Puppet Perspectives

Created by design students at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

Directed by Marc Parret and Lucy hall

I created and designed the Monkey and Vulture characters that ran throughout the piece, as well as collaborated with others to make our main protagonist, the Ciguapa, and other props and puppets.

I also puppeteered several other puppets and objects during the show.

The final moments of the show with Monkey watching the world created around them

Vulture in action

Co-created with students at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Puppet Perspectives was the final design and performance project of 2021.

Performed and devised by the students of the design department, the performance used the finalists from 2021’s international art competition, Artis Mundi, as prompts and inspiration.

The performance was an abstract combination of worlds inspired by the exhibition that we joined together with movement and puppetry. 

Photos by Rorie Brophy and Simon Gough

Video by Andy Pike

The Ciguapa and the Vulture in their first meeting

The Ciguapa is routed to the ground using ropes pulled from her shell to reflect the grounding of the Ciguapa into the earth like the roots of a tree

Ciguapa meets a dark creature in the desert

Monkey watches the Ciguapa

 

Process

 

Vulture and Ciguapa

With such a short making period I did not do final designs but started making maquettes almost immediately

Vulture maquette head made from newspaper with simple up/down triggered head mechansim

Experiments with materials for creating layers of the Ciguapa body

Ciguapa shell testing

Marbles for eyes, a new mechanism on plastic piping and a fresh paint job

The Vulture in the dress rehearsal

Initial designs for the wing mechanism of the Vulture

Clay sculpt of vulture head, modelled on the maquette, nearly ready for Warbla

Wooden body of the Vulture glued and screwed in place ready for the wing mechanism

Vulture Warbla shell after being moulded round the clay, cooled and then cut off the sculpt

Testing the body with the clay sculpt to see if the size is the right scale

Wing maquette made of scrap wood

The inside of the wing mechanism

Finished wing mechanism with up and down motion and outward fold motion

 

Monkey

Monkey was inspired by the red backed Squirrel Monkey

First stages of Monkey body

Using hand dyed string to create a textured and colourful finish

Padding the arms and legs with foam

Covering the body in recycled string and dyed hemp

Eyes painted black and glazed to create a shine