New England Puppet Intensive — Design and Construction Edition

New England Puppet Intensive—15 days of vigorous training in the creative art of puppetry and animated object performance presented by members of The Old Trout Puppet Workshop.

Immerse yourself in the ultimate studio experience! For 10 days, we’ll engage in a unique design laboratory with a fully stocked puppet-making studio set against the backdrop of the beautiful Massachusetts Berkshires.

Instruction and exercises will focus on physical awareness, character development, ensemble building & puppet design. In addition, participants will work toward the development of original material where our ideas and creations will take flight in front of an audience presented at the end of the workshop at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA).

At the core of our work is a concern for expressiveness and character. We will dispel with the impulse to build puppets by classification and taxonomy and instead ask more fundamental questions which free the puppet designer to innovate beyond routine forms, including an investigation into the abstract. Puppetry and mask exercises will help us more fully understand the interplay between design and performance.

Woven into the experience is a collective creation project which will be presented as part of the Berkshire Lantern Walk in partnership with the world renown Clark Art Institute.

Set into the beautiful landscape of the Massachusetts Birkshire mountains this intensive focuses on harnessing the natural environment and the art that is housed therein to draw the participant into an inspired state – work happens as much outdoors as is it does indoors and the final destination is an unpredictable understanding of what is capable in the puppet arts.

Stay tuned for information on the 2017 Builders workshop. For more information go to www.newenglandpuppet.org