The Handspring Puppet Company recently presented their self-production Ouroboros here. The creative director Janni Younge told I Kaur that no human can emote better than a puppet when it comes to our subconscious
There was a time puppets scared me. Just the idea of something so inanimate coming to life, sent a chill down my spine. Whether it was my imagination playing tricks on me or not, one cannot tell, but there is certainly something that pierces deeper in your subconscious when a puppet laughs at you. That’s probably why Janni Younge from the Handspring Puppet Company feels that if her recent production was not a puppetry, it wouldn’t have meant anything. She along with her troupe recently performed their self-production, Ouroboros, at the Johhnie Walker: The Journey Festival. “The art form of puppetry is extraordinary because it is actually a ‘thing’ on stage that is being brought to life by a bunch of people behind the stage. A man cannot tell a man directly what his deepest and darkest secret is,” she said.
Ouroboros is a Greek word for a snake that bites its own tail. Younge explained, “The show is about a relationship between a dancer and poet and the way they interact in their relationship. All characters represent the humans — babies, children, adults, old and dead people — who interact across time and space. So the concept behind this is that when you are in a relationship with someone it is not only the present that you interact with but also with aspects of your past and future. It is that hope one has of where he would be in future along with fear of what may not happen. All these things interact in the present moment to create the dynamics of a relationship.”
According to her, the real message of the play is that humans are complex. She said, “It is about complicating our relationships and getting a glimpse into the rich world of being. At the same time we touch upon the fact that one needs to take responsibility for prior experiences in life. It is basically a journey towards the present and being fully alive in a relationship.”
Puppets play a big role in what the Handspring Puppet Company deals with, mainly because of the issues they cover. “Our shows are an honest exploration of a tryst in the human experience. With tryst I don’t mean reality but subject. We try to explore the subject very deeply and then put it in the content of our production. A lot of our previous productions have dealt with social and political situations. But Ouroboros is an internal relationship. So whichever aspect the relationship is in, internal or external, we try to explore it deeply and use the puppet medium to do so completely. So the puppet is not just a décor tool but an integral part of storytelling. It becomes real. You cannot tell such stories without the use of puppets,” she elaborated.
Younge and her team focus a lot on quality when it comes to puppets. “We construct them well. We spend a lot of time to make good joints because I don’t like the puppets bending backwards. They need to look real. Plus we maintain a high degree of teamwork and precise manipulation. One person may be holding the foot of one puppet and the hand of another puppet, but he will have to know where the foot and the hand are going. The choreography is very detailed,” she added.
The Handspring puppets change with every show, said Younge. “They are an emotional representation of the character on the show. The shape, form and the way it looks is specific to the production. We don’t like to take shortcuts so we start working way in advance. After this, once I go back home I will start working on an African version of Pinocchio. The show will happen in March 2015, but we need to start the puppet work now,” she shared.