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THE 4th
ANNUAL VOICE 4 VISION PUPPET FESTIVAL The Fourth Annual Voice 4 Vision Puppetry Festival will be presented November 29th - December 9th by Theater for the New City to celebrate the work of a unique group of New York artists who have been creating dynamic puppet theater for many years. Theater for the New City is dedicated to presenting cross-disciplinary theatrical works and to developing audiences that support local New York artists; this festival is wonderfully suited to that mission. The festival will include the following works: TIN LIGHTNING by Chris Green, Lisa Gonzales and Erin Orr; TIGER PLUS, by Chinese Theater Works; NIGHT SHADE, by Carrionettes and JESTER OF TONGA by Joe Silovsky. It includes a special presentation featuring Puppets On Film on Sunday evening, December 2nd, and It ends in Puppet Art Attacks, a puppetry slam for short works of genius by a variety of puppet artists on Sunday evening, December 9th. FULL SCHEDULE OF PERFORMANCES:
The participants in this festival are all award-winning artists who create original works of their own and contribute their performing and conceptual talents to significant large-scale works by other contemporary puppet theater artists and groups. The festival will include new works and works of merit that have been seen briefly in New York in the past few years and deserve to be shared with a wider New York audience. The festival is supported by the Jim Henson Foundation and the Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation. ARTISTS & SHOWS |
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1. TIN LIGHTNING – Chris Green, Lisa Gonzales, and Erin Orr Conceived and composed by Chris Green. Directed and performed by Chris Green, Lisa Gonzales, and Erin Orr. An original dance/puppet piece about human fragility and humanity’s bittersweet love affair with both important and disposable objects, and our relationship with shelter. The piece will feature a variety of puppet styles including shadow puppetry, hand puppets, and object theater. The work re-imagines simple objects – a blooming flower, a collapsible house, an exploding airplane, an umbrella – so that they become iconic performative objects. In blurring the distinction between performance styles the three performers move effortlessly between the roles of puppeteers, actors and dancers. The piece uses minimal text and an original musical score by Chris Green. |
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Artist Bios: Chris Green began his puppet work in Austin, Texas after co-founding the Kambing Na Isang Pa- a Shadow Play Theater in 1996. He has contributed original works of experimental puppet theater to festivals in Tulsa, Portland, Austink Chicago, new York, India and Taiwan. He has also worked with the Spiral Q Puppet Theater in Philadelphia and Bred and Puppet Theater in Vermont. Since moving to New York in 2000, has performed with Basil Twist, Christpher Williams, Lake Simons, Erin Orr, Matt and Deana Acheson, Dan Hurlin, and Amy Trumpeter. His original work has been seen at the Arts at St. Ann’s Puppet Lab (Bed Case) and at Here Arts Center (Lyubo). Tin Lighting premiered at the Human and Puppet Carnavio Festival in Taipei, Taiwan. Currently, he is designing and building life-size animal puppets and kinetic sculptures for Noah’s Ark, a permanent exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, opening in June 2007. Lisa Gonzales is a dance maker, improviser, performer, and teacher. She received a A from Middlebury College and an MFA from OHIO State University before moving to New York City. She has shown her work throughout the United States and will be traveled to Yaroslavo, Russia this summer with The Architects, a dance company she founded with three fellow Middlebbury College alums. She has recently worked with artists KJ Holmes, Amy Chavasse, Angie Hauser, Deborah Hay, Paul Matteson, Susan Sgorbati, Andrea Olsen, Penny Campbell, Chris Green, Matthew Acheson, and Deana Acheson among others. She is currently working with choreographer Peter Schmitz, writing about dance, organizing the Movement Intensive in Compositional Improvisation and is an artist in residence at Columbia College Chicago. |
