In July, over a thousand visitors experienced the free Puppet Takeover weekend at Techniquest, designed and performed by students at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
As well as displaying their creations and interacting with visitors across the exhibition floor, the RWCMD Design for Performance students created two special puppet shows based on STEM themes, ‘Team Life’ and ‘Team Space’, which were free to view across the weekend.
Spanning four days in total, schoolchildren across South Wales got to interact with the puppets from the 2–3 July, while the project was open to the public from the 5–6.
Elowen Packer, who worked on the wonderful floor puppetry, said: “We had some really lovely interactions with the children earlier in the week.
“One of the kids wants to be an artist and was really interested in the puppetry; it was nice to interact with the children who were engaging well with them.”
‘Team Life’ was a heartwarming story that followed a human’s life from birth to old age, picking up bumps and scrapes along the way that were treated by Team Life’s puppetry medics.
While ‘Team Space’ was performed to full capacity audiences in our newly developed space on the second floor and detailed the living habits of a team of astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
Among the curious creations that populated the exhibition floor were puppets representing astronomical phenomena like black holes and nebulae, natural wonders like coral reefs and flying mammals, and the wonderful world of plants.
Mia Pinnington, who worked on the ‘Team Life’ show, said: “It’s been really interesting working on the floor — the kids have been great. It’s nice to have people who aren’t from the College see your work, too.”
We would like to thank the RWCMD and its talented puppeteers for bringing The Puppet Takeover to Techniquest and giving our visitors the opportunity to experience their wonderful work free of charge.
You can read more about the project on RWCMD’s website here.