Hello everyone, i'm Steve.  I was recently given a marionette from Prague, pics below, and i'm fascinated with it.  It seems to be very nice, made of wood and some sort of ceramic, and dressed in nice fabrics.  I was wondering a few things:

What is this type of marionette called?
Are there any places on the web I can learn the 'proper' way to hold and manipulate it?
Anything else?

Thanks all, and hope to talk to everyone soon.

**** Update*****

So sorry about the image size, I was just a bit excited to have gotten the pictures up here.  They are now resized, and I won't do it again

Picture resize needed!

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff................ Lets get your pictures resized and we can then look at answering your questions.

Billy D.

Update: Shawn I tried to resize them with corel draw but the resolution is a bit off. but they are smaller. Hungryhippolw you can still resize them though in your post ..... then I will remove the ones in mine.

It looks as if it is a simple Sicilian rod marionette.  Hold the control in one hand (This depends on what feels comfortable to you. I am right handed and hold controls in my left since my right hand is more dexterous.) and then tip the wood control that is attached to the legs from side to side to make your puppet walk. The string that is running through the metal loop above can be pulled with your free hand to make the puppets hands move. That is what is called a run through and allows you to control the hands by pulling down or "pushing" up on one of the strings.  To raise both hands at the same time you could grasp both strings and pull up or forward.

P.S. The pictures really does need to be smaller but since you have uploaded them to photo bucket we can't really do anything about it. To others viewing the post, you can use the right left scroll bar after the very last image to view the puppet.

It looks as if it is a simple Sicilian rod marionette.  Hold the control in one hand (This depends on what feels comfortable to you. I am right handed and hold controls in my left since my right hand is more dexterous.) and then tip the wood control that is attached to the legs from side to side to make your puppet walk. The string that is running through the metal loop above can be pulled with your free hand to make the puppets hands move. That is what is called a run through and allows you to control the hands by pulling down or "pushing" up on one of the strings.  To raise both hands at the same time you could grasp both strings and pull up or forward.

P.S. The pictures really does need to be smaller but since you have uploaded them to photo bucket we can't really do anything about it. To others viewing the post, you can use the right left scroll bar after the very last image to view the puppet.

AH! Thank you so much, I will give it a try!  I really appreciate the help.

Would this be considered a "beginners marionette" or is it pretty standard?

Hallo hungryhippolw,
welcome to puppets and stuff. I would say this is a rather easy one to play with... I can only see 4 strings: 2 for the arms to move and 2 for the legs. If you want to you may visit our site of DRAAD-poppentheater.
We are a group of peaple who play with marionettes. Pictures can be seen at www.draadpoppentheater.be
then open the link 'beeldmateriaal' and the go to 'foto's' and then open 'poppen kleine sofie' . There you will see some of our puppets - they have 3 strings for the head, one at the back, 2 or 4 at the arms, and the we have the legs. On the picture... a lot of strings

Hi Steve, welcome to the group! 

I agree with Shawn and Johian that your puppet shouldn't be too tricky to learn to manipulate. While traditional Sicilian marionettes use a central head-rod, so do traditional Czech marionettes. If you explore the Czech Marionettes web site you'll find a video demonstrating how the Czech vertical controller is used. It is popular with many puppeteers...

http://www.czechmarionettes.com/


This is a discussion we previously had on the subject here...

http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php/topic,2475.msg20802.html#msg20802

I'm glad that you found us, and hope that we can help you learn more about puppetry.



Ron G.