Unchained @ Manipulate

Religious Ramble: Theatrical Thoughts

At the end of Performance: A Critical Introduction, Marvin Carlson considers the audience, partially as a plea not to dissolve the study of theatre into a broader analysis of performance in daily life. He approvingly quotes Margaret Wilkerson's assertion that 'theatre provides an opportunity for a community to come together and reflect upon itself,' finding that the theatrical event has always been about 'shaping' community - and the fancy-dan live art that I love is particularly aware of this function.

This frees up theatrical criticism from being purely about the art as performed and created, and to consider it as part of a culture's ability to reflect upon itself. In other words, like Tynan said, all theatre has a political dimension. At the least, it brings people together, and suggests a shared interest in certain ideas and activities. The Big Idea, of communitas, becomes crucial: does theatre build communities?

Although I am not wild about using the term, this lends theatre - and festivals, and the better buskers on
Sauchiehall Street - a religious quality. Unfortunately, this word is loaded. It suggests that performance performs a spiritual and possibly hierarchical function (in a world where religion is often criticised as anti-scientific, or obsessed with power and control), while implying that the Great Religions of the World are just a bunch of guys playing dress-up. Being a smart-ass, I'm talking about the etymology of religion, from the Latin: meaning 'rebinding.' Theatre is religious in so far as it connects together a community, both to itself and the wider cosmos.

Putting aside the image of the artistic director of Puppet Animation Scotland wearing a Pope's hat, its seems that this definition perfectly suits manipulate. Although the festival lasts for longer than a Sunday Mass (and I hear some priests are popular because they get through it in under an hour), it does draw together a diverse community with a shared interest in 'visual theatre.' And given the chance, visual theatre could generate as much explanatory literature as the concept of anatman.

Again, I'm not mad about calling theatre 'ritual,' but I'll admit it is ceremonial. There are expected responses (turning up on time, not playing the bongo drums during the speeches, applauding or booing at the end). The 'ceremonies' of manipulate draw attention to certain ideas but, like sermons, revolve around an over-arching theme.

The mixture of international and Scottish work also fits into the religious format. Torn is shown the day after Duda Paiva's Bestiares. The continuity between what happens in Edinburgh and in Europe is highlighted. And by seeing visual theatre from other countries and cultures, a new light is shone onto the local production.

Manipulate! 2014!

Being a former classicist, I am a traditionalist at heart. I may not have turkey at Christmas, and I saw the New Year with a copy of Simon Murray's book on Jacque Lecoq, but some things are sacred. So, when manipulate  starts gearing up, I feel it is time for the annual 'Puppets are not just for children' article.

There isn't much left for kids these days. Comic books, which taught me to read and have an idiosyncratic view of good and evil, have been occupied by adults. Not that they have had to be aimed at children - William Burroughs noted that the visual image, combined with words, was far more likely to engage and inform than any other mix of media (which is why they were used for propaganda in World War II. But sitting behind me in the office, half of big-hearted Black Hearted Press are prepping for their workshops at the CCA, and there's a 16 plus age warning on the session with writer John Farnam (author of Daily Mail favourite Royal Descent).

Manipulate has been making the point that puppetry is capable of addressing adult themes without slipping into XXX predictability. Last year, Neville Tranter took on Hitler and provided a meditation on the Fuhrer's last days that was terrifying in its portrayal of the monster as a human being. This year, Planet Luvos explores the idea of humanity's eventual demise, Grit thinks about the impact of war on children and Stephen Mottram's Seas of Organillo may be beautiful, but owe more to Freud and scientific theories than The Water Babies. It only remains for Vile to state the obvious, that manipulate has become one of the most important festivals in Scotland, providing international, exciting, experimental performance.

In the next episode, Vile asks 'what is visual theatre?' 

Simon Hart at Puppet Animation Scotland

I spoke to Simon Hart about manipulate a few years ago. Here's the transcript...

What led to the creation of the festival? Is there any philosophy that guides your selection in particular, aside from quality of work?

Initially the festival was created to help promote the art form of puppetry – in all its many different styles and techniques – to adult audiences interested in innovative visual theatre. Throughout the UK puppetry is seen very much as something for children and as a result I think many adults lose out on seeing some really unusual and striking contemporary theatre. Manipulate also provides Puppet Animation Scotland with a valuable opportunity to provide significant creative and skills development opportunities for Scotland’s professional puppeteers. The sector is a strong and confident one, particularly in their provision of work for children and young people. Over the past decade the sector has presented its work – either as performances or workshops – to over 1500,000 people in the UK, more than 1000,000 in Scotland. Nearly half of this work takes places in schools.

The sector is a little less confident about creating work for adult audiences, and this is true not just for Scotland but for the whole of the UK. Puppeteers in Europe have many more opportunities – primarily through festivals – to make shows for this audience. This is an infrastructure that we are in the early stages, through manipulate, of emulating. Bringing work from abroad to Scotland allows our audiences and professional puppeteers to interact in a meaningful way with the best international practitioners. We are confident that Scottish puppeteers are becoming increasingly inspired - as a result of seeing all this great theatre – to begin to create their own work for adult audiences that can then travel back out to the rest of the world. Thats our aspiration anyway!

