Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is offering a limited number of places for a unique 5 day puppetry training intensive. This training intensive will be led by the company’s Associate Director Michael Barlow and performer/ designer Leon Hendroff. This is a rare and exclusive opportunity to learn from experienced and passionate puppetry artists in this highly specialised art form.
For more information and to apply please contact Michael on (08) 9335 5044 or email asd@sppt.asn.au
Course Content:
Days 1-2, with Leon Hendroff
Making and manipulating
Internationally acclaimed designer and maker Leon Hendroff will guide artists through the exquisite art of marionette manipulation and the fine skills required to bring the puppet to life. Your second day with Leon is a hands-on making of a generic puppet figure that will give you insights into puppet construction and the technology of puppet making along with the processes of a puppet designer. You will be able to take your creation home.
Days 3-5, with Michael Barlow
Puppet manipulation bootcamp
Spare Parts Puppet Theatre’s artistic leader Michael Barlow will introduce the main forms of puppetry and the principles of animation used in performance. Rigorous skills training will be matched with ample opportunities for experimentation and in-studio performance making. Performer/Puppet relationship, vocal work for puppetry, visual dramaturgy and the contemporary context of the art form will be investigated.
How to Apply:
We are currently accepting expressions of interest from artists wanting to participate in the intensive. To express your interest in participating please send:
- a current CV (max 3 pages)
- a cover letter (max one page) outlining key reasons for wanting to participant in the program
Applicants must be able to commit to attending the full intensive (details below).
Date: 25 February – 1 March 2019
Times: 10.00am–5.00pm, Mon–Fri
Venue: Spare Parts Puppet Theatre, 1 Short St Fremantle, Western Australia
Course Cost: $270
Applications are now open, closing at midnight on Sunday 27 January 2019.
Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their EOI in early February 2019.
For more information and to submit applications, please contact:
Michael Barlow, Associate Director: asd@sppt.asn.au | 08 9335 5044
Meet your tutors
Michael Barlow
Michael is a director, writer and performer who joined Spare Parts in 1992. He trained in puppetry technique with renowned puppeteer Noriko Nishimoto and founding Artistic Director L. Peter Wilson, and in contemporary mime technique with Kriszta Doczy. As a performer, he has toured extensively for the company, including The Deep, The Bugalugs Bum Thief, The Velveteen Rabbit and numerous solo performances for national festivals for young audiences. As a director, his productions have been presented nationally, including The Little Prince and The Night Zoo, and as an adapting writer/animator The Arrival. Michael’s work reinterprets puppetry technique in new frameworks, re-contextualising puppets, objects and performers. He is closely involved with training programs for young and emerging artists through the FirstHand program and as a tutor for WAAPA.
Leon Hendroff
Leon is a designer and illustrator with a speciality in puppets. He has worked in the graphic design and illustration industry for a number of years before branching into puppet theatre, a passion since childhood.
In 2001 Leon graduated from Curtin University, Western Australia, with a degree in design, winning several awards for his work including the inaugural Australian Graphic Design Association Scholarship award. He has trained with Czech master puppet maker Jiri Zmitko, the renowned Chinese Quanzhou Marionette Troupe and the highly acclaimed puppeteer and director Noriko Nishimoto through a Union Internationale De La Marionnette (Australia) scholarship
Since 2005 Leon has been designing and making puppets for performance, retail, display and festivals, including Spare Parts Puppet Theatre’s Moominpappa At Sea, Fox, Carnival of the Animals, Rules of Summer and the internationally acclaimed String Symphony an award winning giant illuminated puppet commissioned by the City of Joondalup Festival.
Of all the puppetry styles, marionettes have always held a special appeal for Leon and through a generous gift of a personal collection by pioneering Western Australian marionettist, Peter Hartland, it has become one of his aims to keep this tradition alive.
Leon’s creations are in collections locally, nationally and internationally, and wherever they travel he hopes they will always inspire something positive in their beholders.