Tau Bennett (Tamir)
Tau Bennett is a puppeteer from Brooklyn, New York. His interest in puppetry and performance started when he was just a child, watching The Muppets.
Tau Bennett is a puppeteer from Brooklyn, New York. His interest in puppetry and performance started when he was just a child, watching The Muppets.
He would watch all that he could find and sit in front of the screen, staring in awe at what the Muppet performers were doing. To him, it was magic and he soon took it upon himself to give it a try. So at the age of five, when everyone around him thought he was just playing with puppets, what he was really doing was practicing. Over the years, he picked up tips and tricks to refine his craft. By the time Tau was 10, he was building his own puppets, creating characters, and writing stories, trying to find his own creative voice. In doing so, he got the attention of longtime Muppet performer, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph. She noticed 10-year-old Tau in the audience at one of her shows, holding a homemade attempt at a replica of Ernie from Sesame Street. After the show, she and Tau got to talking and she was able to get him in contact with Kevin Clash, the man responsible for transforming Elmo from an obscure background monster into a household name.
Since meeting Kevin, Tau’s life and career as a puppeteer have never been the same. Kevin took Tau under his wing and taught him all that he was able to teach him during the remainder of his stint on Sesame Street. As a teenager, Tau continued to teach himself under the principles of what Kevin had taught him, as well as what he could gather from continuing to watch and research the Muppets and other art forms such as sketch and stand-up comedy, movies, music and theater. Developing a taste for all of those things made Tau aware of how rich the world of entertainment was and how important it all was to him. He found that he could apply all these different art forms when at the age of sixteen, Tau had the opportunity to join the team as a puppeteer on Sesame Street. After a few years of experience, gradually gaining more knowledge of the business, Tau was given his first character, Tamir.
