A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by a puppeteer A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object—a puppet—in real time to create the illusion of life. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the audience. A puppeteer can operate a puppet indirectly by the use of strings, rods, wires, electronics or directly by his or her own hands placed inside the puppet or holding it. It is usually (but by no means always) a depiction of a human character, and is used in puppetry Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance which involves the manipulation of puppets. It is very ancient, and is believed to have originated 30,000 years BC. Puppetry takes many forms but they all share the process of animating inanimate performing objects. Puppetry is used in almost all human societies both as an entertainment – in, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre Theatre is a branch of the performing arts. While any performance may be considered theatre, as a performing art, it focuses almost exclusively on live performers creating a self contained drama. A performance qualifies as dramatic by creating a representational illusion. By this broad definition, theatre had existed since the dawn of man, as a. The puppet undergoes a process of transformation through being animated, and is normally manipulated by at least one puppeteer.

There are many different varieties of puppets, and they are made of a wide range of materials, depending on their form and intended use. They can be extremely complex or very simple in their construction. They may even be found objects. As Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. His parents were successful Dublin intellectuals, and from an early age he was tutored at home, where he showed his intelligence, becoming fluent in French and German. He attended boarding school for six years, then matriculated to university at seventeen years wrote, "There are many advantages in puppets. They never argue. They have no crude views about art. They have no private lives".

Origins

Aristotle Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most discusses puppets in On the Motion of Animals.

"The movements of animals may be compared with those of automatic puppets, which are set going on the occasion of a tiny movement; the levers are released, and strike the twisted strings against one another ...."^[1]

Puppet types

Puppetry by its nature is a flexible and inventive medium, and many puppet companies work with combinations of puppet forms, and incorporate real objects into their performances. So a bought corkscrew A corkscrew is a tool for drawing stopping corks from wine bottles. Generally, consists of a pointed metallic helix attached to a handle. The user grips the handle and screws the metal point through the cork, entwining the cork and corkscrew so that moving one moves the other. Corkscrews are necessary because corks themselves, being small and can become a dancer puppet; or they incorporate "performing objects" such as torn paper for snow Snow is a type of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure. Snowflakes come in a variety of, or a sign board with words as narrative devices within a production. The following are, alphabetically, the basic and conventional forms of puppet:

• Black light puppet - A form of puppetry where the puppets are operated on a stage lit only with ultraviolet lighting, which both hides the puppeteer and accentuates the colours of the puppet. The puppeteers perform dressed in black against a black background, with the background and costume normally made of black velvet Velvet is a type of woven tufted fabric in which the cut threads are very evenly distributed, with a short dense pile, giving it a distinct feel. The puppeteers manipulate the puppets into the light, while they position themselves unseen against the black unlit background. Controlling what the audience sees is a major responsibility of any puppeteer A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object—a puppet—in real time to create the illusion of life. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the audience. A puppeteer can operate a puppet indirectly by the use of strings, rods, wires, electronics or directly by his or her own hands placed inside the puppet or holding it, and blacklight lighting provides a new way of accomplishing this. Puppets of all sizes and types are able to be used, and glow in a powerful and magical way. The original concept of this form of puppetry can be traced to Bunraku puppetry.
• Bunraku puppet Bunraku , also known as Ningyō jōruri (人形浄瑠璃), is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theater, founded in Osaka in 1684 – Bunraku puppets are a type of wood-carved puppet originally made to stand out through torch A torch is a portable source of fire used as a source of light, usually a rod-shaped piece of wood with a rag soaked in pitch and/or some other flammable material wrapped around one end. Torches were often supported in sconces by brackets high up on walls, to throw light over corridors in stone structures such as castles or crypts illumination. Developed in Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is over a thousand years ago and formalised and combined with shamisen The shamisen or samisen , also called sangen (literally "three strings") is a three-stringed musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi. The pronunciation in Japanese is usually "shamisen" (in western Japan, and often in Edo-period sources "samisen") but sometimes "jamisen" when used as a music at the end of the 16th century, the puppeteers dress to remain neutral against a black background, although their presence as kind of 'shadow' figures adds a mysterious power to the puppet. Bunraku traditionally uses three puppeteers to operate a puppet that is 2/3 life size.^[2]
• Carnival or body puppet - usually designed to be part of a large spectacle. These are often used in parades Parades is an Australian post-punk band from Sydney, New South Wales, formed originally in 2001, but as Parades in 2008. The band comprises vocalist and guitarist Daniel Cunningham, keyboardist and vocalists Alyx Dennison and Freya Berkhout from KYU, guitarist Tim Jenkins, bassist Michael Scarpin and drummer Jonathan Boulet (such as the May day parade May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls exactly half a year from November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan and neopagan festivals such as Samhain. May Day marks the end of the winter half of the year in the Northern in Minneapolis Minneapolis (pronounced /ˌmɪniˈæpəlɪs/ ), nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States. Its name is attributed to the city's first schoolteacher, who combined mni, the Dakota word for water,, USA) and demonstrations, and are at least the size of a human and often much larger. One or more performers are required to move the body and limbs. In parades, the appearance and personality of the person inside is not relevant to the spectator. These puppets are particularly associated with large scale entertainment, such as the nightly parades at various Disney The Walt Disney Company is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world. Founded on October 16, 1923 by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, the company was reincorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929. Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation complexes around the world. Similar puppets were designed by Julie Taymor for The Lion King, derived in part from the parade tradition.