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Erin Orr is a professional puppeteer and storyteller with a background in experimental theater and dance. She designs, builds, directs and sometimes performs her own puppet shows, which have incorporated shadow puppetry, marionettes, rod and Bunraku style puppets, animation and toy theater. She is currently working with composer Rima Fand on a puppet opera exploring Federico Garcia Lorca’s interest in the Spanish punch, Don Cristobal. Other recent work includes a musical puppet circus for all ages with the composer Baby Dee based on the real life drama of honeybees and “Savage Nursery”, a full length, dark fairytale for adult audiences set to live, original music by Sxip Shirey and Rima Fand. Erin has had the pleasure of performing as a puppeteer for Basil Twist, Christopher Williams and Lone Wolf Tribe. She also collaborates frequently with Lake Simons both in New York and at the Hip Pocket Theater in Texas and also with Chris Green on shows and cultural exchanges that have taken her to Bulgaria and Taiwan. She is also currently working with The Skirball Cultural Center in LA, adapting folktales to create a narrative structure for a new gallery dedicated to universal flood myths. | ||||||||||||
SCHEDULE OF PERFORMANCES Thursday, November 29th 8:00pm
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2. TIGER PLUS – Chinese Theater Works An Evening of Overhead Projection "Tiger Tales" "The Turkey Vulture"
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Company Bio: Chinese Theatre Works is a non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve and promote the traditional Chinese performing arts (including opera, shadow theatre, puppetry, dance and music); to create new works that bridge Eastern and Western aesthetics and forms; and to foster understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture in audiences, students, artists and educators around the globe. CTW productions have toured throughout North America and to Europe, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. The company has been honored in 2001 with a UNIMA Citation of Excellence in Puppetry Art for its production of "Toy Theatre Peony Pavilion", and in 2005 with four awards at the First International Shadow Play Festival in Tangshan, China for "Three Women, Many Plays" and "Tiger Tales". Our website is www.chinesetheatreworks.org. To contact us, e-mail us at ChineseThtrWks@aol.com, or call (718) 392-3493. Artist Bios: Kuang-Yu Fong majored in Chinese Opera at the Chinese Cultural University in Taiwan, specializing in the “Hau San” female singing and dancing roles. She studied under famous masters from the Fu Lien Cheng Peking Opera School in Beijing including Sun Yuen Bing and Sun Yuen Pua, and with other masters such as Wong Jing Zhi (a disciple of Mei Lan Fang) and Kun Opera master Xu Yen Zhi. After receiving her B.A. from Chinese Cultural University, she taught Chinese Opera movement in the Chinese Theater Department there for four years. She completed her formal training with an M.A. in Educational Theater from N.Y.U. She has taught at Pace University since 1990. Ms. Fong has conceived and directed many original, innovative productions, from "Kasper as a Banana" (1993) through "Book of Songs" (2006), including "Toy Theater Peony Pavilion", which won a 2001 UNIMA-USA Citation of Excellence in Puppetry, and "Tiger Tales" (2002) and "Three Women, Many Plays" (2005), which between them won four awards at the First International Shadow Theatre Festival in Tangshan, China in 2005. She has toured and taught all over the United States and in Asia and Europe. Ms. Fong founded Chinese Theatre Workshop in 1990, became co-Artistic Director of the Gold Mountain Institute’s Yueh Lung Shadow Theater in 1999, and since the merger of the two companies in 2001 has been Executive Director and co-Artistic Director of Chinese Theatre Works. Since 2003, she has served on the Board of UNIMA-USA, the international puppetry organization’s U.S. branch. Ms. Fong’s first book (with Stephen Kaplin) is "Tabletop Theater: Puppetry for Small Places" (2003). Stephen Kaplin designs, builds, performs and directs for puppet theater. He studied puppetry at UCONN under Dr. Frank Ballard. Recent professional credits include: designing and building giant puppets for TIMES SQUARE 2000; building shadow figures and puppet sequences for Julie Taymor's "Lion King", "Juan Darien" and "The Green Bird"; designing shadow sequences for Lee Breuer's "Peter and Wendy"; co-design and construction of puppets for the Public Theater's "The Tempest" and "The Caucasian Chalk Circle"; and puppetry design for Ping Chong’s "Cathay" (for which he received a 2006 Henry Hewes Award for Notable Effects. Since 1995 he has designed sets and puppets and performed in all CTW productions. Mr. Kaplin is a co-founding member of Great Small Works. He has been co-Artistic Director of Chinese Theatre Works since its formation in 2001. Mr. Kaplin’s first book (with Kuang-Yu Fong), "Tabletop Theater: Puppetry for Small Places", was published in 2003. |
