Wayland and the Hype Cleaners Workshop - Stumble Upon a Story (OBJECTive Puppet Fest)

Let Wayland and the Hypecleaners lead you as you explore the body as both an expressive instrument and an extension of the puppet. Drawing from traditions of Commedia dell’Arte, physical theatre, dance, and embodied storytelling, participants will develop a physical vocabulary in rhythm, gesture, character, presence, and play.

Rather than treating the puppeteer’s body as separate from the puppet, the class considers how movement can emerge from the puppet’s own materials, construction, weight, mechanisms, and possibilities. The diversity of human bodies, movement patterns and ways of expressing ourselves will inform and expand the movement vocabulary of the puppet, allowing each body to bring its own unique qualities, rhythms, and possibilities to the character.

Exercises will explore physical transformation, exaggerated gesture, spatial awareness, counterbalance, rhythm, and the relationship between stillness and movement. Participants will work both with and without puppets, developing an awareness of how the body can disappear, amplify, mirror,…