Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:53:57 -0500
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: [Puptcrit] Puppetry Workshop in Toronto


Dear friends in puppetry,

A workshop opportunity for those who will be in the Toronto area this 
February. . . .

Jamie Ashby

BA, MA, PhD Candidate, Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, University 
of Toronto: "Ideas in Motion: New Work Development at Puppetmongers 
Theatre Company"
Cofounder and Co-Artistic Director, The Bricoteer Puppetry Project
Member-at-Large, Ontario Puppetry Association Board of Trustees


Creating Puppets out of Everyday Materials and Using Them in 
Improvisational Stories



Open Door Designs presents a puppetry workshop by the Bricoteer 
Puppetry Project (James Ashby and Grey Muldoon). This storytelling 
workshop will allow participants to transform ordinary items such as 
newspaper, tape, and gift wrap into puppets in an exploration of the 
potential for imagination to transform and reshape the everyday 
world. James and Grey of the Bricoteer Puppetry Project will lead 
participants in a collaboration that will result in the performance 
of short sketches.



Puppet artists often use newspaper to create maquettes of puppets 
while developing new work. Maquettes act as working models, allowing 
artists to express, demonstrate, or test their concepts. Like a 
sketch in 3-D, maquettes allow artists to explore ideas quickly and 
inexpensively. They can also be enjoyable as an end in themselves and 
as a source of further inspiration. Because of this, the Bricoteer 
workshop should appeal to teachers as well as artists. All 
participants will develop skills in performance, design, narrative 
development, and the communication of ideas visually and intuitively. 
The unique capacities of puppetry, as compared to the theatre of 
human actors, will be explored.



DATE: Sunday, February 22, 2009 (Deadline to register: Feb. 8)

TIME:            10:00 a.m. =AD 4:00 p.m.

LOCATION:            Open Door Designs, 1597 Dupont Street, Toronto, ON M6P 3S8

AGE GROUP:             Adults (min. 5, max. 10)

COST:             $100

INFORMATION:            www.opendoordesigns.ca/(416) 531-1290



The Bricoteer Puppetry Project

The Bricoteer Puppetry Project was accidentally founded in 2003, when 
Grey Muldoon and James Ashby, complete strangers at the time, came 
together to design and build the puppets for the Graduate Centre for 
Study of Drama production of The Grotesque Farce of Mr. Punch the 
Cuckold by Ramon Maria del Valle-Inclan. They had some help, of 
course, but James and Grey soon became known for their 
rough-and-ready, sometimes bizarre, but always effective style of 
puppet construction.

Grey and James devised the name Bricoteer Puppetry Project for 
several related reasons: 1) to emphasize how they creatively use 
material available =B3at hand=B2 to construct both stories and puppets, a 
tendency encapsulated in the critical term bricolage (bricoteer is an 
amalgamation of the words bricotage and puppeteer); 2) to declare 
openly that they are most interested in pushing the boundaries of 
puppetry, which in many ways already goes beyond what the theatre of 
human actors is capable of doing; 3) to inform others that theirs is 
an ongoing project that always welcomes new collaborators.


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