The quality of the work is a given, and I also try to include as many different types of show a possible, both in technical and creative terms. So this year we have some exquisite marionette work – presented in a very striking and macabre setting – by Figurentheater Tuebingen; intriguing, allusive object theatre from Circolando (Quarto Exterior); and real laugh-out-loud antics from Triukitrek using a technique that my children love on the Dick & Dom show, where, sticking their heads through a black curtain, so that immediately underneath their necks are those tiny, funny bodies. We have all other manner of puppetry styles and techniques in our Snapshots and Puppet Grinder Cabaret events. The animation programme also covers a whole gamut, from more traditional stop frame work in $9.99, to beautiful black and white drawing in Renaissance, to wierd and wonderful combination of animation and live action in our Explorations Of Love, Death & Power Tools programme


How do you see the festival in relationship to the Traverse's overall programming?
I think the Festival provides a complementary style of work to much of the Traverse’s that is primarily text based. Dominic is very enthusiastic about the productions we bring to Scotland and I believe his programming for the venue at other times of the year shows that he wants to encourage Traverse audiences to experiment with and experience as many different types of theatre and performing arts as he can fit into the spaces



What is it about animation and puppetry that makes it unique as an art form- is there anything it expresses more coherently than other forms of drama?
Both art forms allow the artist to create pictures and place characters in situations that are not normally possible on stage because of the physical limitations our bodies – and the size of the performing space – place upon the creator....unless you have a very big budget and almost unlimited resources! I think this helps to free up the artist’s imagination and makes the inevitable gap between conception and realisation a little narrower. It’s easier to create complete worlds into which audiences can then enter and, having done so, they then can enter a story and its context more totally

Are there any particular Scottish puppet performers that you are excited by at the moment? What is it about their work?
As I said before Scottish puppeteers create the overwhelming amount of their work for children. In this arena Shona Reppe makes the most marvellous work, which this year in touring to Israel and twice to Australia. Puppet State’s production “The Man Who Planted Trees” is off to the USA for nearly three months too, so in Scotland, in puppetry, we have the artists with the imagination, the ambition and the ability to create work of the highest quality. It’s our job to help them, and other equally gifted artists, to find the means to follow their creative impulses when making work for adult audiences. Increasingly Scottish puppeteers want to challenge themselves by making work both for adults as well as children




How does the festival stand in relation to your work during the rest of the year?
manipulate and the Puppet Animation Festival cater for our two different audiences – adult and children. They both in their different ways help us to help the professional sector in Scotland achieve great things, and they act as a showcase for exciting work that inspires and nourishes the imagination. We also provide other meaningful and practical opportunities for practitioners to develop their artistry and their technical skills through our funding schemes. Both festivals also provide the whole sector with a chance to get together before and after events to share information and offer mutual support and encouragement, as well as a great deal of enjoyment!

Articulating Adolf

This article is an apology to Neville Tranter. Just before Christmas, he sent me answers to an interview about his Schicklgruber alias Adolf Hitler. I have spent the last fortnight sitting on them, unable to work out how to approach an article on a puppet version of Hitler's last days. I have found the limits of my philosophy.

The easy starting point would appear to be a comparison with Downfall, a film that starred Bruno Ganz in a stunningly virtuoso performance as the dictator: unfortunately, my concerns about its representation of Hitler led me down a pathway so entangled by questions of good and evil that I could not pass. Any attempt to critique the film slipped into difficult questions of morality. That article is sitting on my computer, waiting to be  posted at a time when few people are likely to read my meditations on the difference between Christ and Antichrist.

The scale of Nazi atrocity seems inevitably to encourage my theological tendencies. 

Tranter acknowledges that taking on a subject like Hitler is "delicate." His research, which included collecting 300 hours of songs and auditioning five writers before finding Jan Veldman, took three years to complete. While the YouTube video shows a performance that echoes the irreverent satire of Weimar cabaret, complete with comedy number about joining the Luftwaffe, the juxtaposition of larger than life puppets and the icon of twentieth century evil is a struggle to discuss. Like Giselle Vienne's Jerk (manipulate 2011), the mixture of object manipulation and difficult content combine to create an impact that is made more potent by the apparent mismatch. 

The Bad Words

"I'm not writing it."

"It's the question that everybody wants answered."

"I've been there before. I did it three years ago."

"Well, I'll be in the front room, waiting. I hear they've got The Muppet Christmas Carol on this afternoon."

"There! Exactly... adults enjoy that."

"Only if they are really immature or on a nostalgia kick."

"Actually, the Muppets radically deconstruct stereotypes about theatrical values..."

