In 2008, UNIMA, the international organisation for puppeteers, held their regular Congress. Lasting 10 days, the Congress is a ‘by puppeteers, for puppeteers’ festival, which included a number of events for the public as well. The 2008 Congress was held in Perth, Australia. I attended and blogged my experiences, which included workshops, shows, forums, exhibitions and keynote speakers.

For ease of navigation around my blog, I give you an itinerary (one wasn’t posted originally).

• Winning a travel grant
• Day 1: Arrival
• Day 2: Bunraku building & BBQ
• Day 3: More bunraku and Z is for Giraffe
• Day 4: More bunraku
• Day 5: Last of the bunraku, Cross cultural forum and Diva
• Day 6: Carnival Day, Flea Circus, and Chiryu Karakuri
• Day 7: Visual Narrative workshop, Shadow Puppets workshop and Explosion Therapy
• Day 8: Sightseeing, Animating Spark forum and Puppet Sports
• Day 9: Neville Tranter workshop, Petr Matasek keynote speech, POFA intro and Sleeping Beauty
• Day 10: World of Paper workshop
• Day 11: Solo Journeys forum, Mechanics Alive exhibition, The Arrival, and Fatal Attraction
• Day 12: Last minute shows, Bradshaw’s Shadows and Angel
• Day 13: Leaving, Congress highlights, show rankings

Related: The showcase of the bunraku head, which I couldn’t finish until I got home • Pics & video of The Arrival, posted after the fact • Photos of the trip

Those who remember my liveblog of last year’s UNIMA 2008 festival might be interested to hear that The Arrival (by Shaun Tan, produced by Spare Parts Puppet Theatre) has been made anew by a New Zealand company. Hilary Talbot has posted details on her site here, including some great pictures of the show and a video. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the atmosphere of the sets and lighting of the show, so here’s hoping the new production can improve on the last.

(As a special Sunday treat, for all of you who’ve been so patient for waiting!)

You may recall that I did a masterclass in making a bunraku head (actually, a ningyo joruri head… technically speaking) with Nori Sawa at UNIMA 2008 (a festival for which, UPDATE 30 July 2009: the site is no longer available). Well, I’ve finally finished getting the video of it done. You see, when I came back, I actually got the finishing touches of the head done in a week or so. But with one thing and another, the video’s taken me much longer. Anyway, find the short film at the bottom of the post. (Despite the title, the puppet isn’t finished. The costume isn’t completed, due to both lack of time, and the need for it to be easily removed for the video) Although there are inherent issues with this particular build, and the repetitive nature of papier mache, I really love the design of bunraku puppets, the expressiveness of the performance of these types of puppets, and the building process. I’d love to do more of these traditional bunraku puppets in the future.

More pictures of the building process can be found at Flickr. The masterclass is discussed in more detail on the five diary entries for the event: day two, day three, day four, and day five (full wrap up of the festival is here). Also, for anyone interested, I’ve found the online version of Introduction to Bunraku, the booklet that Nori had with him, and which is pictured on my Flickr set. It’s definitely worth a look.

Do leave a comment or question if something’s unclear; due to the shortness of the video, I couldn’t explain a lot of the build in more detail. UPDATE: More explanation of the shoulder boards can be found here. (You may need to turn your volume up on both your computer and the player - I just couldn’t get the vocals to be both loud and clear)… 

Follow with Flickr pics here.

Ok, so I finally found my camera, and I can now post the last pictures from my trip to Perth. 

For easy reference, here’s a list of each day’s activities. Do continue reading, as the following explains more of what happened on my last day. (On the Day Thirteen post, you will find a quick summary of the shows that I saw with links to each, as well as a short list of highlights)

• Day Thirteen
• Day Twelve
• Day Eleven
• Day Ten
• Day Nine
• Day Eight
• Day Seven
• Day Six
• Day Five
• Day Four
• Day Three
• Day Two
• Day One

Basically on the last day (Day Thirteen), I got up and had breakfast, then packed my things and checked out of the hotel. I had my flight at 7.30pm, so I had organised to leave my stuff at the hotel, and to catch a shuttle from there at 5.30pm. So what to do with the rest of my day? Well, I always love taking the ferry, and find it very relaxing, so I headed a few blocks south to the ferries. 

On the way, I discovered a tent which had a Da Vinci machines display, and for $20 I went in, largely out of curiousity, but also feeling the need for inspiration from his designs. I’ve always had a fascination with Da Vinci’s machines, rather than his artwork. For $20 I went in, looked around for five minutes, and then went out. Either it wasn’t very inspiring after all, or there was simply too many people for me to really take it all in. (Probably the latter) 

It was a beautiful day for it, and I quickly discovered that cruises were too expensive - and too late in the day - for me to take. However, Perth has a public transport ferry that takes you over to the Fremantle side of the harbour. Disappointingly, it was a two-stop trip (one stop Perth side, second stop Fremantle side), and I got into trouble for not getting off by the time we got back to Perth side. Apparently they don’t like you to just ride the ferry for a while… Well, I would have stayed a little longer, but feeling rather indignant and embarrassed, I got off and wandered along the park near the ferries. 

I was in the middle of reading my book - something I was doing on the ferry - so I found a place in the shade near the harbour, and read for about an hour. I would have stayed longer, but I ended up being right near some sort of sulphur-smelling area, and moved on to another section of the park, and found a bench to lie on. I ended up having a little nap there… 

By this time it was about 3pm, and I wanted an icecream, so I bought one and decided to slowly head back to the hotel. On the way through, I went past the backend of Perth Concert Hall, and happened upon this huge party - a Bhudda Birthday Party, held by the local Chinese communities. It was pretty cool; along with heaps of food stalls, craft areas where you could make stuff, and clothing/knick knack/cutesy things stalls, there were some carnival games and rides… The special stuff though was the three displays: first one I saw was a small Bhudda statue, with a small incense/candle display; the second was a wonderful garden scene, created with Bhudda statues and surrounded in a circular pattern with hedges and bushes. The third, and the largest, was a big constructed stage, on which stood a very large Bhudda statue, with rows below that of flowers, candles, incense, and other pretty stuff. The music coming from this stage area was gorgeous - harmonious chanting that echoed around the space. Play the video below to hear some of it! (Scroll down to read the rest of the post) Ah hell, I can’t get it to embed… Just go to this page and watch it there. 

Being somewhat disappointed that this party was only a block away from the ferries, I couldn’t be bothered hanging around - if only I had known earlier I would have gone and had some lunch there, or looked properly at the stalls, or done some calligraphy… Oh well. 

I walked back up to the hotel, where I sat and read for the rest of the day, only an hour or two… I was getting very bored at this stage, but it was so hot and I was very tired. I just wanted to go home by now. Finally it reached about quarter to five, so I went inside and picked up my stuff. Luckily a shuttle appeared at 5pm - even though I’d booked for 5.30pm, I think I probably hitched an earlier shuttle by accident - and by 6.30pm I was in the Qantas section waiting for my plane. I kind of repacked some of my luggage while I was there, but to no avail, since my computer just didn’t want to fit in my big backpack - by about 1 inch! The flight home was uneventful, except for me being rather overprotective of my bunraku head, which I’d carefully placed under the seat in front of me. 

We landed about 1am, and I didn’t get home till about 2/2.30am. So yeah, that’s my trip. I enjoyed it a great deal, and even though I’m glad to be home, I am already missing being able to go and do puppetry every day. Hopefully I’ll be able to attend another conference before 2012, which is when the next UNIMA festival is on.