Pupperoos Puppet off to New York City!

By admin | Published: 10 February, 2012


Recently Pupperoos was commissioned to create a custom-made plush toy/puppet for Highway Patrol Games, to be exhibited at the 109th American International Toy Fair in New York City. This is the largest toy and youth product marketplace in the Western Hemisphere, bringing together more than 1,100 exhibiting manufacturers, distributors, importers and sales agents from around the globe to showcase their toy and entertainment products.

After much careful carving of foam, snipping of felt, and meticulous sewing, “Officer Dan” was born. He measures 40cm high and is fitted with a talking voice chip that activates when squeezing his belly (to which he will say such phrases as “Stop that car!” and “You’re under arrest!”). Puppet maker Kay Yasugi was assisted by the brilliant sewing talents of artist Erika Haverly Cholich, who whipped up Officer Dan’s fine uniform and accessories. Despite his felt hand-cuffs, gun holster and ‘tough-guy’ persona, Officer Dan is still a gentleman – and quite a cute one at that!

To see more photos of Officer Dan, please click on the thumbnails below:

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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Super Chee-Chee!

By admin | Published: 18 October, 2011

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Last weekend Pupperoos ‘star’ Chee-Chee the Cheeky Monkey (a.k.a. ‘Super Chee-Chee’) visited Pennant Hills Baptist Church for their community outreach event, ‘Sticky Beak’. After a year of building renovations, the church opened their doors to the local community to have a look around and enjoy a range of fun activities including jumping castles, pony rides and climbing around fire trucks (not to mention sampling a myriad of delicious multicultural food stalls). Chee-Chee herself put on a show (along with puppeteer Kay Yasugi) called “Who will rescue?”, with the help of some volunteers. There was singing, dancing and, of course, bananas.

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Giant Puppet Making workshop at Shopfront Theatre

By admin | Published: 18 October, 2011

Pupperoos recently ran a 2 day giant puppet making workshop at  Shopfront Theatre for Young People in Carlton, Sydney. Puppeteer Kay Yasugi worked with the Junior Ensemble group of 8-15 year olds to devise and create a giant sea monster puppet for their end of year production (directed by Howard Matthew & Luke Kerridge). The workshop involved experimenting with various materials (including umbrellas, fans and cardboard rolls) to brainstorm ideas of what their sea monster could be – including how it moves, what it looks/sounds/smells like and how it thinks.  A twist to this process was drawing the character of the monster from within the participants’ own selves (the monster representing the side of themselves that people don’t see – e.g. loneliness, anger, fear).

Needless to say, building the monster was a lot of fun.  The children used cane, masking tape, paper and glue  to create 2 beastly heads, 2 long necks, 2 tentacle-like arms and 2 ferocious claws. After the various parts were joined together, some of the group had a go at operating the puppet. For many it was their first time working with puppets (let alone giant ones!). Pupperoos will be returning to Shopfront to help finish off the puppet and work with some of the ensemble in operating it.

Here are some comments from the sessions:

“I enjoyed seeing it all come together just from an idea, and making it from just cane and paper.” – Kayla

“I loved how we could create something brilliant in 2 days.” – Alexa

Shopfront is a not-for-profit organisation and registered charity for young people aged 8 – 25. It is a cultural network and production co-operative where all young people, regardless of their background or ability, can create themselves. For more information about this organisation, please visit http://shopfront.org.au/

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A Summer of Strings at the London School of Puppetry

By admin | Published: 3 August, 2011
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Kay Yasugi from Pupperoos recently visited the London School of Puppetry’s marionette summer school to explore teaching marionettes in education (run at their Northern Study Centre in Yorkshire, UK).

There was a carving course, operating workshops and marionette play time. With the theme of “Enchantment”, the students produced a variety of stringed creatures, including a gold-spinning goblin, a beanstalk-climbing rebel and a peg-legged dancer who befriends peacocks.   

The group also worked with dancer/director Belinda Chapman from Bound 2B Theatre, developing ideas for their new project combining physical theatre and puppetry.
For more information about workshops and courses at the London School of Puppetry (UK), please visit
www.londonschoolofpuppetry.com

For information about puppet making and operating workshops in schools with Pupperoos (Australia), contact Kay at info@pupperoos.com

Click on the thumbnails below to see photos from the workshop.

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Pupperoos goes to Spirit of the Marsh Festival UK

By admin | Published: 27 July, 2011
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Giant puppet walkabout at the Spirit of the Marsh Festival

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Kay Yasugi from Pupperoos recently spent a puppet-filled weekend in Lincolnshire UK at the Spirit of the Marsh Music/Arts Festival. She collaborated with Poppenkast (from Derby UK) to run puppet playtime and marionette making workshops for children. There were also shadow puppetry and marionette shows by Curly Ru Puppets and puppeteer Chris Wylie, whereby monkeys boogied in the dark, goblins overdosed on golden syrup and little kleptomaniac girls encountered dancing beanstalks.
The puppet troupe also worked with Geofest Collective (Derby, UK), who ran circus and drumming workshops and demonstrations of fire juggling, Capoeira martial arts/dancing and graffiti.
Being in Viking territory, Kay also took part in a night parade amongst a crowd of bellowing armour-clad vikings, followed by juggling pyrotechnics, masked drummers and very large puppets.

For information about puppet making and operating workshops with Pupperoos (Australia), click here

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Marionette workshop with the London School of Puppetry

By admin | Published: 20 July, 2011
YouTube Preview Image Kay Yasugi from Pupperoos recenty ran a marionette operating workshop with Caroline Astell-Burt (London School of Puppetry) at Carleton Endowed Primary School in Skipton, Yorkshire UK. This 1 hour workshop was for Year 6 students (10-12 year olds), where they learned how to operate simple balloon marionettes through games and play. They also learned how to work the control of a short-string marionette. At the end of the workshop, they performed short routines with their puppets.