"And the contemporary assumption that animals can't talk. It's rather premodern in its post-modernism, an Aesop Fable for the twenty-first century."

"Yes, very good. I'm busy here. I'm listening to the Buzzcut bosses define Live Art."

"Listening to your own radio show? Never mind, I've got a Wallace and Gromit box-set for your Christmas present."

"I won't like it. It is fundamentally conservative in its values, and seems to excuse its lack of wit through technical deliberation."

"It's an all-ages show, though..."

"I don't know why you need stuff that is made for TV, anyway. We've got YouTube now."

"Yes... I have just found a Punch and Judy show, filmed at some seaside town. The little ones are loving it. The parents are looking a bit concerned, though."

"It's not surprising. Mr Punch is a violent chap. In my essay, I examined how he represents a very British take on the bad-ass villain. It's fascinating to see how he evolved..."

"So, there's more to him than, say, Sooty and Sweep?"

"Yes - he would even face down the devil."

"A bit more complex than Basil Brush? Dealing with themes of good and evil, mortality?"

"And domestic abuse. He has one hell of an ancestry, too. Shares it with mime. It's only because of television that he is seen so infrequently on the beach these days."

"He does have a stupid voice, though. Seems a bit childish. He's another glove puppet. Bet he'll be saying 'boom boom" in five minutes. The story's a bit obvious, too. It's like a pantomime, with a bonus crocodile fight."

"I think you'll find a symbolic resonance there..."

"Check out this channel... it's got Pipkins. That hare terrified me when I was eight. He was all tatty. Then it's Ivor the Engine, bit of Bagpuss. You know what they have in common, don't you?"

"Talking heads on nostalgia shows pretending they remember them?"

"Their demographic."

"Don't."

"The plots are very simple."

"Please."

"There are bits where you can join in."

"I won't."

"They are all on before the watershed. You know, I think these are aimed at..."

"PUPPETRY IS NOT FOR CHILDREN. NO SINGLE ART FORM IS NECESSARILY DEFINED AS FOR A PARTICULAR AUDIENCE. IT IS A MATTER OF WHAT THE ARTIST AIMS AT."

"That didn't hurt, didn't it? Now you've said it, you can get on with being all smart and critical."

Mime into Visual Theatre

Just shut up, okay?

My investigation into mime as the foundation for "visual theatre" is not going so well. Expecting to find a well documented history of silent but deadly performance on the internet, I'm come up against prejudice (even Batman hates mimes), conflicting definitions (in the USA, they call it pantomime even though it doesn't have a dame) and a tradition that isn't exclusively physical. Since the word probably comes from "mimesis" or imitation, it doesn't necessarily connect with physical activity - and the contemporary stereotype of the mime is really just Marcel Marceu's Bip character.

I'm not willing to trace the mime's art back further than Jean Gaspard Deburau who used the Pierrot, star of a thousand sentimental choreographies, to solidify the look of the mime sometime between 1819 and 1825. Deburau toughened up this character from the Commedia dell' arte and is an early example of the bad-boy celebrity: just like OJ Simpson, he was the defendant in a murder trial.

Even back then, mime was regarded as a little out of the respectable mainstream: when Deburau performed at a more up-market theatre, he was hissed. And from descriptions of his personal life, he spent the rest of the time pissed, either up or off. But his reputation as a consummate performer got him fans in the poetic classes, and the long association of the mime and doggerel began with him.

None of these are very good reasons to decide on Deburau as the starting point for contemporary mime - although his celebrity made him an inspiration for later generations and his interpretation of Pierrot allowed the character to stand forth from the cast of the Commedia. But they do place him in a tradition of using stylised gestures as a form of communication and make the development of mime follow the evolution of classical ballet, which was shaping up in Russia into the form recognised today.

Like ballet, mime took a turn for the better at the turn of the century - a former critic, Jacques Copeau, used masked to train his actors and inspired the work of Étienne Decroux, who would write the first major book on mime. 

Through these three artists, all based in Paris, a simple narrative emerges: mime moves away from its populist roots (the Commedia is frequently mentioned as an influence on the British pantomime, and despite Deburau's fame, he never quite managed to break into the more intellectual theatres) towards something more challenging. Copeau was concerned with reinvigorating French theatre, and rejecting the commercialism of the Right Bank: Decroux went further, and saw mime as a revolutionary force to rescue theatre from the script. 

Marcel Marceu studied with Decroux, so this radical programme quickly entered the mainstream. However, it is his Paroles sur le Mime that set out the ideas that could be a foundation towards a more visual theatre.

Decroux declaimed theatre for lacking invention, and proposed that stopping the avalanche of words in the average script could rescue performance. He estimated that thirty years ought to be enough to give the actor a chance to reclaim their skills from the writers: after this, words could come back. He also attacked the idea of scenography, encouraging a bare set. The illusion of "real life" was rejected. Instead, the actor needed to start using their body. Even when words were allowed back in, improvisation from a text would replace the classic script. 