• Chinface puppet - A type of puppet in which the puppet features are drawn on, and otherwise attached to, the face.
• Finger puppet - An extremely simple puppet variant which fits onto a single finger. Finger puppets normally have no moving parts, and consist primarily of a hollow cylinder shape to cover the finger. This form of puppet has limited application, and is used mainly in pre-schools or kindergartens for storytelling with young children.

• Hand A hand puppet is a type of puppet that is controlled by the hand or hands that occupies the interior of the puppet. Glove puppets are a variation of hand puppets. Rod puppets require one of the puppeteer's hands inside the puppet glove holding a rod which controls the head, and the puppet's body then hangs over most or all of the forearm of the or glove puppet - These are puppets controlled by one hand which occupies the interior of the puppet. Punch and Judy Punch and Judy is a traditional, popular English puppet show featuring the characters of Punch and his wife Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically the anarchic Punch and one other character. The show is traditionally performed by a single puppeteer, known puppets are familiar examples of hand puppets. Larger varieties of hand puppets place the puppeteer's hand in just the puppet's head, controlling the mouth and head, and the puppet's body then hangs over the entire arm. Other parts of the puppet (mainly arms, but special variants exist with eyelids which can be manipulated; the mouth may also open and close) are usually not much larger than the hand itself. A sock puppet A sock puppet is a puppet made from a sock . When the manipulator fits a hand into the closed end of the sock, the puppet can be seemingly made to "talk". The puppet's mouth is formed by the region between the sock's heel and toe, with the puppeteer's thumb forming a jaw. At a minimum the shape of the hand will instantly form the shape is a particularly simple type of hand puppet made from a sock.^[3]

• Human-arm puppet - Also called a "two-man puppet" or a "Live-hand puppet"; it is similar to a hand puppet but is larger and requires two puppeteers. One puppeteer places a hand inside the puppet's head and operates its head and mouth, while the other puppeteer wears gloves and special sleeves attached to the puppet in order to become the puppet's arms, so that the puppet can perform arbitrary hand gestures. This is a form of glove or hand puppetry and rod puppetry.

• Instant Puppet - This kind of puppetry is practised by Drew Colby of Objects Dart, where the puppet (most often created out of everyday objects (see Object Puppet below)) is created as part of the performance, in order to add detail to the characterisation of the puppet. The puppets are very often loosely of the rod or table-top type, and can be highly articulated.
• Light Curtain puppet presentations use specifically focused light to highlight small areas of a performance, allowing the puppet to be seen while the manipulators remain invisible. The puppets stand on a stage divided into an unlit background and a well lit foreground, meeting to form a "curtain" of light. The puppeteer dresses in black and remains hidden in the unlit background of the stage while the puppet is held across the light curtain in the lit foreground of the stage. "Light curtain puppet" is an umbrella term, and any puppet which is extended into a well-lit area where its handler remains separated from the puppet by a division of light may be called a light curtain puppet.^{[citation needed]}
• Marionette A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings . A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms of theatres or entertainment venues. They have also been used in films and on or "string puppet" - These puppets are suspended and controlled by a number of strings, plus sometimes a central rod attached to a control bar held from above by the puppeteer. The control bar can be either a horizontal or vertical one. Basic strings for operation are usually attached to the head, back, hands (to control the arms) and just above the knee (to control the legs).^[4] This form of puppetry is complex and sophisticated to operate, requiring greater manipulative control than a finger, glove or rod puppet. The puppet play performed by the Von Trapp children with Maria in The Sound of Music The Sound of Music is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Many songs from the musical have become standards, including the title song "The Sound of Music", " is a marionette show.

