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How to Converse With a Hand Puppet

Credit...Illustration by Radio

“Ventriloquism is more than just knowing how to speak without moving your lips,” says Cecilia Ustav, a Swede who performs as Zillah and appears with a two-foot-tall chimpanzee puppet named Totte. Still, that’s where you should start: in front of a mirror, with your mouth slightly open in a smile, teeth close but not touching. Practice saying the same sentences over and over, until any movement in the jaw and lips becomes undetectable. Ustav, now 29, went to a weekend ventriloquism workshop when she was 12. It took her five years of regular practice to master it. At 18, she won Sweden’s version of the “Got Talent” franchise which led to fame, television shows and a busy performing schedule, sometimes in front of as many as 15,000 people.

You will need to learn new ways to articulate what emanates from your larynx. To make particularly tricky sounds like B, P and M, use your tongue and the back of your throat rather than pressing your lips together as you normally would. Give your puppet its own character. When delivering its lines, look inquisitively in its direction, as if you’re unaware of what might be said next — your facial expressions should be those of the listener, not the speaker. Totte is a cheeky, know-it-all 3-year-old who makes Ustav laugh. Once you’re familiar with your puppet’s persona, improvise dialogue. It is this lifelike affinity, and not your mouth mechanics, that will hold people’s attention. “You want the ventriloquism part to disappear,” she says.

In 2008, at a convention in Kentucky — some 450 ventriloquists all staying in the same hotel — Ustav was taken aback by how many people pushed their puppets in strollers, or otherwise coddled them as if they were real children. Don’t forget that the puppet is inanimate; in the end, the relationship is all you, talking to yourself. “It’s an illusion,” says Ustav, who keeps Totte in a bag in her closet when she’s not performing. Even so, allow your puppet’s character the freedom and space to evolve, just as you let your understanding of yourself change over time. “Totte started out shyer and younger,” Ustav says. “But now he’s just more — more of everything.”

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Page 27 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: How to Converse With A Hand Puppet. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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