Advanced Puppetry Workshop

Biographies

Patrick Martel

Patrick Martel is a puppeteer, puppet designer, set designer and theatre director. He designed many theatre productions and television series, most of them involving different styles of puppetry. He has collaborated with a number of companies, including the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Monlove and 4Darts (Lemieux/Pilon). He enjoyed a 25 year long collaboration with Théâtre de l’Avant-Pays, where he designed over a dozen productions, many of which he also performed in. With this company, he recently directed and designed sets and puppets for Mémoire de Lou. In 2004, The Arlyn Award Society awarded him a commendation for his puppet design work on À nous deux!, another production from this same company.

Recent engagements as both puppet designer and puppet coach include: the opera production of Die Zauberflöte for the Glyndebourne Festival, Nezha the Pirate Child, with Cirque Éloize, and Toruk – The First Flight, with Cirque du Soleil. Since 2000, he teaches at Université du Québec à Montréal, to BA students and for the post-graduate diploma in contemporary puppet theatre. His first collaboration with Kid Koala was as puppet designer, puppet technical designer and puppeteer for Nufonia Must Fall.

Colin St-Cyr Duhamel

Equipped with an inventor’s mind and a passion for storytelling, Colin St-Cyr Duhamel dedicates himself to puppetry since he was 16. Puppet maker, performer and director, he adds yet another dimension to his art by studying mechanical design. He’s performed and built characters for all types of scenes and screens. Among his most recent collaborations, we find: The Seven Fingers, The Masked Singer (Quebec), Cabaret Décadanse, and the latest Scooby-Doo! live show. Colin is part of the Montreal-based street-performing duo Les Pas Sortables.