In France, this was even more unlikely than in the UK: Shakespeare might be poetic, but French theatre loves language. Even his contemporaries like Sartre and Anouilh wrote some verbose plays - Anouilh's Antigone gestures towards the classical Greek format and Sartre was more excited by theatre's possibilities for an illustrated lecture than for rediscovering bodily language. 

Yet the ideas that might eventual get their own wikipedia entry are beginning to arise...

Por Sal Y Samba

Por Sal Y Samba isn't just coming to Edinburgh for the manipulate festival. It exists on-line in various incarnations. This video might not be safe for work, so I have annotated one version that I watched.

The first minute is a series of squeaks in the darkness. I had been told this was a piece that didn’t stint on the erotic, but I hadn’t expected something so close to my Saturday night fumbling. There is repressed laughter, an atmosphere of tension…

At the minute mark, the lights come up. There are two people, so it isn’t like my Saturday night at all.  A man and a woman are partnering each other in a samba style dance. He has got a very big red… it’s either a corsage or a handkerchief… and she has got a very short red dress.

1’22” He grabs her head and knocks her to the ground. Then he picks her up by the hair. Her body language suggests she isn’t too keen on that.

He roughs her up by the hair for a bit, puts her back on the floor. He strokes her hair nicely. The audience laughs.

1’33” That stops the chuckles. He tugs her about the floor by the hair. The look on her face isn’t suggesting that this is a spot of consensual BDSM. Her legs kick, she even moans in pain. Then they resolve into a classic samba pose. Oh, it’s okay to laugh again.

1’50” She wanders off from him and throws a few silky shapes. He smiles and strikes a pose, wearing a big cheesy grin. The samba is off again…

2’ 20” Jesus, he’s at it again. Dragging her about by the hair. Apparently, someone in the audience has “got the joke” and is chuckling along. He keeps his hand on her chops, now and again slamming her to the ground, but generally keeping her under his command.

Seriously, if you are in the audience when I come and see this in Edinburgh, and you start laughing at violence against a woman, I am going to come and pull your hair.

I mean, I get it: it is choreography and not real violence. But this guy is acting like it’s Jim Davidson up there, slapping around his side-kick.

That said, the deconstruction of salsa’s implied macho savagery has been addressed pretty quickly. I am hoping she gets some licks in later.

2’ 40” He’s got her up against the wall. Still grabbing her hair, and she is flopping about.

3’ 02” They separate and go back into the slinky moves. The hip waggling and the sensual sway is uncomfortable now. He’s all melodramatic, she’s being seductive.

3’ 22” They parade around the stage together. He’s behind, guiding her with a soft touch.

3’ 54” Still the funky samba. The lack of music helps make it sinister, though. He looks like a threat. Maybe it’s the goatee. At least that handkerchief fell out of his pocket ages ago.

I’m not buying the idea that this takes cues from BDSM. If anything, it’s the opposite of Safe, Sane and Consensual. He doesn’t need to touch her to be menacing. The power balance is clearly in his favour.

4’02” He does a little sexy wiggle and gets a laugh.

4’ 13” Ya beauty. She’s got him by the hair and pinned him on the floor. The game is afoot.

4’28” After dragging him around for a bit, she has got him on all fours. This looks promising.

5’10” She is standing on his leg. He won’t like that. He doesn’t. Chuckles in the audience is having a high old time, though.

5’ 43” Okay. I am starting to feel bad now for wanting him to get hurt. She is poking her heel right in, and he is sobbing.

5’ 55” He’s got her by the hair and pulls her across his body.

6’ 00” It’s a full on ruck.

6’ 45” They are having a fight and shouting “samba,” like they are really grooving along to the beat. Only the beat is the sound of them scraping along the floor.

6’ 48” She boots him. The hilarity continues in  the audience.

7’ 05” Ah. It’s a bit more ritualized. They are taking turns on each other. That’s the BDSM coming out. Samba is like their safe word.

The lights just went out and the music came on. Is that The Carpenters?

8’04” Lights fade in. They are by a big box of salt. He is kneeling, she is squatting towards him.

8’15” That was looking a bit sexy, only now she is pouring salt down his throat. A thick white rope of it in his open mouth.

9’09” When Karen Carpenters sings “sharing horizons that are new to us,” there’s a nice irony. He seems to be into the salt feeding though and she is being quite gentle.

9’35” Shaking up a coke can, she slinks over to him.

10’ 24” He’s having a puke on stage.

10’44” And she’s taking the piss out of him for spewing.

At this point, I decided to draw a veil over the last five minutes. There needs to be some mystery, even in descriptive critique. 

Paper Theatre: The Movie (1)

Ah, sweet memories of teaching. I am up in front of a class, weaving my way through the underworld with Aeneas and trying to explain how this journey is not so much an elaborate reconstruction of the land of the dead but an example of the hero's descent.

