Swiss puppeteer. Margrit Gysin originally trained as a therapist and primary school teacher; she also attended the Jacques Lecoq’s School of Mime in Paris. An independent puppeteer since 1976, she has taught theatre arts, puppetry and creative expression in various art schools and professional university level colleges both in Switzerland and abroad since 1980. She has some fifty productions to her name and staged, on an average, a hundred performances every year mainly in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. She has been invited to perform in a number of countries particularly in Eastern Europe, South Africa, Palestine, India and Bolivia.

Margrit Gysin uses small sized puppets, innovatively put together from natural materials and fabrics. Very often she plays her puppets using her own body as the stage. In her miniature performances she also infuses life into ordinary everyday objects. Her poetic stories too are, almost always, born of ordinary everyday situations. Solidarity, human dignity, respect of the other, the mystery of life, these are some of the themes that recur often in her stories. Theatre of animation for her is the ideal way to stimulate the imagination of the audience, whether it be children or adults, and also to make tangible the symbolism and archetypes inherent in the world of dreams and fairy tales.

Margrit Gysin works, more often than not, alone. The actor and director, Enrico Beeler, has however worked with her on some of her productions, for example Mimi und Brumm (Mimi and Brumm), Duks, duks – das Waldhaus (Duks, duks – The Forest House), El zorro y el Perro (The Fox and the Hound). Among the more important of Gysin’s productions, mention must be made of FITAA oder Schneewittchen (FITAA or Snow White, 1989), Die sieben Raben (The Seven Ravens, 1991), Es war einmal … (Once Upon a Time …, 1993), Das Kind, der Wolf und die 7 Geisslein (The Child, the Wolf and the Seven Goats, 1994), Die Tränen der Gänsehirtin (The Tears of the Goose Girl, 1996), Wildkind, Wolfskind (Wild Child, Wolf Child, 1997) and Kemhor. Eine hommage an Astrid Lindgren (Kemhor. A Tribute to Astrid Lindgren, 2003).

(See Switzerland.)