Nenagh Watson, BA

Nenagh Watson began her AHRC Creative Research Fellowship May 2009.

The life and death of objects and puppets: immanence, intervention, presence and absence. Over the next five years (part time) as a Creative Research Fellow, Watson will focus on the threshold where the lifeless becomes animate; memory within animation; tradition within ideas of the ‘living’ and the ‘past’; the intimacy in engagement with puppets and explore archiving in relation to the ‘life’ of the object.

Nenagh Watson’s specialisation is Puppetry. Specific puppet focused training at I’Institut International de la Marionnette Charleville-Mezieres, with Philippe Genty 1985. Here she also worked with Tadeusz Kantor on his piece ‘A Short Lesson’ 1989.

Nenagh Watson was co artistic director of doo-cot (with painter Rachael Field) 1990 -2007. www.doo-cot.com

Barking Dog, her new company was established in 2008. During 2008/9 she undertook a Puppet Centre Trust bursary focused on Punch & Judy.
‘Conversations with an Umbrella’ inspired by her 1st year of research into Ephemeral Animation was nominated for The best original performance @ 14th World Festival Of Puppetry Art Prague 2010.

Research areas

> Puppet/object/figure theatre

External memberships

> Union Internationale de la Marionnette (UNIMA)

Funding awards

> AHRC
> Arts Council

Publications

2011, Ephemeral Animation UNIMA John Philips Memorial Lecture Manipulate Festival Traverse Theatre

2010, Conversation with Kantor’s Umbrella, Collisions Festival

2010, Ephemeral Animation, Suspense Festiva,l Little Angel Marionette Theatre

2009, From Loofah to Swazzle: the influence of Japanese puppet theatre on a British Puppeteer, Puppet Notebook Issue 15 Summer 2009 ISBN 1745-1086

Productions

2009, Plastic bag Labyrinth’(with Evelyn Silver) Festival of 2009

2010, Conversation with an Umbrella (withsound by Kaffe Matthews), International Student Puppet Festival 2010 & 14th World Festival of Puppet Art Prague

2010, Choreography of Opening & Closing (with London School of Puppetry & Evelyn Silver), Accidental Festival BAC 2010

2010, Concertina for the Gods (with Isabel Lyster & Jemima Yong) First International Festival of Puppet Schools St Petersburg