"Each of the characters that Aeneas encounters represents an aspect of his self," I deadpan. The room is as silent as the banks of the Styx - that is, I can hear ghostly groans despite the stifling atmosphere. "When Dido confronts the Trojan, she is really a manifestation of his sexual desire, and another thing that he must overcome on his path towards self-realisation."

I ignore the first question - the perennial favourite. "Is this going to be in the exam?" I am waiting for the inevitable second.

"How do you know that Virgil intended this?"

I shuffle my notes. I have the answer to this one. "You don't, and there is no way to find out. In fact, that's irrelevant. Mythology is a language, and it has its own meanings that the author cannot understand. Words and symbols combine themselves in such a way that the intention of Virgil, or Vile, is no longer important. It's not a question of intention: it's about whether you can justify your interpretation. Try to remember that all art is a mirror and all we find within is our myriad selves..."



It's like this as I try to research the history of visual theatre. I'm going through the history of various puppetry traditions, entering random juxtapositions on Google, linking up ideas and specific companies that are going to appear at manipulate. I've read enough Foucault (specifically, the beginner's guide) to know that this sort of research, seeking out origins, is part of a dishonest attempt to create a lineal version of history and, frankly, Paper Theatre has very little to do with Paper Cinema.

However, this line of inquiry, this critical version of the hero's descent (we could call wikipedia the river Styx and the obol has been replaced by the search engine), began with a survey of manipulate's programme. There are two shows this year that involve paper: the previously mentioned Paper Cinema, who are bringing their Odyssey and Yael Rasooly's Paper Cut. Remembering the Jesuit principle of "starting where you are," I typed in "Paper Theatre."

It turns out that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote an essay about Paper Theatre in 1884. Even then, he was being nostalgic. The boom in paper theatre, also known as Toy Theatre, had been a century earlier.  Then, after reading further, I remembered that we'd had one of these when I was a kid.

Paper Theatre was a chance for all the family to build their own version of a theatre and stage a miniature production. They were sold as cut-out-and-build kits, and contained everything needed to recreate that magnificent version of Hamlet that was wowing the cheap seats. And like most things that involved DIY, imagination and rational thought, Paper Theatre was wiped out when TV arrived.

It did have a revival though.

The connection between Paper Theatre and Paper Cinema might be an accident of language. However, I can see an aesthetic continuity - probably a consequence of the material being used. Paper Cinema use illustrations to mimic the cinematic process in the same way that Paper Theatre imitated the stage: and one of the reasons that Paper Theatre worked so well in the nineteenth century was that performance was in one of its periodic fascinations with spectacle. There's a shared sense in Paper Theatre and Cinema of using simple techniques (shoving about tiny figures and drawing respectively) to reflect an art form that thrives on scale and grandeur.

Despite the high level of skill displayed in The Odyssey, it consciously reveals the working process: the artists are visible on stage, the images appear as they are drawn: having had a go on a Paper Theatre, there's no way to avoid a similar deconstruction of the mechanics. Fingers appear to move Hamlet out of the way, all of the characters have the same voice... there was usually a moment when the entire thing fell down as I brushed it with my arms.

Paper Cinema don't do that: they are professionals. But the format they use avoids the slick. Paper seems to encourage a more intimate puppetry, a consciousness of the two dimensional nature of the art.

I suppose Foucault is right - I'll have to ask Paper Cinema whether this was an influence on them - and it's unlikely that the lineal evolution of Paper Theatre leads to Paper Cinema, or Rasooly's fantasy of a lonely secretary. Instead, it's possible that these three different uses of paper reveal a shared aesthetic, one defined by the material. I may not be ready for that full definition of visual theatre yet, but perhaps there is a clue in the way that it allows the fabric of a production to help clarify the meaning and atmosphere.

Originally Published in The Skinny: Manipulate 2008

This month's puppetry festival Manipulate at Dundee Rep relocates the marionettes art into an adult, more shadowy realm of exitential terror and nightmarish otherness. Gareth K. Vile meets the man pulling the strings.

Simon Hart, the artistic director of manipulate, has a clear vision for Scotland's new puppetry festival for adults. "We want to get across to the general audience that object theatre is more than just the Muppets." Celebrating an art form often marginalised as childish, Manipulate aims at a mature audience, introducing adult themes and stretching the possibilities of puppetery. "All of the pieces take things that might be seen as quite safe - like marionettes - and use them in a way that is unsettling. Expectations are regularly subverted."

Hosted at Dundee Rep, the manipulate Festival evolved from the collaboration of Puppet Animation Scotland and Projector Animation Festival, and emphasises the close links between puppet theatre and animation, boasting a multitude of international companies.

Puppet Animation Scotland is best known for its annual, and extensive, festival for young people, which is represented in most towns and cities across the nation. But manipulate is a more adult affair: the brochure describes the shows in terms familiar to enthusiasts of physical theatre or live art. In Light!, Campaignie Mossoux- Bonte, whom Hart acknowledges as "primarily a dance company using the body to cast complex and eerie shadows", grapples with existential terror; Stephen Mottram brings his Seed Carriers up from England to haunt the audience with visions of an insectoid humanity. Theatre Velo follows a lost soul into the further reaches of his imagination in Appel d'Air, a work that transforms mundane objects into potent symbolism.

