Name: The Darker Side of Puppetry - 2-day Course
Start: 2025-04-23T10:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-04-24T17:00:00+01:00
Location: Great North Museum: Hancock

The Darker Side of Puppetry - 2-day Course

with Gavin Glover
10am-5pm daily. In this hands-on experimental two-day workshop we will discover some new species of puppet. For example, The Alter Ego, the Imaginary Friend and the DARKER worlds of the Imposter, the Phantom and the Effigy.
If we take some of our existing rules of puppet performance and then purposefully twist them, even break the bond between puppet and performer, we can expose some very surprising and sometimes slightly unsettling new narratives. It is a dangerous and vulnerable place the DARKER side but there is beauty and honesty to be found there in this new approach to contemporary puppetry.
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These sessions will be a fun and safe space for experimentation and an opportunity to really dive deeply into these alternative performance methods. Techniques are geared towards performances for adult audiences but they can easily be adapted for use in all theatre types. Suitable for any curious theatre creatives such as actors, dancers, clowns, even puppeteers!
Previous participant feedback:
"Gavin's teaching style was relaxed and playful but backed up by a wealth of experience."
"The atmosphere in the group was so warm, supportive and friendly that my inhibitions quickly melted away."
With many years experience as a theatre practitioner Gavin Glover specialises in puppetry, livefeed micro cinema, film making and Art installations. "I have always worked in the more disturbing side of contemporary puppet theatre. I have trained ghosts for the National Theatre of Scotland, tamed foul-mouthed pterodactyls for the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow and encouraged drunken bar fights at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. My recent short films have received critical acclaim from The Guardian, BBC’s Front Row and The Stage. Having toured a deliciously dark style of work all over the world with the cult theatre company Faulty Optic, I now really enjoy making short films and installations and collaborating with other artists."