Focus on: Puppet Animation Festival

14 March to 20 April 2005 This Spring sees in the 21st year of Scotland’s national Puppet Animation Festival.  This makes it the UK’s oldest and largest performing arts festival for children and young people.

History and background

The first festival, in 1984, presented 14 puppetry performances at one venue in Edinburgh.  From humble beginnings, this year’s festival demonstrates how abundantly it has grown. 

It will include: 256 puppetry performances and workshops 136 venues throughout Scotland, from city centre theatres to rural village halls, from Ullapool to Dumfries, and all points in between 24 leading companies from Scotland, UK, Ireland, Germany and Bulgaria Audiences totalling 17,000 people

The support and promotion of Scotland’s own puppetry sector is a key function of the Festival.  Every year, the core of the Festival’s programme has been provided by the 16 full-time puppetry companies based in Scotland.  Over the past five years these companies have presented their work to over 600,000 people throughout the UK.

Productions and events at the Festival

Among the Scottish companies staging their productions at the Festival are:

• Shona Reppe Puppets, with a new production following the award-winning success of Cinderella in the UK, North America and the Far East
• Clydebuilt Puppet Theatre
• Folding Theatre Puppet Company
• Hoodwink
• Mousetale Puppets
• Yugen Puppet Company

Visit the Puppet Animation Festival website for full listings, and read April's profile on Hoodwink's Ailie Cohen, one of the performers at the Festival.

The Festival also welcomes this year’s international guests, include two award-winning companies from Germany: Theater Der Schatten, and Figurentheater Chemnitz.

This year, for the first time, the Festival is able to offer animation workshops – provided by award-winning company Red Kite Animations – in venues throughout Scotland.  The workshops will provide children with the opportunity to make a film that they can watch at the end, and even take home with them.  This opportunity has already proved popular, with some workshops booked up completely.