The puppetry festival segues into Projector's Hot Animation Festival. Before this begins, the puppetry moves out of the theatre and into the community. Hart mentions that "we have five days of masterclasses, working in shadow theatre, and Stephen Mottram looking at the relationship between the puppet, the puppeteer and their relationship with the audience. We are also working with the Dundee Literacy 16 to 24 project to create a short animation film with young people." One show, Angel - is being staged in support of homeless charity Shelter. Alongside the exhibition of designs for the Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre, hosted in the Dundee Rep Foyer, these workshops and events extend the festival beyond the auditorium, and engage with future audiences and performers, as well as placing the performances in a clear social context.

Hart sees this "as an intensification of our core event, the Puppet Animation Festival, which is aimed at 3 to 12 year olds." Puppet Animation Scotland has, in the past year, taken puppetry into one hundred and fifty eight Scottish venues and has seen attendance grow to nearly twenty thousand people in 2007. Manipulate applies this enthusiastic outreach to puppetry for adults. Not content to merely stage shows, it allows the audience to engage with the medium and draw the connections between puppetry and the aesthetic languages of dance or mime.

The Festival is clearly not aimed at children: The Seed Carriers, which has been challenging audiences for a decade, takes influences from the nightmarish paintings of Bosch and the films of the Quay brothers. Hart notes that "it uses a very old technique alongside contemporary themes". Its detailed creation of a microcosmic society is disturbing and advertised as unsuitable for children in any circumstances. Likewise, Light! examines the shadow-play of existence, dwelling on the fear evoked by darkness and the body. Those familiar with the films of Jan Svankmajer or the more Gothic experiments of Tim Burton will be enthralled: those whose experience is limited to Orville might be shocked. There are moments of beauty and clarity in both works, but they are hard won and original: both works express fierce, individual visions and work towards a new aesthetic.

Most importantly, Manipulate promises to relocate puppetry and animation as mature art forms. As has been the case with comic books, they have often been derides as limited in scope or potential. While plenty of novelty acts may have repositioned themselves as adult through explicit themes or shocking tactics, Manipulate is a showcase for more thoughtful and eloquent expressions of the puppeteers art.

Manipulate 2013

For the past six years, the annual manipulate festival has introduced visual theatre to the audiences of the the Traverse Theatre. Existing in the space between puppetry, animation, choreography and physical performance, visual theatre is a vital link between traditional, scripted plays and the more experimental devised work that emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century.

The festival's expansion - this year, it has additional dates at Lochgelly Centre, Fife, Lemon Tree, Aberdeen and Norwich Puppet Theatre - demonstrates that the reach of manipulate is going beyond the expected audiences with a taste for the new. Programmed by Puppet Animation Scotland, manipulate shares the mission of the lamented New Territories festival, gathering challenging, exciting and original performance from around the world, refusing to respect predictable boundaries of genre or content.

manipulate begins in February, and brings together cabaret (Netherlands based Carles Casallachs’ Sal Y Samba at Summerhall), silent theatre (Finland’s TIP Connection offer To The End of Love, a reworking of the Bluebeard myth), live animation (The Paper Cinema, returning to Edinburgh with their 2011 Fringe hit, The Odyssey), puppetry and mask work (After the Wave by Physical Theatre Scotland), interactive technology (Final Space, Ocean Flight and Myth and Infrastructure from Cloud Eye Control).

Festivals have become an increasingly fashionable way to support specific arts genres: by bunching together both internationally acclaimed companies like The Paper Cinema and younger, local performers like Drop Kick or Tortoise in a Nutshell, manipulate serves to put the shows in a wider context. Taken as a whole, it presents the scope of a particular label - in this case visual theatre - without having to  limit it through a strict definition.

Without descending to the cliché of exclaiming that "puppetry isn't just for kids" or emphasising that object manipulation is about more than hands shoved up a decorated glove, manipulate's vision identifies how this ancient form has adapted to the digital age. Films, cross-platform work, paper-engineering, animation: it's a far cry from the stereotype of creepy ventriloquists on Saturday night TV variety. 

Speaking about the festival, Simon Hart, Artistic Director of Puppet Animation Scotland said, “manipulate has grown year on year, in audience, programme and reputation. We’re celebrating our sixth year and the Traverse’s 50^th anniversary with our most ambitious programme yet, presenting international productions in Edinburgh, Fife, Aberdeen and England. Our larger animation programme features great new films from the Czech Republic and the USA and a classic from the Brothers Quay. We’re also showcasing the brilliant work of four up and coming, prize-winning animators from Scotland. We’re delighted as ever, to offer audiences across Scotland and for the second year, in Norwich, the opportunity to experience the best of contemporary exciting visual theatre and animation.”

