Free as a Robot

FAB Theater (Germany)

Saturday, Sept. 7, 4pm + 7:30pm, New England Youth Theater

Recommended for ages 8 and up

50 minutes

*ASL at 4pm performance

“The Institute for Applied Robot Psychology (I_AROPSY) is starting a new series of experiments: Do robots have feelings? Do they have their own intentions? Do they long for freedom? What connects us humans more strongly: threads or cables? The Behavioral Research Department invites you to become part of the exciting experiments involving robots, marionettes and humans.”

Since 2020, the FAB Theater has been working intensively with new technologies such as 3D printing and programming characters using microcontrollers. The question is how the art form of String Puppetry and these technologies could come together to create a theatrical event. The marionettes and robots were all designed digitally and then printed on a 3D printer. The programming and electronics were developed specifically for the production. You will be witness to an exciting mix of digital and analogue puppet forms, which sometimes act harmoniously and sometimes conflictingly with one another, thereby negotiating the interaction between humans and machines.

Testimonials / Awards

About the Company

Alice Therese Gottschalk
From Stuttgart, built her first puppets at the age of 16. She took numerous workshops, including with Prof. Albrecht Roser, with whom she studied as a master student from 1997 to 2007 and assisted him in his workshops from 2004, where she discovered her joy in teaching. After graduating from high school and training as a mechanic for plastics and rubber, she began studying puppet theater at the Ernst-Busch drama school in Berlin in 2000. Since 2002 she has been studying at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart. She received her diploma in October 2004. Since then she has worked as an actress and puppeteer, puppet maker, lecturer and director. She performed her pieces at numerous festivals worldwide. Her specialty is building and playing string puppets and exploring space with everything that can be animated on strings. Since 2020 she has been researching in the field of puppet theater and robotics.

She is regularly invited as a lecturer at the “O’Neill Puppetry Conference” in Connecticut, USA and at the Figurentheater Kolleg Bochum. She worked as a guest lecturer at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Stuttgart, at the PH Karlsruhe and PH Heidelberg and internationally for the German-French Forum Bayreuth, Lìzé Puppet Art Colony, Taiwan and for the Goethe Institute in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Alice Therese Gottschalk developed a very playful, appreciative teaching method that gives the participants a lot of space for experience in dealing with material, puppets and their own bodies.

Credits

Director: Stephan Wunsch
Performer: Alice Therese Gottschalk
Furgures, Robotics & Programming: Yvonne Dicketmüller, Alice Therese Gottschalk, Andreas Meinhardt, Hans Schanz
Music: Bradley Kemp
Costume: Evelyne Meersschaut
Graphic Design: Andrea Schumacher

Website: www.fabtheater.de