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Shuyun Cheng worked for ten years at Shiny Shoes Children’s Theater in Taiwan as a TV program producer, theater producer, scriptwriter, children’s theater teacher, puppet designer and puppeteer. Her TV production “Hi, Anybody at Home?” was nominated for an Emmy award. Another program, “A-Go-Go Theater”, was selected as Taiwan’s Best Children’s TV Program of 2000. Since moving to the U.S. and graduating from NYU’s Educational Theatre Program, she has worked as a teaching artist for the New Victory Theatre and elsewhere. Ms. Cheng has worked with CTW since 2001, appearing in almost all of the company’s puppetry productions, designing and co-writing the Zodiac! shows and coordinating the Arts in Education program. She has performed with CTW in New York City at the Provincetown Playhouse and many other venues, and toured across the U.S. and to Korea, China and Taiwan. Morgan Eckert is currently earning her MA in Educational Theatre at New York University. Prior to this, she worked as a puppeteer, actress and educator for McCarter Theatre Center, Mum Puppettheatre, Pig Iron Theatre Company as well as others. She debuted with CTW in "Monkey King in America: Day Jobs, Opera Dreams" and has performed since then in "Tiger Tales", "Book of Songs", "Ti-Oh-Oh" and "Songs from the Yellow Earth". |
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SCHEDULE OF PERFORMANCES Thursday,
November 29th, 9:30pm
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3. NIGHT SHADE – Carrionettes Liz Adele Allen, Sarah Frechette, Jason Thibodeaux and Alain Z “NIGHT SHADE” is a modern myth in a timeless cloak. Three evocative shadow-theater tales: HAUNTED PROJECTILE, CARRION and ORDER OF WOLF; blending illustration, shadow puppets, masks, marionettes, objects, sound and light into a form of cinematic shadow theater. Follow two curious little girls as they enter a mysterious house tempted by exotic sea monsters, and dance in the tangling web of a demon. Steal into the pages of an ancient manuscript that will reveal the truth and beauty behind the secret “Order of Wolf”. |
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Witness the trial of a young boy where the choices he makes, to resurrect his possessed sisters and save his haunted town, will decide all of their fates or be lost forever. “NIGHT SHADE” is a show of supernatural things -- honoring the innocent, sinister, intimate and haunted. CARRIONETTE Company Bio: |
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SCHEDULE OF PERFORMANCES Thursday,
December 6th, 8:00pm
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4. JESTER OF TONGA – Joseph SilovskyThe “Jester of Tonga” is a humorous, original solo-performance work inspired by true stories from the country of Tonga – a small island country in the Pacific. The piece features an animatronic/marionette robot, two-dimensional cut-out puppets, toy theater - style miniatures, video projection, object theater, as well as many zany and wonderful gadgets. Joseph Silovsky is a performance artist from Oklahoma. He has been performing solo and group shows for over 15 years.  |
His original work has been performed at Links Hall and the Hot House in Chicago, Chashama, the Ontological-Hysteric theater, Tonic, PS122, the Arts at St. Ann’s Puppet Lab in New York, and the International Performance Festival in Rakvere, Estonia. He has also worked in various capacities (performer, designer, technical director and set builder) for Radiohole, Tutto and the Ragman, The Builders Association, Richard Maxwell, and Richard Foreman. |
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SCHEDULE OF PERFORMANCES Thursday,
December 6th, 9:30pm
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PUPPETS ON FILM
