Ranka's Bio
Ragnhild "Ranka" Gatu
Ranka’s puppets move like nothing else because she creates her own characters using a technique that she invented herself—one that gives her puppets an extraordinary vitality. And Ranka infuses her performances with an infectious joy that makes it almost impossible to walk away from her show without feeling good.
Ranka adopted her nickname when she, as a child in Rättvik, Sweden, couldn't say her real name, Ragnhild. She grew up in an artistic family, and she naturally developed a love of art and music that first found expression in textile colleges--expressionist works made from colored fabrics and full of figures in movement, often with musical themes.
In 1965, at age 18, Ranka had the first of five one-woman exhibitions. During the next ten years, in addition to her exhibitions, Ranka would work as a satirical cartoonist for a Swedish newspaper and start to get serious about puppetry.
She became a gofer for Michael Meschke, the Marcel Marceau of European puppetry and director of Stockholm's Marionette Theatre (1966). After a year in Stockholm, Sweden, Ranka studied at the Academy of Theatre and Puppetry Arts in Prague, Czechoslovakia; but she soon grew restless under the restrictive conventions of traditional puppetry.
Returning to Sweden, Ranka began the long process of developing her own technique and inimitable performance style. A major turning point came when, while in her studio trying to get more dynamic movements from a wooden guitarist puppet, she spotted one of her brother's old foam-rubber kneepads, and she used a chunk for the guitarist's elbow. Since then, she has continued to draw out more subtle and expressive movements from her sculpted foam-rubber marionettes.
After she settled in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1977, Ranka struggled for two years just to find an audience for her show. She started to feel that her career might only develop in Europe, where puppetry is a respected art form. Finally, though, she was chosen to open a Christmas toy exhibition at a small art museum in December 1978. She received a standing ovation and a demand for an encore from a diverse audience that included artists and musicians. They told Ranka that no one could imagine how good her shows were until they had seen one, and they convinced her to try street performing to get the exposure she needed.
An audition at San Francisco's famous Ghirardelli Square drew good crowds on a winter day, and Ranka was soon scheduled for some of the very best performance times. For six years she was a popular Ghirardelli fixture, consistently drawing large audiences from daytime tourists and evening dinner crowds.
Ranka (to left) performing at Ghirardelli Square (1981)
Ranka has performed at theatrical festivals and family events produced by such organizations as Theater Arts Festival for Youth and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Ranka has appeared twice at the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Open House at the Hollywood Bowl, a multicultural performing arts festival.
Between 1986 and 1996, Ranka toured a score of major cities across the country with the Harvest Festival, the largest collection of crafts people and entertainers in the country at the time. In 1989, Ranka performed at Harrah's Holiday Casino Showroom in Las Vegas.
Ranka has performed at conventions, meetings, and parties for numerous corporations and organizations, including Bank of America, IBM, Xerox, Grubb & Ellis, Mercedes-Benz, Marriott and Hyatt Regency Hotels, the American Bankers Association, and the American Society of Association Executives.
