Rest in Peace Eugenios Spatháris

Greek Master Puppeteer Evgenios Spatharis passed away after sustaining injuries in a fall en route to a performance last week.

The world has lost another master of a historic, traditional form of puppetry.

Eugenios Spatháris - one of the world's best-known shadow puppeteers - died yesterday at the age of 85. Eugenios was a second generation puppeteer who followed in his father Sotiris Spatháris footsteps working as a puppeteer in traditional Greek shadow theatre. He gave his first performance in 1942 and had been performing ever since. According to reports, he died from injuries sustained in a fall while en route to performance last week.

This is sad news for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that traditional Greek shadow theatre is a dying art form. Shadow puppetry has a rich history in Greece; it first arrived there from Asia in the mid-15th century and for decades after Greece first achieved independence it was the nation's only form of public entertainment. Sadly, it's popularity has declined somewhat during the past several decades and Eugenios had fought hard to preserve it as part of Greece's cultural history.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is much video of Eugenios Spatháris' work available online. The only clip I could find was this one, which has his voice and some of his puppetry remixed in to a dance video.

Rest in Peace Eugenios Spatháris.

11/5/09 Update: Seems that the AP and several other media outlets may have been misspelling Eugenios' name "Evgenios", an error I didn't catch until it was pointed out by Alan Cook (there is still a little debate about the proper English spelling of his name). To see more of Eugenios' work visit his YouTube channel.

Black / White

Black/White is a stark, monochromatic video that blends shadow puppets and animation.

To promote their spring and summer collections this year, Gap commissioned five original songs based on a specific color and a corresponding video for each. My favourite of these is Black / White, which features a song by Danish post-punk duo The Raveonettes and a stunning blend of filmed shadow puppets and computer animation (to really appreciate it you really have to watch it multiple times). The video was directed by Chris Do of BL:IND; you can check out lots of "making of" goodies from the project here.

Link via Motiongrapher via Brian.

Monday Afternoon Inspiration: Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

Canadian animator Michel Gagné is adapting his Insanely Twisted Shadow Puppets as a video game (image ©2008 Shadow Planet Productions LLC).

I think I first mentioned Michel Gagné's Insanely Twisted Shadow Puppets way back in 2005. They were originally a series of shadow puppet-inspired interstitials originally created for Nickelodeon, but now Michel and top-notch crew of developers are hard at work on a video game adaptation called Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet! You can watch the Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet trailer and read more about it on Michel Gagné's web site.

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is tentatively scheduled for release in mid-2009.

Funky Fingers

Funky Fingers is an example of Mr. Bunk's original style of shadow puppetry.

Here's a funky shadow video from Canadian puppeteer Mr. Bunk. Enjoy!

Animata: Open Source Digital Puppetry

Reverse Shadow Theatre is an installation created with Animata digital puppetry software.

Animata is open source real-time animation (or digital puppetry) software that is "designed to create animations, interactive background projections for concerts, theatre and dance performances". The goal of Animata is to make it really easy to create scenes with digital puppets that can be controlled via physical sensors, microphones or cameras.

Animata has already been used for a couple of interesting projects, including Animata Jazz Pub (an interesting demo that shows how the Animata software can be used to react to live audio input) and Reverse Shadow Theatre (an installation that was created with Animata, inspired by Wayang Kulit, an Indonesian form of shadow puppet theatre).

If you want to try playing around with the software yourself, the Animata software can be downloaded for free for both the Mac and PC. The source is licensed under the GPL and can also be downloaded from Google Code.

Cross-posted from Machin-X: Digital Puppetry.

Tales of Disaster

Children in Indonesia, Afghanistan ans Sri Lanka learn important safety lessons thanks to the puppetry work of No Strings.

