Me and Jodie are still very much wanting to develop our puppetry to take around festivals during the summer, however it has taken a backburner temporalily while we get our dissertations out of the way. Come January we plan to develop what animals we want to make including both real and fantasy animals, as well as develop the way we perform the puppets. I am most interested in whether it is possible to 'become' the animal we are performing to make it the most realistic animal encounter we can. Our concept is very much about staging an 'animal encounter', to capture the magic of the natural world and to bring people back to nature.
We have already begun to put the wheels in motion for the summer. We have contacted Hogsozzle festival, which Jodie worked at last year, pitching an idea for multiple walkabout puppets, including a flying pig based on the name of the festival. This project is ambitious but Hogsozzle are definitely on board, and it will be good to have a deadline and something to work towards to push us. Having worked at festivals over last summer, this will be a good opportunity to interact with the organisers of the festival on creative professional level not just in the hospitality and catering side of events. I will also be able to network with other designers and performers within the festival context. The festival is the 24th - 26th May 2019, which is early on in festival season, so we will be able to develop our performative skills throughout the summer at festivals (as Jodie and I both are planning on working at festivals over the summer and intend to bring the puppets with us regardless of whether we have talked to the organisers or not). We also plan to hand out small leaflets/business cards explaining our concept to the public and engage them with the environmental issues at hand so that our work also becomes educational. We will also say that our puppets and our services ae available for hire for children parties, workshops and events, with a vision to form our own business out of this.
At my initial professional practice meeting I spoke with Will from the Ideas Factory at NUA. He specialises in starting businesses, so he would be able to help Jodie and I if we wanted to take the puppetry further. If this goes well and I enjoy puppeteering, Will also mentioned the NUA internship programme for September next year. I think it would be good to look into whether it would be possible to do this programme at somewhere like the Puppet Theatre, or another Norwich based theatre, as I am very interested in a possible career in the costume industry.
Drag in the Gallery
As part of the second instalment of Drag in the Gallery, one of the performers from the House of Daze asked me if I could perform in one of the pieces I had on display. I didn't know what song George would be performing or how he was going to interpret my work, but it was amazing to see my work in a different context and how someone can change the meaning of a work through performance. In terms of professional practice, I hope that this will lead to future collaborations with the House of Daze if they ever need a more abstract costume, as this will allow me to get my work out there with an already established performance collective, and will hopefully allow the performers to be more expressive and elaborate in their outfits.
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