#uk circus

National Youth Circus Event 2018

Applications to join us for next year’s event, on 16 - 18 February, are open until Monday 6 November.

Lab:time - Tamzen Moulding 

Tamzen Moulding was awarded Lab:time in September to commission a large puppet – named ‘Hugo’ – and develop the way he could be integrated into Dust, a circus show.  Below she describes how the character of the puppet developed, and how the physicality of the puppet influenced the circus artists in the Lab:time.

The puppet has developed into an interesting and quirky character and become more central to the show than I had first envisaged.

Lab:time focused on how the puppet can interact with circus equipment and how he can affect performers either directly or from a distance. His large movements worked very well to control and affect a performer from a distance. His ability to grow very tall made it possible to for him to interact with performers on aerial equipment; this will add to the surreal nature of the show that I am developing.

His inquisitive side works well with both aerial equipment without performers and interacting with a juggle. This we will develop further - as he doesn’t have the ability to catch juggling equipment the idea came across as alien to him.

We also looked at how he can interrupt an act, directly by getting in the way, or by getting the performer to do something else that he wants; this came from a game where he wants people to do a specific action and the puppeteers had to decide what it was and make the performer understand.

The impressions from the audience at the Lab:time sharing were that though the puppet was fearsome when angry, he could also be endearing despite his looming appearance. He seemed young at the beginning, but as the show progressed he seemed to learn and become more mature. 

Tamzen is now looking into developing this idea into a full show, inspired by the imagery in the book The Night Circus as well as Tim Burton, Neal Gaiman, and Edward Gory. It will follow the narrative of a girl being drawn into the black and white world of the circus. In the show, the puppet is a part of the girl; he is created from her coat and umbrella which she has at the start of the show.

Follow Tamzen on Twitter @InvertedCo