetry
Shadow Theatre Skills Development
This module enables the student to explore and create solo work reflecting the mysterious and ambiguous aspects of shadow theatre as a holder of myth and archetype.
* Devising and writing and making solo work by manipulating light, screen and objects.
* A series of assignments leads to public performance.
* Regular operating practice and development of technique and kinaesthetic awareness.
SU2 Hand Glove Body Puppetry
Hand/Glove/Body Puppetry Skills Development
* Devising, writing and making solo work from a series of assignments
* exploring the whole body as the disguised or undisguised form.
* which seek to open up the boundaries of this traditional but subversive form of puppetry
* leading to public performance.
SU3 Rod Puppetry
Rod / Object / Tabletop Theatre Skills Development
The observations of puppetry made by Roland Barthes could contain liberating ideas for the contemporary puppeteer. This module enables the puppeteer to explore new forms of writing for rod puppetry in the making of solo work.
* Devising and writing and making solo work out of the study of classical types of rod puppetry theatre from Europe, Africa and Asia working in a range of stage spaces including table-top.
* studies lead to public performance
* operating practice and training in operating technique
* the application of movement principles.
SU4 Marionettes
Marionette Theatre Skills Development
Held in suspension - the marionette or ubermarionette? Reflections on the work of the puppeteer in the light of seminal texts by Edward Gordon Craig and Heinrich von Kleist. This module enables the student to make solo marionette work and in doing so question attitudes held towards the puppeteer.
* traditional carving,
* devising, writing and making solo work
* using the classic marionette to make contemporary work
* public performance,
* training in operating technique
SU5 Applied Puppetry
Commanding the Specialised Skills of the Puppeteer for Interdisciplinary Work.
This unit represents an overview of puppetry and how it works inside the contemporary multidisciplinary arts context and expresses meaning as artistic expression. This course reflects the now familiar moves to transcend barriers between discrete artforms and offers a real world study of the fertile relationship and interaction between the different art-form subject areas.
The course aims to enable the student:
to demonstrate a sound understanding of the principles of puppetry
to apply those principles across the breadth of puppetry
to evaluate the appropriateness of approaches to problem solving
to perform effectively in the professional field
to exercise personal responsibility in decision-making
* an examination of the theoretical underpinning of puppetry seeking to engage with the identity of the puppeteer and how s/he makes puppets work as expressive objects.
* This UNIT includes the exploration and making of puppets from every genre and a series of informal group or solo performances
SU6 Business Strategies
The puppeteers work as a group to produce and perform solo work as a collaborative performance. All work has to have had previous public performances and each artist has to have developed their individual profiles as professional puppeteers.
* Puppeteers publicise, develop and produce a collaborative programme of solo works working with a range of artists and technicians.
* complete their portfolios, invite contacts, develop a personal website
* perform a public season in a theatre or similar space.
* undertake stage management and other technical tasks associated with a collaborative presentation.
* exercise their knowledge of information on performing rights, health and safety, insurance, union membership.
* organise and produce show reels of work.
* produce the accounts for the event.
Students will take responsibility for staging individual work and integrating it into a shared event by
* negotiating with fellow performers specifics of the programming, such as programme order;
* staging the performances taking into account practical and artistic considerations.
* contributing to the overall smooth running of the performances through efficient stage management of their own and where required others’ work;
* liaising with technical and other staff from the venue;
Business Growth Strategies for The Freelance Puppeteer is only available to Diploma students.