Estonia’s Nuku Theatre presents A Wild Growling Happiness, manipulate festival’s first work programmed for young people, a story about creating and exploring our own worlds by performers from the Estonian State Puppet & Youth Theatre (5 Feb).

Physical Theatre Scotland presents , a full length show that has developed over the past four years from manipulate’sSnapshots programme. Inspired by images of victims of severe natural disasters, life size puppets, masks and live music explore how world events are reflected in the human body (7 Feb).

Paper-engineering features again in the programme with work from Israel’s Yael Rasooly in Papercut. This one woman show about the frustrated secretary of a big Hollywood producer transforms the vivid language and style of black and white cinema into a low–tech universe of paper cut-outs and object theatre (7 Feb).

Los Angeles-based performance group appear in the UK for the first time at manipulate with three short works, . The company combine interactive media with live performance to examine human adaptation in a technological world (8 Feb).

The Netherland’s Stuffed Puppet Theatre brings Neville Tranter’s combination of wicked, down to earth humour, deadly seriousness and virtuoso puppetry to manipulate with Schiklegruber…Alias Adolf Hitler. Neville Tranter has built a reputation over the past 30 years as a world leader in puppetry, consistently engaging with social and political issues in his work (9 Feb). Summerhall is the setting for Snapshots: Creation & Play Platform Performance, where Scottish artists Drop Kick and Tortoise in a Nutshell present works in progress, and performance critic Gareth Vile hosts a participatory seminar exploring the boundaries of art through conversations (9 Feb).

The performance programme closes with the return of Slick by Vox Motus, which had its world premiere at the Traverse during the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The story of boy permanently attached to his skateboard combines absurd comedy, visual storytelling, puppetry, object theatre and physical performance to create a unique ensemble performance. Kicking off a national tour at manipulate (12-16 Feb).

The film strand of manipulate, curated by Susie Wilson, begins with a feature from The Brothers Quay, The Piano Tuners of Earthquakes(Germany/UK 2005), strongly influenced by Eastern European animation (4 Feb). Alois Nebel (Czech Republic/Germany), Tomas Lunak’s award-winning feature film debut is based on the popular graphic novels trilogy by the Czech artists Jaroslav Rudis and Jaromir 99 (5 Feb). Nearly 15 years in the making and shot frame by frame, Consuming Spirits (USA, 2012) is meticulously constructed experimental animation by Chris Sullivan. Big Man Japan, a deadpan mockumentary satire of reality TV and monster movies by Japanese comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto, concluding manipulate’s feature programme (9 Feb).

The shorts programme presents nine films in 80 minutes, with animation from Hungary, Russia, Estonia, France, USA, Canada, Austria and Luxembourg (6 Feb). Snapshots: Creation and Play – 6.05 showcases four works over four nights from recent graduates from the Edinburgh College of Art’s Animation Department, introduced by leading Scottish animator Iain Gardner (5 – 9 Feb).

Notes to Editors:

PRESS SCREENING: 4 – 6pm, Wednesday 28 November.
Simon Hart, Puppet Animation Scotland and Edinburgh College of Art’s Neil Kempsell will introduce a trailer of features, shorts and the 6.05 programme from the full film strand of manipulate which will be followed by a Q & A and a screening of All the Glistens ,  presented by ECA animation graduate Claire Almond.

Traverse ticket prices:

Performances: £15/£11/£6
Screenings: £6
Festival Film Pass: £20

manipulate dates:

Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
Dates: Saturday 2 February
01224 641122 / www.boxofficeaberdeen.com

Summerhall, Edinburgh
Dates: Sunday 3 – Saturday 9 February
0845 874 3001 / www.summerhall.co.uk

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Dates: Monday 4 – Saturday 16 February
0131 228 1404 / www.traverse.co.uk

Lochgelly Centre, Fife
Dates: Wednesday 6 – Saturday 9 February
Tickets and booking: 01592 583303 / www.onfife.co.uk

Norwich Puppet Theatre
Dates: Thursday 7 – Saturday 9 February & 9 – 12 March
01603 629921 / www.puppettheatre.co.uk

Listings – Edinburgh Performances:

Sunday 3 February (6.00pm) Summerhall
FESTIVAL CABARET
Buzzcut presents Carles Casallachs (Netherlands)
Por Sal y Samba

Tickets: £11 / £6 from Summehall Box Office (0845 874 3001 / www.summerhall.co.uk)
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Monday 4 February (7.30pm) Traverse Theatre
PERFORMANCE

TIP Connection  (Finland), Traverse Theatre
To The End of Love

Tickets: £15.50 / £11.50 / £6

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Monday 4 February (9.15pm), Traverse Theatre
SCREENING: FEATURE FILM

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
DIR: The Brothers Quay (Germany / UK, 2005)Tickets: £6 / £20 Film pass -------------------------------------------
Tuesday 5 February (6.05pm), Traverse Theatre
SCREENING: Edinburgh College of Art Animation Showcase
Snapshots: Creation and Play – 6.05

