March 24 – Hand and Rod Puppetry – Johan van der Gun
Lampoon’s first show, Clowning Around, used a simple hand-puppet technique with mime for the two clown puppets to tell their stories. Greater attention was given to details of the movement because, without words, the movement of the puppets became the language to communicate with the audience. This knowledge became a great tool in the production of Lampoon’s other shows and helped inspire the worldwide appreciation of the company.
In the workshop, attention will be on using the most effective movement, isolating those movements by removing unnecessary moves, to be able to lead the focus of your audience. Participants will also construct their own hand puppet “glove”, following Johan’s effective technique.
To enroll please click here and then to go the the bottom of the page
Johan van der Gun, one of the founders of Lampoon Puppettheatre in 1972, stayed with the company as artistic director while also fulfilling many other positions. Over the years Lampoon Puppettheatre represented Canadian puppetry at about 50 different festivals in about 25 different countries. While pursuing many different styles of puppetry one show, Clowning Around, did remain their favourite. The show uses a simple hand-puppet technique but, because of its excellent manipulation, was loved by many audiences and won several awards.