Pirouette, Pietre, Hilda Hand Puppets
Briefly described here are three unusual types of hand puppet: finger puppets, rod puppets
and shadow puppets. The little finger puppets can do little else but walk and dance, but
they do that very well. Rod puppets can be used most effectively for serious narrative
presentations such as Biblical Tableaus. Shadow puppets are also best suited to formal,
tableau-like presentations.
57.PIROUETTE HAND PUPPET
Her body (there is only the
torso and the head) can be overcast in papier-mache, cast in plastic wood or made by
bending double a piece of foam rubber, binding it with adhesive tape and adding pipe
cleaner arms as in A. The torso is held in place on the first and second fingers by two
loops of elastic attached to the waist as shown, B. Your fingers are the legs. Make her
silver dancing slippers of foil and her arms of pipe cleaners or cloth and add cloth or
paper hands. Mask your wrist with black cloth and have her dance against a dark
background.
58.PIETRE HAND PUPPET
This little Swiss clog dancer is made like Pirouette, except
that his legs are extended with little built-up shoes and stockings.
59.HILDA HAND
PUPPET
His dancing partner has her knees bare too - your knuckles, of course. Finger
puppets perform on small stages with open tops, so the operators can reach down into them
with the puppets on their hands.
