Lynne Kent – Artist, Researcher and Collaborator
Tell us about the pathway that led you to the puppetry you’re working on now and any other art you’re making these days?
At the moment and for the last couple of years I have been working on creative collaborations across cultures, artforms, companies and individual artists. I learn a lot when I work with other artists who are not necessarily puppet theatre people. Often these projects are initiated by others, not by me so when someone asks me to make something with them, I say, yes! One of the current collaborations is a project called Marine Ostinato for the Australian Ceramics Triennial in Hobart in May with ceramicist Shannon Garson, cellist Louise King and video artist Jen Brown. We are creating a performance/installation with shadow images and music and ceramics turning traditional craft into a sophisticated performance art work. I have always been interested in transforming simple everyday things like shadow images and objects into something quite magical. This comes from early experiences seeing animation and puppetry and feeling a sense of wonder. These experiences led to me wanting to create a sense of magic for an audience.
What does your current work entail, tell us a bit about the current project(s) you are working on?
Creative collaborations require a lot of talking through the different processes or language that each company or artist has, asking lots of questions and listening to each other. An example of this is a collaboration I worked on last year with Terrapin Puppet Theatre and the Haya Cultural Centre in Amman Jordan. We wanted to co-create a children’s theatre production using shadow and objects but started from scratch with conversations and play. I love the risk that this involves. We made a show called Now and Tomorrow with two Jordanian actors that I hope will come to Australia one day. It will be interesting to see it with an Australian audience of children. Often I work as a consultant designing and making shadow images and working with directors and performers who want to use shadow imagery in their productions but need expertise to make it happen so I ask a lot of questions like, why do you want to use shadow? what is the screen? what does the screen represent? what is the space? Most recently I have been directing shows with actors, circus performers and puppeteers and I have really loved directing. I get to be creative and use my experience and knowledge without busting my body to get results.
The day to day role you have is an interesting one with a number of layers – Can you talk on navigating the line between any contradictions or tensions in your role?
Obvious tensions in the theatre are lack of time and money. Puppet theatre particularly requires creative development time to make mock puppets and screens so that the construction of puppets can be made prior to rehearsal. There is no point making a puppet only to find that the director has decided not to use it when it comes to rehearsal.
There are many tensions when working with others in the theatre and some of them are fruitful exchanges of ideas. I have explored the tensions in my own work between the organic, primitive shadow image and the digital image in my PhD research and discovered that the shadow theatre has much to offer new media performance. Sometimes what might at first seem like a conflict actually pushes the work in a new direction. I enjoyed working with Sam Routledge from Terrapin, for example, because he is not afraid to test ideas and interrogate why something doesn’t feel right in order to get at something that does feel right or look right. So, I have come to think of tensions as important points of exchange in the work that need to be examined in order to produce something that has meaning.
What are some of the negatives and positives in being in your current role?
The positive aspects of collaboration mean that unexpected connections happen and it is always exciting to be surprised. Last year I directed 6 very talented circus performers in a collaboration with community brass bands in regional Victorian towns as part of the ANZAC Centenary to tell the stories of stretcher bearers in WW1. It was a joy to watch the process of circus and brass combine to perform outside in regional towns. It was a circus street show of a high quality that reminded me of Circus Monoxide.
The negative aspect of being a puppet theatre maker/director is that there is always stuff in the back of my car, junk that could be made into something or that was something or that could look interesting in shadow, like the mesh that mandarins are often sold in- it looks great under a torch!
Who are the collaborators or people you’re close to that you feel most supported by?
I feel supported by those friends and colleagues who I have known for a long time and who know my work. I feel that they trust that I can deliver.
Which community/tribe(s) do you feel most connected to?
Theatre people. I don’t think I belong to the circus community because I am not circus trained but each time I work in circus I am welcomed. Last year I designed and made shadow puppets for Rock Bang with Circus Oz and Otto and Astrid and I love the idea that a little bit of me is touring with them and connected to circus in some way. The fact that you have each other’s lives in your hands, makes circus community and groups strong, something that is not always the case in other artforms.
What’s it’s like living and working in the geographic place you are at the moment?
I live and work in Melbourne and sometimes work elsewhere. It can be hard living in Melbourne, it is expensive but it is where the work is.
Can you tell us a bit about why puppetry appealed to you at the very beginning when you started?
