In this paper we propose to use our body as a puppetry controller, giving life to a virtual silhouette through acting. A framework was deployed based on Microsoft Kinect using OpenNI and Unity to animate in real-time a silhouette. This was used to perform a set of experiments related to the user’s interaction with human and non-human like puppets. We believe that a performance-driven silhouette can be just as expressive as a traditional shadow puppet with a high degree of freedom, making use of our entire body as an input. We describe our solution that allows real-time interactive control of virtual shadow puppets for performance animation based on body motion. We show through our experiment, performed by non- expert artists, that using our body to control puppets is like mixing the performance of an actor with the manipulation of a puppeteer.