childrens colourful finger puppets
Welcome to the website for puppets.com.au .
This site is all about puppets in Australia
finger puppets
It talks about the history of puppets , types of puppets , their popularity through the centuries as a vibrant and viable performing art medium .
Fond memories of most childhoods revolve around a much loved puppet often of the simple finger , glove or sock puppet variety . Lucky children graduated to the more elaborate style of Marionette puppet with strings to move limbs and head .
Modern day incarnations of puppets include the famous Muppets created by Jim Henson .
Punch and Judy is another well known timeless puppet troupe largely enjoyed at British seaside fares . They displayed topical themes such as Punch argueing with and even hitting Judy which in todays climate of political correctness are not popular themes .
There are a great many thriving puppet companies in Australia. Far from dying out as a long forgotten craft new interest in puppetry is revived as a performing ar t discipline and courses exist at tertiary level at the Victorian College of the Arts and the University of Melbourne.
Richard Bradshaw OAM is another famous Australian puppeteer. He is currently President of UNIMA Australia and a former artistic director of the Marionette Theatre Company of Australia.
Rod Hull another Australian puppeteer produced an emu puppet for a childrens morning breakfast program in the 90’s.
Today, Snuff Puppets is one of Australia’s modern puppet theatre troupes. Based in Melbourne, their work is full of wild black humour, political and sexual satire with puppets of a hand made , visually pleasing aesthetic.
Puppetry developed throughout the twentieth century in a variety of ways. Supported by the parallel development of cinema, television and other filmed media it now reaches a larger audience than ever.