Puppets for Awareness

Have you ever watch Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock or even Sesame Street on TV?
They were some of the greatest children's television shows that used hand puppets as their main characters. Well, at least Sesame Street still IS a great one today!

Even though they were mostly watched by children, it was hard to put aside the fact that grown up people also loved to watch them.
Why? Because puppets are fun and they can be very effective for various purposes like entertainment, education, etc. Different kinds of puppetry appeal to different ages. They also shared  the same kind of humorous characters that could stir audiences' imagination into the world of fantasy. This might sound so childish, but hey... there is a "child" in every people's soul, right?

This is why puppets could also be used in a program like Trauma Relief or Natural Disaster Preparedness and Safety education. There was a great example of the program, made by No Strings, a charitable Non Governmental Organization based in UK.

As we know, in 2004 some giant tsunami waves hit the Sumatra Island of Indonesia, following an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred in the Indian Ocean, off the west coast of the island. The waves killed over 230,000 people in some countries.The number of casualties was mainly caused by the lack of people's awareness about natural disaster.

So, to generate the awareness among the people, especially to those who were affected by disasters and emergencies, No Strings made several movie clips using hand puppets. These movies were used to educate people to know how to stay safe and well. The targets of that Natural Disaster Preparedness & Safety program were the children, young people and also their families and communities. The movies were made by some of the leading names in puppet entertainment, including those who were actively involved in the original Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock.

Here is an example of the movie clip. See how the professionals worked ! :)

A New Way?

Since the first time I tried to do a puppet show, I thought there was only one way to play a hand puppet, especially when we have to play live in front of the audience.
What I knew back then was like this : playing a hand puppet by sitting or kneeling down, and put the puppet above our head by raising up our hand(s).

I found out that this method could give us problems, since this position would force us to keep our hand(s) above our head during the show. It would also limit the puppet's movement, because we couldn't move freely.

Until someday I found this video from Thistledownpuppets :

Hey...I never thought this could be another way of playing hand puppets!
You know, this really gave me a new insight of how to do a puppet show. It seemed that this kind of method would give us more flexibility in playing the puppets.
I also understand that even the puppeteers appeared clearly on the stage together with the puppets, the audience would still think those puppets were really "alive". One thing for sure, the puppeteers wore black costumes so that they would not distract the audience from the puppet show.

Hmm...I think it's worth to try...:)

This is who we are...!

Aaaahhh....

I think now it is the time for me to introduce the PuppetO....

Check this out!

Ow..it's in Indonesian language by the way....