Every evening WaxBaby will present iDOLLEyes a wierdly wonderful collection of puppetry pieces verging on installation art, cabaret and performance. During the daytime, the London School of Puppetry will run a schools’ programme of Animated Shakespeare; training for puppeteers by international artists such as Yuki Muramatsu from Japan; and a symposium on the use of puppets in education and therapy. Not to be missed!

mailing.lsp@googlemail.com telling us that you want to be on the list and what special puppetry interests you have.  Thanks

The Marionette Mini-Course will look especially at the Marionette as a therapeutic tool. Students will be able to operate marionettes and play with them exploring the kinaesthetic  links between human and puppet action.

A number of students have requested a course exploring human-sized puppets- this will be covered in the Rod-Puppetry Mini Course where different kinds of controls  and operating techniques will be developed.

The aim of the mini course is to introduce the participant to some essential aspect of a puppet genre, by means of a three full-day intensive experimental project, led by expert tutors, underpinned by a rigorous theoretical profile and culminating in performance to an invited audience. It always generates an enormous amount of laughter-

How do we design LSP courses? They are created by the participants themselves in association with LSP tutors. LSP always attracts a high calibre of student with a highly distinctive cross arts contribution to make, and although LSP training is always very hot on what might be termed, classical operating technique,LSP is always keen to take advantage of the skills the students themselves bring.

Each mini course includes daily operating classes, puppet making- which is open and experimental, and performance, working as a director and being directed. The intensive nature of the courses is appealing to the participant because they can produce their best coursework during the daytime (instead of trying to study in the evenings when at their most tired) and go home buzzing full of anticipation for the next day.

The artists participating in the recent mini puppetry courses included sculptors, film-makers, web-designers, writers and puppeteers, theatre directors and physical theatre practitioners.Their varied contribution enriches the courses making cross-arts collaboration led by puppetry a valuable addition to puppetry trainingLSP courses place an important emphasis on puppetry technique balanced with experiment and innovation. The participants themselves are leading the development of these mini courses.

• London Marionette Carving and Operating Summer School July 8-10th, 12th-14th fees £200
• Shadow Theatre Summer School Yorkshire 9-16 August  fees £300

• Shadow Puppetry SU1 (PPD/PACe/CcLipP/ToP)9th August- 6th September.
• Special Wayang Kulit Shadow Course with Yuki Muramatsu from Japan September 30, Oct, 1st/2nd

• Business Strategies for the Puppeteer plus Season at the Rosemary Branch Theatre SU6 (PPD/DiPP) London 30th September -12th October (plus previous distance learning)

• Marionette Theatre SU4 (PPD/PACe/CcLipP/ToP)Yorkshire/London 27th October-26th November

• Marionette MiniCourse 24-26th November London (The therapeutic use of the string puppet)
• Rod Puppetry SU3 (PPD/PACe/CcLipP/ToP)Yorkshire 5th January-5th February 2009
• Rod Puppetry MiniCourse London 2nd-4th February 2009 (Human sized puppets)
• Hand/Glove/Body Puppetry SU2 (PPD/PACe/CcLipP/ToP) Yorkshire/London March 1-31st 2009
• Hand/Glove/Body Puppetry MiniCourse London 30th March-1st April 2009 (Storytelling in Education and the Glove Puppet)

The dates are provisional as where possible we work around student availability. PPD students are required to take modules consecutively as they are listed. Short Courses consist of two Units each. These may be selected from the list. The two Units may be taken at any time with any length of time between them. Although applicants for the PPD and Short Courses (CCLipP or PACe) are required to be interviewed, Mini Courses and Summer Schools are completely open.

Peel a huge number of garlic cloves. Scatter them into a large baking tray with three cups of boiled chickpeas. Roast in olive oil for about an hour. Sprinkle in fresh thyme just before serving with a salad and a plate of salami and parma ham. (serves 4) Ida Tjalve (Denmark)

Chop up a lot of leeks and one onion, fry in olive oil (do not brown)Leave to cool slightly.
Roll out pastry to make a case for a deep spring form tin approx 10″ in diameter.
Mix leeks and onion with cream and an egg, Fill pastry and roll out a lid and place over the pie and cook in medium oven until golden brown.
Serve with onion, lettuce, beetroot and tuna fish salad. Serves 4

Urko Redondo Pescador(Basque Country)

Caroline Astell-Burt.