December 2 @ 8:00 Handmade Puppet Dreams Vol 3 A selection of puppet film shorts by independent artists exploring their handmade craft specifically for the camera. Showcasing a new generation of puppeteers embracing film as their medium for their individual expressions, building their visions, and breathing life into their dream. For more information visit: www.handmadepuppetdreams.com "Too Loud a Solitude" Based on the beloved novella by Bohumil Hrabal, and containing all the magic still present in the twisted streets of Old Town Prague, Too As writer and director of five short films, Genevieve Anderson has screened at over seventy-five festivals worldwide. Receiving accolades "Les Malaventures de Zut-Alors" Using clock-work puppetry "Les Malaventures de Zut-Alors" tells the story of Siamese brother and sister, Zut and Alors. This eclectic style features puppets and sets constructed from such unconventional items as old books, World War II gummed paper, crepe paper, and bicycle bells. Pop-up paper gardens, a parade of Calderesque mechanical animals, party blower puppetry, and more lead you through this engaging tale. Jeanne Stern is an artist and film-maker in the UT Austin MFA film program. Her work ranges from painting and book dioramas, to 2D "Trixie and the Tree Trunks" After receiving a secret message from a talking "Happy Tree", Trixie and Marsha, two woodland animals, embark on a quest to start a band. Bandmates Miss Pussycat and Quintron mainly reside in New Orleans but travel all over the world doing puppet shows and playing music. Miss Pussycat entered the puppet world in Jr. high school at The First Baptist Church in Antlers Oklahoma as a member of The Christian Puppet Youth Ministry. Quintron is an organist and invented a synthesizer called the Drum Buddy. "The Abridged Tale of Mr. Fox " Mucky Puppets presents a special 50 second version of the film 'The tale of Mr. Fox'. Join Lady Mary as she explores her husband-to-be; Richard Mansfield started Mucky Puppets in 2005. Inspired by dark fairy tales, Vaudeville, Expressionist horror films, and Dynasty, "In Private" A mustached man visits a primitive pre-film private viewing booth and gets more for his change than he bargains for. Jason Hines has been building and performing with puppets since his youth. Eventually, his enthusiasm for puppetry brought him to the "Sinkin' Soon" Norah Jones and company get even more musically adventurous, bending the second-line rhythms of the Crescent City-flavored "Sinkin' Soon". Ace Norton grew up in Venice Beach California. He started production assisting on videos by the likes of No Doubt, Eminem and Nirvana, all the while shooting his own videos for local bands at his production company, Commondeer. His latest videos include Death Cab For Cutie and the two latest Norah Jones videos. "Tyger" A short film inspired by William Blake's poem of same name, Tyger is a visual narrative with the structure of a music promotion. By blending many styles and techniques the Marcondes strives to reach a balance between the unique perspective of the story and the image of Born in São Paulo, Brazil Guilherme Marcondes started working as an illustrator while still in Architecture school. In 2000 Marcondes "Piano Mouths" The title says it all! A lighthearted musical interlude from theartist who brought you "Les Malaventures de Zut-Alors". (Bio information under "Les Malaventures de Zut-Alors") "Incubus" In a pseudo pop-up book style, paper puppets are used to illustrate a darkly erotic vignette. A sleeping woman is paid a visit by a shadowy Lyon Hill is an illustrator and puppetmaker. 'Incubus' is his second video short. He lives with his wife Jennifer Hill in Columbia, SC "The Kay Stories" Despite her sister's protests, Kay insists on going to the shopping mall again. After making her purchases, she meets two punks and learns Since 1993, Brenda Whiteman and Peter Stinson, aka "Red Smarteez Marionettes", have presented their humorous and educational puppet shows and films at schools, festivals and special events throughout Canada and the USA. Now based out of Saskatoon, they have recently been conducting puppet filmmaking workshops at schools in Western Canada. TOTAL RUN TIME: 66 Min. Schedule of Performances Sunday, December 2nd, 8:00pm
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Puppet Art Attacks The festival closes with a puppetry slam of 3-5 minute "short works of genius" by a variety of puppet artists. Schedule of Performances Sunday, December 9th, 8:00pm
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