personal puppetry projects
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puppetry
I made my first big puppet in 2003, to protest the US invasion of Iraq. Someone introduced me to Beth Peterson, who had just moved to Los Angeles after working with In the Heart of the Beast in Minneapolis for many years. She introduced me to the traditions of puppetry in social justice movements, and the fun of working with basic, cheap materials in a community setting. I was was hooked. I went on to work with a variety of community organizations in Los Angeles, and then Asheville, making big puppets to celebrate local culture, and highlight environmental issues. In Asheville in 2012 I helped found the Street Creature Puppet Collective, still going strong. Inspired by Paperhand Puppet Intervention, and Bread & Puppet Theater, we bring community based parade arts to WNC, often with themes of celebrating local flora and fauna. Most of the photos in the gallery below come from projects made with the collective. Along with giant paper mache creatures, I enjoy making crankies, shadow puppetry, cantastoria, and other 2 dimensional forms of storytelling puppetry. See some examples of those in the adjacent slideshow, and in the 2 videos here: Gestrisni: Iceland Adventure document camera/paper theater travelogue Poet Cows crankie collab with poet/songwriter Allan Wolf |