In association with our Puppet Power: Festival of Ideas which runs May 23 – 29, 2022  we’re excited to offer a Puppet Power Artist Feature, a series of blogs exploring the role of puppetry in ‘celebration’ of some sort or another. Thank you to the puppeteers from around the world, who contributed their insights and their work in these challenging times.  

Celebrating Burst- Days

by Giacomo Occhi, Milano, Italy
@Giacomo.Occhi
(edited by Wendy Passmore-Godfrey)

Giacomo writes: I believe that theater is in itself, a moment of celebration, a meeting, relationship, comparison and growth. It is a community ritual in which actor and spectator partake. A person manifests through celebration, the will to express themselves both as an individual and as a collective being. Theater is a space and a place in which to feel, as a community, to be confronted with universal themes, to know and to learn more about them.
I believe that figure theater (puppet theater), through the imagery and suggestion creates a direct connection with the spectator and make them more involved. Personally, this genre of theatre allows me me to deal with important issues with irony and deep lightness.

Happy Burst-Day, starting from the title, recalls to mind the theme of celebration. The show explores the birth of a new life and at the same time deals with themes of loss and mourning, memory, acceptance and sharing of a dramatic event. It is a show to celebrate life, in all its beauty and through all its difficulties.

The show is built with elements and materials from the world of celebration, notably its main character is a Balloon. The life of a Balloon passes in the same way, day after day. Nothing really fills it. Until at a certain point, it swells with love: a great change that will lead it to fully experience what life has in store for it. An ironic and poetic story, real and surreal, without words, about the special life of an ordinary Balloon.

www.giacomoocchi.com
Instagram and Facebook: Giacomo Occhi

puppet power artist feature