Put into a glass bowl: chopped up onion and potato plus any other root vegetables, (one each per person) pour in a little boiling water and stock cubes. Cook in microwave until soft, then add evaporated milk, or soya milk -liquidize. If it is for more people then do not bother with microwave but use large pan instead.  Caroline Astell-Burt

Just to say thanks for a fantastic course. I really loved it (although I am aching from head to toe!) It was so good to get such sustained practice with the puppets, both in terms of operating and making.

Kusuma Venzky-Stelling

The mini shadows technique course was quite an eye opener for me as I had no idea what to expect. The environment was creative, friendly and supportive and I learnt loads. The teaching was very hands on and I always felt involved. It was great to finish the 3 days with everyones performance of the work they had created during the course. I think that many of the techniques I learnt on the shadows course will be very helpful to me in my work as a computer animator - after all, it is animation in real time! I am already planning to return for more in the future.

The mini shadow puppetry course was a great experience that met and exceded my expectations. The teaching and atmosphere were relaxed. I appreciated the balance between learning, working and performing. The short performance at the end was a great goal to work toward and helped set a working timeline.

What impressed me the most was the caliber of the other participants this course attracted. People’s ideas and energy were and infectious and made for some great original performances at the end of the course. It was great to be able to see the diploma level student work and have them participate in the course. These are the people who will be using puppetry as part of their occupations.

Over all I am now more interested than ever in learning about puppetry and shadow puppetry in particular, so the course was definitely worthwhile for me. I think a de-briefing on the last day could be very useful. I would be interested to know who is planning to continue on in puppetry or how they will use what they learned.

Well my feelings are really positive. I loved the fact that we worked towards a performance on the last day, with not too much pressure but enough to sort of force you into actually making choices which is invaluable.  I liked the venue, in spite of the temp! Loved the fact  that the children come in and watch. I may have already said this, but I personally learn a lot from the way that you, Caroline, are with the children.

Erm what else? General atmosphere, still that lovely mix between work and relaxedness. How much work did I do? As much as I could I think; I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do anything whatsoever as I’d had to really carve out the space to come at all. Having said that I’m so glad I did come, because I learnt on so many fronts. I learnt from watching others build and perform, from experiencing my own self at work and seeing what I came up with, and from performing to the other students and children. I just found it a really happy and interesting experience.

How will the course enhance my filmmaking and my drama? Several ways I think. In a practical sense this work helps me to be more ‘hands on’. It is important for me to get over perfection barriers through spontaneous making and doing. (I recently made a beautiful costume for one of my daughters which I’m sure is a direct result of working more with my hands.) I will be making a film next Summer and may find this increased creative and practical capability feeds though then as well.

Also, the shadow puppetry shocked me how much like watching a film it is. So that is very interesting for me, especially how image can mix with feeling. I knew in the piece I performed with Helen, that it had to have feeling, and that we had to stay in touch with that as we performed it. And that the pace was important, that it was like music. I am very aware of film being like music. When filming, it’s sometimes tricky to stay in touch with that musical feeling, as the filming process gets so cut up and there are so many pauses in between. So it’s nice to do ‘live theatre’. The course has inspired me to do some more. I think there will be some healthy interaction between these two sides of my work.

I liked the morning workshops. Wendy’s fairy tale work with body shapes gave us a very specific thing to do behind the screen. That way we weren’t just floundering. Fairy tales were a really good choice because we all know them and they contain really simple images. The Flat Stanley was the same - worked well. The monkey puppets were great. Even though I felt that I did pretty badly in that, I felt it was okay. That means the general atmosphere you created was a pretty good, non-judgmental one.

I did get my money’s worth. I’m very glad to be learning from you and the other tutors Caroline!

Sorry I don’t have anything negative to say, or something to point out that could have been done and wasn’t. I like Helen’s idea of the personal processes. Sometimes it’s tricky to verbalise these though.

Lulu Radinger (film-maker)

The artists paricipating in the recent Shadow Puppetry and Rod and Table-top puppetry courses included sculptors, film-makers, web-designers, writers and puppeteers, theatre directors and physical theatre practitioners.Their varied contribution enriches the courses making cross-arts collaboration led by puppetry a valuable addition to puppetry training

LSP courses place an important emphasis on puppetry technique balanced with experiment and innovation. The participants themselves are leading the development of these mini courses.