Tales of Disaster is a series of videos designed to teach children safety lessons about earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and floods and landslides. The videos use a combination of shadow puppetry and hand and rod puppets are produced by No Strings, a UK-based charity that uses puppetry to make lifesaving education films for children in developing countries about issues like earthquakes, tsunamis and HIV/Aids. No Strings' co-founders include Muppet veterans Michael Frith and Kathy Mullen. No Strings distributes the films in a variety of different ways, including local screenings in remote, local communities and broadcast on national television stations.

You can learn more about No Strings at www.nostrings.org.uk.

Monday Morning Inspiration: The Incredible Mandy Mango

British installation artist Sarah Jane Palmer created the "silhouette animation" The Incredible Mandy Mango.

The Incredible Mandy Mango is a "silhouette film animation" of a Corde lisse performance. It was created by Sarah Jane Palmer, a British artist who works in mixed media, animation, mask making and several other disciplines. She created this using stop motion animation, but the shadow puppet influence is obvious. There's no reason you couldn't do something just like this live in real-time with a little practice!

You can also check out Cromance, an earlier silhouette animation experiment that Sarah created last year.

March Fourth!

Pilo Erect from the March Fourth Marching Band makes great use of shadow puppetry.

Notice that a lot of neat shadow puppet films and videos have been popping up in the past year or so? Here's another good one from the March Fourth Marching Band.

Via Mary Robinette Kowal.

Little Dragon's Twice Shadow Puppetry

The music video for Little Dragon's Twice was made using shadow puppetry.

This lovely example of shadow puppetry I found on the Bebo social networking site is a music video for Little Dragon directed by the highly creative Johannes Nyholm.

Terrific Chinese Hand Shadows

A great example of hand shadow puppetry, recorded in China earlier this year.

This is a short clip of a Chinese puppeteer performing some great hand shadows. Take a look, it's some amazingly fluid work.

More Great Hand Shadows Down Under

Hand shadow performance seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance in Australia thanks to performing artists like Sean Kenan (pictured) and Raymond Crowe.

Following up on that amazing video of hand shadow of Raymond Crowe that took the world (or at least YouTube) by storm recently, The Sydney Morning Herald recently ran an interview with Australia's most famous "Unusualist". What's that? You want even more Australian hand shadow puppetry? Well, then go check out this video by fellow Aussie Sean Kenan.

Links via the always wonderful Spirits Dancing.

Incredible Hand Shadow Performance

A truly stunning hand shadow performance can be seen on the video sharing site MetaCafe.

This has got to be the most incredible example of hand shadows that I have ever seen (if the lip sync appears off, it's just because of the video encoding and not the performer). Does anybody know who did this?

Via Squonk.

27/08/07 Update: I must have been tired when I originally posted this because the video (very briefly) indicates that this is the work of Raymond Crowe. Thanks to everybody who wrote in!

Some Really Good Christian Puppetry

Stations of the Cross is a beautiful and simple example of really effective Christian puppetry.

I've been fairly critical of the quality of Christian puppetry in the past, so I always feel obligated to point out the good stuff when I come across it and Stations of the Cross is pretty darn good. The music is excellent, the shadow puppets and staging are excellent and the manipulation is simple (minimalist even) but effective. The whole thing testifies to the power of the silhouette.

Stations of the Cross was created by a Jesuit named Edward Sheehy in New Jersey and I think that a lot of churches wishing to incorporate puppetry in to their worship and ministry could learn from what he's done. Something like this requires less money, materials and technical skill than the "Muppety" stuff that's so prevalent in Christian puppetry today and can also be much, much more effective.

Chinese Shadow Puppetry

Chinese Shadow Puppetry, recently performed in Wuzhen, China near Shanghai.

Here's a great example of Chinese Shadow Puppetry. Even more interestingly, the same show was shot twice so you can also take a look behind the scenes and see how it's performed. Neat stuff!

Phat Shadow Puppetry

"Chunkasaurus" is a funky little shadow puppet short.

Here's some funky shadow puppet fun from fellow Canadians Mike Warren & Mere Grantier. I think you'll enjoy it.