With puppetry, I always felt like I could be anything, go anywhere, that it is only limited by the imagination. It has been said that puppets can and should do what actors cannot. So it was the endless possibilities available with puppets that attracted me. When I was in school, I did work experience in a puppet theatre and then got my first job in that theatre touring a show for children. Puppets can die a thousand deaths and be reborn, they can be violent in a way that the human body can only portray in an abstract way or corny unrealistic way on stage. Puppets can magically transform into other things. This was exciting to be back when I first started and still is.
Can you talk us through the steps of the process (physical & mental) you use to do the thing you do.
I am constantly looking for life in things. That means picking things up and seeing what kind of movement I can get out of an object or a puppet, even simple things like a tissue can offer an idea for a character. When I direct shows I am looking to use props in every way I can. I only want things on stage that can have multiple uses so my first process is to think about the shape, size, weight and material of the thing and to think about all the other things it could be on stage. An example of this is in the Armistice show with circus and community brass band I mentioned. I thought about stretchers and the possibilities of using them as trenches, as bodies falling, as screens to project onto and then when the performers came, we explored all the things you can do with the body and a stretcher and bodies and what those shapes mean. When an object is used in multiple ways, it can surprise an audience and that is often my aim.
When you work, much of what you do draws on materials and construction. What’s that like for you?
Yes, I am interested in the materiality of things and how much that determines character and movement and the relationship between human and non-human. The texture of foam for example, offers different possibilities to metal or wood. I have asked other puppeteers about their relationship to material and published those interviews as podcasts (www.thingmaking.net) as it is a very intimate relationship that a puppeteer has to an object or material. I love broken things or abandoned objects they have a story that seems like it is waiting to be told. I can’t go past a hard rubbish collection. Imperfection is so much more engaging to work with and look at than something new and flawless.
We’re interested in the therapeutic connection between work and self. What about what you do feeds your inner self? If at all?
Mmm I am not sure about this question as work is work for me. I love working but I don’t see it as therapy at all. I like snorkeling, that’s something I might do to relax and experience beauty.
If so which do you find more therapeutic? The process or the performance/execution? Why?
We think there’s bravery in revealing our shadow self (no pun intended), particularly when making original work. What do you think about that?
I am not sure about this question. Of course, there is bravery in what artists do. How much artists reveal of themselves in and through the work varies but I don’t think we can separate ourselves completely from what we make. More and more I want my work to have meaning, for me and for an audience. So, yes it is brave to show an audience something that matters to you but you have to let it go as well.
What’s one positive development you would like to see in the future of the Australian Physical Theatre/Puppetry/Circus scene?
Circus has what looks like a healthy environment of training opportunities and companies that provide programs to encourage new talent but puppetry in Australia is in a dismal state. Currently, there is no full-time study available in Australia for puppetry and related arts. Companies such as Spare Parts in Perth provide short courses in puppetry and employ some people so I would like to see a training centre and Australian puppet theatre shows prioritised over any from overseas. We have some great small puppet theatre companies in Australia and they deserve to be nurtured and given more opportunities to showcase their work at major venues. I would love to see a national puppet festival or a few smaller puppet theatre festivals where local puppeteers can showcase their work, have panel discussions and workshops and meet each other and share resources and ideas. I would like to see large venue arts programmers preference Australian puppet theatre over international artists because we have huge talent here and I get annoyed when I see an international work that could really have been done by an Australian independent puppet theatre company.
Lynne Kent
Lynne Kent is an Artist, Researcher and Collaborator based in Melbourne, Australia. With a background in contemporary shadow puppet theatre, Lynne has toured, trained and collaborated with various companies across Australia and internationally including; Terrapin Puppet Theatre, Circus Oz, The Victorian Opera, Arts Centre Melbourne, Erth Visual & Physical Inc, ArtPlay and The City of Melbourne. In 2018 Lynne travelled to Jordan to create Now and Tomorrow with Terrapin and The Haya Cultural Centre in Amman and directed touring shows for the ANZAC Centenary with The Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet. Her work incorporates digital imagery, object theatre and shadow theatre. Lynne has a practice led PhD. Kent’s PhD thesis title, Mesh Theatre: The Intermedial Life of Images, Objects and Puppets, engages in interdisciplinary dialogue across the fields of new materialism, digital media, screen studies, theatre and performance. Her work can be seen and heard at www.thingmaking.net
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