Other puppets(55)
Most puppet types have developed over a long period of time, spreading to large parts of the world. They have followed human migration through millennia. Along the way, they have put down roots and developed different national and regional traits. The history of the theatre puppets is colourful and diverse, and it is also filled with contrasts and conflicts. In main, the theatre puppets in Europe have followed the development of theatre at large, but often in the shadow of it!
ARCHETYPES
There are four archetypes of theatre puppets: glove puppets, rod puppets, marionettes and shadow puppets. All of them have their characteristic visual expressions and physical characteristics, but also limitations.
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A fifth archetypes is the Japanese Bunraku puppets, still very much alive in the city of Osaka, where a national Bunraku theatre is located. Together, the five archetypes have contributed to the development of newer types of puppets, more or less related to their ancestors. These subcategories, hybrids, and mutations of the archetypes are here presented under the headline puppeteer and puppet(s) and other figures. The eight and last category is TV, video and movie puppets.
Archetypes and younger successors live side by side in our time and age. They make up a rich diversity of theatre puppets within performing arts. As the gallery is filled with more and different puppets, more information about them will be added.
NEW AESTHETICS AND NEW THEATRE PUPPETS
What was to change an ossified aesthetic with archetypes was that the puppeteer exited his or her hiding place (called "castelet")[1] with the puppet(s). They began using the stage as a whole. The puppeteer and the puppet had to relate to one another in entirely new ways, they had to interact and act together, to be a dramatic character (or more than one) in force of each other. Stage expressions such as the space, the lighting, the sound, and the music, were explored in an increasingly interdisciplinary aesthetic.
Theatre puppets were simplified or fragmented, such as when a head alone became a (dialogue) partner of the puppeteer's, or when a hat alone illuded a character in interaction with the actor. Object theatre was another, new variety, in which objects such as for instance Lego building blocks, shoes or a lamp became the puppeteer's onstage 'partners'. Much can have happened to a worn-out shoe… Object theatre is closely related to storytelling theatre. As is another newcomer, called material theatre. In this, the puppeteer creates situations while interacting with formable materials, such as clay or paper.
Bunraku-inspired puppets, puppeteer and puppet, object theatre, material theatre and other puppets have developed because of the puppeteer's entrance onto the stage with the puppet(s). The puppeteer's onstage presence opened for many new onstage opportunities, for the puppeteer as well as for the puppet and the interaction between the two. It also led to more diffuse delimitations between puppet, puppeteer, and actor, and it is not uncommon that these now merge.
NOTES
[1]Castelet is French for a small castle. It was also a common term for mobile stages in European countries such as Spain, Italy, France and Belgium. The opportunity for the puppeteer to hide within this small castle may have been the origin of the term.