Bruno Belil sculpts puppets with character

Bruno Belil (Barcelona, ​​1988) studied Fine Arts, specializing in sculpture. But he felt the figures he molded lacked character. So he decided to delve deeper into the world of puppets and went to Germany to complete his studies. “My fascination with puppets comes more from the development of characters, from how characters are physically represented. Psychological differences can be formalized through the physicality of a character.”

He gives an example: “Don Quixote is tall and thin, and Sancho Panza is short and fat, and they have a psychological difference that can be seen in the physical description. There's a physical contrast within the psychological contrast, and that's basically what I do when I build puppets. But there's no school here for this training, so I went to live in Germany, in Bochum, where I was able to follow a two-year training program in staging, dramaturgy, and puppet making.”

When I finished a sculpture, I was missing something; with a puppet, a story began. Bruno Belil Puppeteer

In the world of puppetry, there are four occupations: builder, designer, stager, and, with regard to logistics, transportation, and maintenance, the puppet master of a production. Belil has worked in all four positions: “Starting in 2015, I started working in the independent theater scene there for different companies and directors, and starting in 2021, I began working for opera houses and philharmonics. That is, not directly for the theaters, but for directors who call me for a show involving puppets.”

So, the puppeteer finally achieved his goal: “When I finished a sculpture, I was missing something. By building a puppet, on the other hand, I began a story and could imagine the entire tale. I could apply dramaturgy and movement, which was what I was missing from sculpture, and I created a new character. What I'm most excited about is the development of characters.”

Belil compares his work to that of a video game character developer. “The directors give us a set of premises, and we establish an aesthetic vision and the movements this puppet will have to perform, because movements involve joints and mechanisms. The abilities we give it come at the expense of others, because if it can fly, it can't walk; if it can talk, it can't move as much, because what we can do with our hands is limited.”

The puppet's size also has a bearing on the staging: "Whether it's smaller or larger has to have a dramatic meaning. When I've made a large and a small puppet for the same character, it's because they're used from different perspectives and in different states of life."

Since 2021, the Barcelona-born artist has been working primarily with Nikolaus Habjan, “an Austrian director who is also a puppeteer.” With Habjan, he created the puppets for The Magic Flute , performed at opera houses in Dortmund (Germany) and Cleveland (USA), and for Wo die wilden Kerle wohnen by Oliver Knussens. He has also worked with the Barcelona-based construction and effects company Antigua i Barbuda on giant puppets, including a 7m-tall albino gorilla and a 6m-tall, 14m-long dragon made of wood and wrought iron. He is now working on new projects for Vienna and Luxembourg.

At the universities of Berlin and Stuttgart you can graduate as a puppeteer, at the same level as an actor. Bruno Belil Puppeteer

Regarding the tradition of seeing puppets as a children's show here rather than in Germany, the artist notes: “I think children believe the fantasy: they see an object and automatically believe it's alive. For adult audiences, that's harder to do and requires an aesthetic. In Germany, there's more of a tradition, and you see puppets everywhere: also in films and advertising. There are even television programs for adults featuring puppets. At the universities of Berlin and Stuttgart, you can graduate as a puppeteer, at the same level as an actor.”

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Belil recalls that in German, as in English and French, interpreting and playing are the same verb: “Basically, what we puppeteers do is play. I like this verb better than manipulating ,” he concludes.