About Us

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Founded in early 2008, Unraku is made up of seven talented artists drawn from the worlds of animation, illustration, improv, film, theatre and puppetry. We draw on each other’s diverse skills to produce work that blends state-of-the-art digital video with good, old fashioned, hand-crafted puppets.

Unraku grew out of a series of workshops in “table top” puppetry, a style of puppetry inspired by the ancient Japanese art of Bunraku. Through the workshops we created and performed a simple musical number – a Freddie Mercury-like puppet lip syncing to Bohemian Rhapsody – and enjoyed the experience so much we decided to keep working together to produce more and more ambitious work.

Unraku has quickly grown and expanded throughout its short history and we now regularly collaborate with an amazingly talented team of two dozen puppeteers, puppet builders and other artists from across North America as well as operate a permanent production studio and workshop in Toronto.

Biographies

Amanda

Amanda is trained in theatrical millinery, costume construction, web design, and digital media. She graduated from York University in Toronto with a focus on photography before working for two seasons at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival as a Milliner. After an entire lifetime of giving voices to inanimate objects and appearing to have several identities, she fell in love with puppets. This was closely followed by words that frequently fall from her lips: “I am sure I can make that!”. Examples of Amanda’s past work in puppetry and other media outside of Unraku can be found at www.amandafarquharson.com.

Stacey

Stacey’s a puppeteer, a mom, a wife, and an improviser. She likes those baby hot-dogs that come in a can. Actually, she likes food in general. She’s kind-of a dork (her words). She’s won stuff. Like awards…and raffles. She’s also the unofficial Finger Puppet Queen of Etsy (but she’s going to make us edit out that last sentence when she reads this bio). You can buy her wonderful handmade puppet things at staceyrebecca.etsy.com.

Kelly

Kelly began making puppets about 7 years ago after a fruitless search for the puppets she remembered from her childhood. Her personal studio, Run Rabbit Run, has grown from papier mâché hand puppets to include marionettes, finger puppets and her famous stuffed Lucky Rabbits. In addition to puppet making, Kelly is also an illustrator and artist. She is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design and studied in Florence, Italy during her final year. You can visit her personal (and still under construction) web site at www.runrabbitrun.ca.

Robin

Robin is a figment of imagination that occasionally wanders into the peripheral vision of other beings. She is quite harmless, massively multi-talented, amazingly creative, occasionally a nuisance and also very good at sewing. Outside of Unraku, she makes all manner of art and sock-related things through RoRo Art.

Mathieu

Mathieu describes himself as a Creature maker, hence his professional name Creaturiste. Possibly programmed for puppetry before birth, he was actually named after a TV puppet. Over the years, his personal studies in various methods of sculpture brought him to the creation of his first puppet, which was his first three dimensional success, and was a total revelation for him. Today, as a puppet maker and mask maker, he incorporates a multitude of disciplines and materials to create and animate creatures of all shapes and sizes. Visit Mathieu’s portfolio at www.creaturiste.blogspot.com.

Kristi

Kristi is a floral designer and container gardener by trade, a Mom around the clock and an artist every waking hour that she can squeeze in. She’s dabbled in all sorts of creative endeavours, including poetry, paintings, sketching, t-shirts, buttons, stuffed toys, clothing, and soft sculpture. Kristi has turned her hobbies into a business called Knoggin that is a mixture of felted puppets, toys and flowers. You can visit Kristi’s Etsy store at KnogginKnitting.etsy.com and read her occasionally updated Use Your Knoggin blog.

Andrew

Andrew is a puppeteer and indie filmmaker. After fast-tracking his way through high school and studying television production in college he began his professional career performing blacklight puppetry on stage at the tender age of 18. He has built, directed and performed puppets throughout Canada and the United States, as well as in far-flung places like Chile, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico and South Africa. In addition to his work with Unraku, Andrew writes the popular PuppetVision Blog and periodically gives workshops about puppetry and its role in film, video and on the internet throughout North America.

Unraku Alumni

Terri

Terri Crocker is a dancer, educator and was an Unraku co-founder. A graduate of the Theatre program at York University, prior to her work with Unraku Terri performed puppetry with the Concerned Kids and Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador. Terri left Unraku in late 2009 so that she could devote more time to her passion for dance.

Morgan

Morgan Bargent is a multi-talented actor and playwright who was a member of Unraku prior to the company’s formal incorporation. She left Unraku in 2008 to pursue other creative endeavours.