• Marotte A Marotte is a prop stick or scepter with a carved head on it. The word is borrowed from the French, where it signifies either a fool's bauble, or a fad/craze - A simplified rod puppet that is just a head and/or body on a stick. In a marotte à main prenante, the puppeteer's other arm emerges from the body (which is just a cloth drape) to act as the puppet's arm. Some marottes have a small string running through the stick attached to a handle at the bottom. When the handle is squeezed, the mouth opens.
• Object Puppet - A type of puppet often created with found or everyday objects, sometimes created in performance (see Instant Puppets above) or pre-created. The object puppet will often take on character by the quality of manipulation and voice to suggest to the audience what the object has become (now that it is no longer itself).
• Pull String Puppet - a puppet consisting of a cloth body where in the puppeteer puts his/her arm into a slot in the back and pulls rings on strings that do certain tasks such as waving or moving the mouth.
• Push puppet - A push puppet consists of a segmented character on a base which is kept under tension until the button on the bottom is pressed. The puppet wiggles, slumps and then collapses, and is usually used as a novelty toy A toy is anything that can be used in play. Toys are usually associated with children and pets, but it is not unusual for adults and some other animals to play with toys. An example of this is a dolphin being trained to nudge a ball through a hoop. Many items are designed to serve as toys, but goods produced for other purposes can also be used.
• Push-in or Paper puppet, or Toy Theatre - A puppet cut out of paper and stuck onto card. It is fixed at its base to a stick and operated by pushing it in from the side of the puppet theatre. Sheets were produced for puppets and scenery from the 19th century for children's use.

• Rod Puppet A hand puppet is a type of puppet that is controlled by the hand or hands that occupies the interior of the puppet. Glove puppets are a variation of hand puppets. Rod puppets require one of the puppeteer's hands inside the puppet glove holding a rod which controls the head, and the puppet's body then hangs over most or all of the forearm of the - A puppet constructed around a central rod secured to the head. A large glove covers the rod and is attached to the neck of the puppet. A rod puppet is controlled by the puppeteer moving the metal rods attached to the hands of the puppet and by turning the central rod secured to the head.

• Señor Wences - A Señor Wences is a type of hand puppet created from a human hand, where the puppet features are drawn on and attached to the hand itself, and the thumb and forefinger are used as a mouth.
• Shadow puppet - A cut-out figure held between a source of light and a translucent screen. Untypical, as it is two-dimensional in form, shadow puppets can form solid silhouettes, or be decorated with various amounts of cut-out details. Colour can be introduced into the cut-out shapes to provide a different dimension and different effects can be achieved by moving the puppet (or light source) out of focus. Javanese shadow puppets (Wayang Kulit) are the classic example of this.^[5]

• Supermarionation Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds. The term was coined by Gerry Anderson, possibly in imitation of Ray Harryhausen's stop motion - A method invented by Gerry Anderson Gerry Anderson MBE, born 14 April 1929 ) , is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation" which assisted in his television series Thunderbirds Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation". The series followed the adventures of International Rescue, an organisation created to help those in grave danger using technically advanced equipment and machinery in electronically moving the mouths of marionettes to allow for lip-synchronised speech. The marionettes were still controlled by human manipulators with strings.
• Ticklebug - A ticklebug is a type of hand puppet created from a human hand to have four legs, where the puppet features are drawn on the hand itself. The middle finger is lifted as a head, and the thumb and forefinger serve as a first set of two legs on one side, while the ring finger and little finger serve as a second set of two legs on the opposite side.^{[citation needed]}
• Table Top Puppets - A puppet usually operated by rod or direct contact from behind, on a surface not dissimilar to a table top (hence the name). Shares many characteristics with Bunraku..
• Ventriloquist dummy Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is an act of stagecraft in which a person manipulates his or her voice so that it appears that the voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is ventriloquizing, and the ability to do so is commonly called in English the ability to "throw" one's voice - A puppet operated by a ventriloquist performer to focus the audience's attention from the performer's activities and heighten the illusions. They are called dummies because they do not speak on their own. The ventriloquist dummy is controlled by the one hand of the ventriloquist.

• Water Puppet - a Vietnamese Vietnam (pronounced /ˌviː.ɛtˈnɑːm/ VEE-et-NAHM; Vietnamese: Việt Nam, listen ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam, listen (help·info)), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by People's Republic of China (PRC) to the puppet form, the "Múa rối nước". Múa rối nước literally means "puppets that dance on water", an ancient tradition that dates back to the tenth century. The puppets are built out of wood and the shows are performed in a waist-deep pool. A large rod supports the puppet under the water and is used by the puppeteers to control them. The appearance is of the puppets moving over the water. When the rice fields would flood, the villagers would entertain each other using this puppet form.

See also

• Animation Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion or digital puppet. Animation is a related but essentially different process from puppetry. Animating puppets in time-based media such as film A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a story conveyed with moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry or video is a simulation of movement created by displaying a series of pictures, or frames, whereas puppetry is the live manipulation of figures. Puppet animation, or "puppetoon", can refer either to Stop motion filming, where the movements of the puppets are created frame-by-frame; or "Supermarionation (see above).