The Carleton students also enjoyed watching 3 marionette shows inspired by fairytales, performed by students from the London School of Puppetry.

For more information about workshops and courses at the London School of Puppetry (UK), please visit
www.londonschoolofpuppetry.com

For information about puppet making and operating workshops in schools with Pupperoos (Australia), contact Kay at info@pupperoos.com

Click on the thumbnails below to see photos from the workshop.

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Pupperoos performs in the UK

By admin | Published: 19 July, 2011
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Kay Yasugi, Caroline Astell-Burt and Chris Wylie with their marionettes

Kay Yasugi from Pupperoos recently performed at the Ripon Yarns Storytelling Festival of the Dales in Yorkshire, UK.  She teamed up with Caroline Astell-Burt (Wax Baby Productions) and puppeteer Chris Wylieto perform “Enchanted”, a children’s puppet show inspired by fairy tales. The show included fire-breathing dragons, vegetarian giants and snow white princesses lacking domestic finesse.

They performed at The Curious Room in Westgate, Ripon. Click the thumbnails below to see photos from the show.
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Greetings from Prague!

By admin | Published: 3 July, 2011
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Finished string marionette by Kay Yasugi

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During 4th-18th June 2011, puppeteer Kay Yasugi from Pupperoos attended a marionette carving workshop at the Puppets in Prague School in the Czech Republic.  The course is run by Mirek Trejtnar and Leah Gaffen, with other visiting tutors including Zdar Šorm(carving/technology), Sota Sakuma (carving) and Dora Bouzkova (puppet manipulation).

The workshop participants included puppeteer Lisa Krause (from Baltimore, USA), make-up artist Tara Cooper (from Texas, USA), costume designer Junko Kanayama (from Osaka, Japan) and fine artist Nina Prader (from Boston, USA).

Over this 15 day workshop, the participants learned how to carve wooden marionettes (string/wire puppets), which also involved doing technical drawings, painting, costume making and assembling. By the end of the workshop, a myriad of beautiful puppet characters were created, including a Tim-Burton-style gypsy with blue hair, an old grandmother with miss-matched shoes, a little girl with a little door in her chest, a Native-American warrior/storyteller, a bright green creature of the sea (complete with webbed feet), a dashing shoemaker, a vampire girl, an Aboriginal rain-maker boy, a whimsical flower girl, a boy with starry facial tattooos and a bean-stalk climbing fairytale girl.

 This workshop also coincided with the Prague Quadrennial – an international exhibition of scenography and theatre that is held in Prague every 4 years and draws entries from over 60 countries. At the end of the workshop, the students performed in “Street Stories” at Prague’s Jungmann Square, as part of the Quadrennial’s “Scenofest” programme.

For more information about the Puppets in Prague school and their upcoming workshops, please visit
http://www.puppetsinprague.eu

Click on the thumbnails below to see photos from the workshop (including photos from Kay’s carving process): 

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Pupperoos is off to Prague and the UK!

By admin | Published: 29 May, 2011

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Kay Yasugi from Pupperoos will soon be travelling to Prague and the UK for an exciting 3 months of exploring marionette puppetry and education. She will first be visiting the Puppets in Prague school in the Czech Republic where she will do an intensive 2 week marionette carving course. She will also attend the Prague Quadrennial, which is the International Exhibition of Scenography and Theatre Architecture held every 4 years. It is the principal international theatre and scenic exhibition, where 60 countries contribute entries.  

Kay will also travel to the UK to revisit the London School of Puppetry, where she completed a Masters-Level Diploma in Professional Puppetry in 2009. She will be going back to the school to further explore teaching marionettes in education and therapy.

Kay will return to Sydney, Australia in mid-August 2011 and looks forward to performing some new marionette shows and running many exciting puppet workshops!

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Puppet making at Shopfront Theatre

By admin | Published: 28 May, 2011
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Puppet workshop participants display their wacky paper puppets

Pupperoos recently ran some puppet-making workshops for 11-14 year olds at Shopfront Theatre for Young People in Carlton, Sydney Australia. Over three sessions, the participants worked in small groups to make various puppets using paper, string, bamboo rods and masking tape. With these simple materials, the group produced a diverse range of puppets including a Chinese dragon-style rod puppet, a floating marionette and some ‘Bunraku’ style table-top puppets which require 2-3 operators. The characters that went to match these puppets were just as diverse and wonderfully wacky. The final ’puppet cast’ included a fashionable genie/troll (fully clad with newspaper goatee and all-purpose lamp), a snake/sausage from ‘Aus-stretch-ia’ and a melting snowman from Russia. The theme of the workshop was “Where do you want to be?” (and ”Where do you not want to be?”) and the group will continue to explore this artistic enquiry as they learn to perform with their puppets.

The puppet workshop will continue to be run for 5 more sessions by two other artists, Caitlin Newton-Broad (Artistic Director of Shopfront) and Alice Osborne (a Puppeteer, Performer and Theatre Maker), with the assistance of ArtsLab Artist-in-Residence Lucy Watson. The workshop will culminate in an end-of-term performance, where all the groups from Shopfront will have the opportunity to show their work developed over the term.

The aim of this puppet making and performance workshop is also to create ideas for the Shopfront Junior Ensemble later this year, where participants aged 8-15 years will devise and perform a theatrical production using Puppetry and Multimedia. This production will be directed by Howard Matthew & Luke Kerridge. 

Shopfront is a not-for-profit organisation and registered charity for young people aged 8 – 25. It is a cultural network and production co-operative where all young people, regardless of their background or ability, can create themselves. For more information about this organisation, please visit http://shopfront.org.au/

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