All that Glistens by Claire Lamond

Free, but ticketed.
-------------------------------------------
Tuesday 5 February (7.30pm), Traverse Theatre
PERFORMANCENuku Theatre (Estonia)
A Wild Growling Happiness

Tickets: £15.50 / £11.50 / £6 (A Big Night Out Event)

-------------------------------------------Tuesday 5 February (9.15pm), Traverse Theatre
SCREENING: FEATURE FILM
Alois NebelDIR: Tomas Lunak (Czech Republic / Germany, 2011)

Tickets: £6 / £20 Film pass -------------------------------------------Wednesday 6 February (6.05pm), Traverse TheatreSCREENING: Edinburgh College of Art Animation Showcase
Snapshots: Creation and Play

Tea Party
by Vitalij Sichinava

Free, but ticketed-------------------------------------------
Wednesday 6 February (7.30pm), Traverse Theatre
PERFORMANCE

The Paper Cinema (England)

The Odyssey

Tickets: £15.50 / £11.50 / £6

-------------------------------------------Wednesday 6 February (9.15pm), Traverse Theatre
SCREENING: SHORTS PROGRAMME

Log Jam: KFJG No. 5 DIR: Alexi Alexeev (Hungary / Russia 2008, 2’)
Crocodile DIR: Kaspar Jancis / Estonia 2009, 17’)
Wind Along the Coast DIR: Ivan Maximov (Russia, 2003, 7’)
Aalterate DIR: Christobal De Olivera (France, 2012, 10’)
Welcome to Kentucky DIR: Craig Welch (USA, 2004, 12’)
Nightingales DIR: Theodore Ushev (Canada 2011, 3’)
Madame Tutli Putli DIR: Chris Lavis, Maciek Szcerbowksi (Canada 2007, 17’)
Log Jam: Snake DIR: Alexei Alexeev (Hungary, Russia, 2008, 1’)
Fast Film DIR: Virgil Widrich (Austria / Luxembourg, 2003, 14’)
Log Jam: The Moon DIR: Alexi Alexeev (Hungary / Russia 2008, 2’)

Tickets: £6 / £20 Film pass-------------------------------------------Thursday 7 February (7.30pm), Traverse Theatre
PERFORMANCE
Physical Theatre Scotland

After the WaveTickets: £15.50 / £11.50 / £6
-------------------------------------------Thursday 7 February (9.15pm), Traverse Theatre
PERFORMANCE

Yael Rasooly (Israel)

Paper Cut

Tickets: £15.50 / £11.50 / £6

-------------------------------------------
Friday 8 February (6.05pm), Traverse Theatre
SCREENING: Edinburgh College of Art Animation Showcase
Snapshots: Creation and Play – 6.05

I am Tom MoodyBy Ainslie Henderson

Free, ticketed-------------------------------------------
Friday 8 February (7.30pm), Traverse Theatre
PERFORMANCE

Cloud Eye Control (USA)
Final Space, Ocean Flight, Myth and Infrastructure: 3 Short Works

Tickets: £15.50 / £11.50 / £6-------------------------------------------
Friday 8th February (10.00pm), Traverse Theatre
SCREENING: FEATURE FILM

Consuming Spirits
DIR: Chris Sullivan (USA, 2012)

Tickets: £6 / £20 Film pass-------------------------------------------

Saturday 9th February (2.00pm), Summerhall
SEMINAR
Participatory seminar with Gareth Vile

Free, ticketed from Summerhall Box Office (0845 874 3001 / www.summerhall.co.uk)

-------------------------------------------

Saturday 9th February (4.00pm), Summerhall
PLATFORM PERFORMANCE

Dropkick (Scotland)
TornTortoise in a Nutshell (Scotland)
Feral

Free, ticketed from Summerhall Box Office (0845 874 3001 / www.summerhall.co.uk)
-------------------------------------------Saturday 9th February (6.05pm), Traverse TheatreSCREENING: Edinburgh College of Art Animation Showcase
Snapshots: Creation and Play – 6.05

The Making of LongbirdWill Anderson

Free, ticketed

-------------------------------------------
Saturday 9th February (7.30pm), Traverse Theatre
PERFORMANCE

Stuffed Puppet Theatre (Netherlands)

SCHIKLEGRUBER...Alias Adolf Hitler

Tickets: £15.50 / £11.50 / £6

-------------------------------------------Saturday 9th February (10.00pm), Traverse Theatre
SCREENING: FEATURE FILM

Big Man JapanDIR: Hitoshi Matsumoto (Japan)

Tickets: £6 / £20 Film pass

------------------------------------------Tuesday 12th February - Saturday 16th February Traverse Theatre
PERFORMANCE

Vox Motus (Scotland)

Slick

Tickets: £15.50 / £11.50 / £6

-------------------------------------------