• Karakuri ningyō - Mechanized puppets or automata from Japan.
• Lübeck Museum of Theatre Puppets
• Pelham puppets - A type of factory-made puppet created by Bob Pelham famous for making mainly string puppets (Marionettes) In the UK from 1947 to 1993. In 2008 the Pelham Puppet company was revived by a former employee of the original factory and now produces a new line of Pelham Puppets some echoing former styles.
• Persian theatre
• Puppetry - for the cultural and theatrical history of puppet theatre
• Punch and Judy
• Rajasthani Puppet - String marionettes originating from the state of Rajasthan in India.
• Thai hand puppets - A variety of hand puppets from Thailand.

Non-puppetry related usages of the word

The word puppet can mean a political leader installed, supported and controlled by more powerful forces, without legitimacy in the country itself. In modern times, this usually implies no democratic mandate from the country's electorate; in earlier times, it could have meant a monarch imposed from outside, who was not a member of a country's established ruling dynasty, and/or unrecognised by its nobility. "Puppet government", "puppet regime" and "puppet state" are derogatory terms for a government which is in charge of a region or country, but only through being installed, supported and controlled by a more powerful outside government (see Quisling).

In a more general sense, a puppet is any person who is controlled by another by reasons of (for instance) undue influence, intellectual deficiency, or lack of character or charisma. Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein's novel The Puppet Masters depicts alien parasites who attach themselves to human beings and control their actions.

Poppet, a word that sounds similar, is sometimes a term of endearment, similar to "love", "pet", "doll" or "dear". It alludes to folk-magic and witchcraft, where a poppet is a special doll created to represent a person for the purpose of casting healing, fertility, or binding spells.

Notes

1. ^ Aristotle, On the Motion of Animals, 350 B.C.
2. ^ Adachi, Barbara C., Backstage at Bunraku, Weatherhill, 1985 . ISBN 0-8348-0199-X
3. ^ Currell, David, Introduction to Puppets and Puppetmaking, p.7
4. ^ Robinson, Patricia and Stuart, Exploring Puppetry, p.64
5. ^ Currell, David, An Introduction to Puppets and Puppetmaking', p.7

References

• Ghosh, S.; Massey, Reginald, and Banerjee, Utpal Kumar, Indian Puppets: Past, Present and Future, Abhinav Publications, 2006. ISBN 817017435X.
• Bell, John, Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History, Wayne State University Press, 2000. ISBN 0895581566.

Books and articles

• Baird, Bil (1966). The Art of the Puppet. Plays. ISBN 10 0823800679.
• Beaton, Mabel; Les Beaton (1948). Marionettes: A Hobby for Everyone. New York.
• Bell, John (2000). Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History. Detroit, USA: Detroit Institute of Art. ISBN 0 89558 156 6.
• Binyon, Helen (1966). Puppetry Today. London: Studio Vista Limited.
• Choe, Sang-su (1961). A Study of the Korean Puppet Play. The Korean Books Publishing Company Ltd..
• Currell, David (1985). The Complete Book of Puppetry. London: A & C Black (Publishers) Ltd.. ISBN 0-7136-2429-9.
• Currell, David (1992). An Introduction to Puppets and Puppetmaking. London: New Burlington Books, Quintet Publishing Limited. ISBN 1 85348 389 3.
• Dubska, Alice; Jan Novak, Nina Malikova, Marie Zdenkova (2006). Czech Puppet Theatre. Prague: Theatre Institute. ISBN 80 7008 199 6.
• Dugan, E.A. (1990). Emotions in Motion. Montreal, Canada: Galerie Amrad. ISBN 0 9693081 5 9.
• Feeney, John (1999). Puppet. Saudi Aramco World.
• Flower, Cedric; Alan Fortney (1983). Puppets: Methods and Materials. Worcester, Massachusetts: Davis Publications, Inc.
• Latshaw, George (2000). The Complete Book of Puppetry. London: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-048640-952-8.
• Lindsay, Hilaire (1976). The First Puppet Book. Leichardt, NSW, Australia: Ansay Pty Ltd. ISBN 0 909245.
• Mulholland, John (1961). Practical Puppetry. London: Herbert Jenkins Ltd..
• Richmond, Arthur (1950). Remo Bufano's Book of Puppetry. New York: The Macmillan Company.
• Robinson, Stuart; Patricia Robertson (1967). Exploring Puppetry. London: Mills & Boon Limited.
• Rump, Nan (1996). Puppets and Masks: Stagecraft and Storytelling. Worcester, Massachusetts: Davis Publications.
• Sinclair, Anita (1995). The Puppetry Handbook. Richmond, Victoria, Australia: Richard Lee Publishing. ISBN 0 646 39063 5.
• Shellstein, Sheldon; Sheldon T. Shellstein (April 2006). "The Rise Of Shoop: the meteoric rise of Sheldon". Kid Time Press.
• Suib, Leonard; Muriel Broadman (1975). Marionettes Onstage!. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. ISBN 0 06 014166 2.

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