Over the course of three nights, this year's Object Movement Resident Puppetry & Object Theater Artists will each present a brand new short piece, developed in residence at The Center at West Park.
Curated by Maiko Kikuchi, Rowan Magee, and Justin Perkins, this year's festival was divided into two programs with each evening featuring three 10-minute presentations by three different extraordinary artists.
PROGRAM A
LIGHT AS PAPER by EVOLVE PUPPETS
A small white ball is born into a fragile world of paper, light and shadow. How will it grow and change to face the challenges of life? Tanya Khordoc and Barry Weil use puppetry, paper sculpture and manipulation of light to tell a visually striking and poignant story.
Music by Joel Phillip Friedman
EVOLVE PUPPETS (TANYA KHORDOC & BARRY WEIL) have been creating innovative puppet theatre in NYC for more than two decades. Their puppet play HOME received a Jim Henson Foundation Grant for its development, and was performed at The Tank NYC in 2019. Last month, they premiered their environmental fable ONCE UPON A PLASTIC FOREST for La MaMa Kids Online. Evolve created the world premiere production of former Czech President Vàclav Havel’s play MOTORMORPHOSIS for UTC61’s Havel Festival. They designed and constructed puppets for Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble’s world premiere of PRINCESS MALEINE at La MaMa, and crafted live-video-projected models for UTC61’s adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s CAT’S CRADLE. They also designed the puppetry for Theater East’s DEVIL AND THE DEEP, a musical co-written by Graham Russell of Air Supply. Evolve has performed many original works (written, designed and directed by Tanya & Barry) at venues that include La MaMa, HERE Arts Center, St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Brick, Dixon Place, and two Puppeteers of America National Festivals. They puppeteered together on the children’s webseries ROSIE’S PLACE, and have led puppetry workshops for organizations like Girl Be Heard. Tanya & Barry are currently developing their fourth full-length play, THEY WERE CALLED TREES. evolvepuppets.com
MEMORY SPELLS BY Janel Schultz
Windows to the imagination. A self-reflective puppet explores memories and perceptions with wonder and curiosity. Mixing small world with big world scale shifts reveal the puppeteer and puppet as the same. A whimsical wander through daydreams and daily life, using puppetry combined with sculpture and paper elements.
JANEL SCHULTZ is a visual artist, based in New York City, who works in painting, drawing and sculpture. She created a self-portrait puppet to explore her memories, emotions, and perceptions as a self-reflective journal of life during quarantine. Isolation inspired her to share these stories as a way to connect with others. Utilizing puppetry to explore movement, mimicry, and the puppet’s relationship to herself, she is fueled by intuition and imagination. Past works include large-scale art installations, such as “Unfathomable Reins”-an interactive couch sleigh pulled by hybrid creatures with motion-sensor audio and “Legtopia”-a forest of sculptural animal limbs, large articulated puppets that viewers could walk amongst. She has worked with a choreographer to create “A Menagerie of Limbs”-a costumed four-person dance amongst the forest of limbs at Wayfarers Brooklyn. In April 2020, she live-streamed a short self-portrait puppet performance “The Thinking Cap” from her bedroom, originally intended to be in-person at Cloud City in Brooklyn. And in January 2021 performed a puppet DJ set with miniature turntables as part of Cactus Club’s REACHout Radio series.
BODYWHERE by LIZ OAKLEY
A small, ever-evolving puppet creature explores the terrain of a human body. Bodywhere considers the body as both performance site and landscape, exploring questions of how we navigate, rely on, exploit, and dynamically relate to land and location. The piece asks us to see our bodies as places, and places as bodies. As the creature takes on different forms - a body in search of a body - the viewer’s experience of the human body’s scale and recognizability shifts in and out of focus.
LIZ OAKLEY is a puppeteer, performance-maker, designer, and teaching artist who brings unexpected objects and locations to life. Her original puppetry work has appeared at Coney Island USA, Judson Memorial Church, the Providence Fringe Festival, the International Toy Theater Festival, The Tank, and Dreamers Welcome TV. Her puppetry designs for the stage have appeared at Mixed Magic Theater, the Wilbury Theatre Group, Saratoga Shakespeare Company, Boston Center for the Arts, and Production Workshop. She collaborates with Ali Goss as the Inanimate Intimists, and with Ali Goss and Michaela Farrell as the Out of Work Puppeteers. She is currently a teaching artist with Puppetry in Practice. She has a BA from Brown University in Spatial Studies, a self-designed concentration about people’s experience of place. In 2018, Liz received the UNIMA-USA scholarship to study puppetry in Paris at the Théâtre Aux Mains Nues. She grew up in New York City and is currently based in Philadelphia where she is a fellow at Headlong Performance Institute. Lizlizliz.com / @lizoako
PROGRAM B
Bequeathed BY Owlicorn
Dearest Audience,
We the FancyFaces are the very definition of perfection. And to that end, we hereby invite you to honor our family... at a distance...under the memorial tree. Join our last living descendant as they care for this illustrious family monument.
Kind regards,
The FancyFace Family
JENNY HANN (she/they) is a puppeteer, fiber artist, and visual storyteller based in New York City. As a puppeteer, they have worked onstage, and in TV and film, in a variety of different puppetry forms. Jenny has appeared in works by WonderSpark Puppets, Doppelskope, Unitards, Jim Kroupa, and Concrete Temple Theatre. Their original work has been seen at The Tank, La MaMa, The Center at West Park, The Metropolitan Room, Coney Island Sideshows, Flint Repertory Theatre, The Nasty Women Unite Festival, and Inwood Art Works. Jenny had the immense pleasure of being one of eight resident artists for the 2018-2019 Object Movement Festival. She is a three time participant of The Eugene O’Neill Puppetry Conference and was a Catapult Artist at the 2017 Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. Her work stems from her love of fantasy and period dramas, and draws on themes of community, relationships, and just pure ridiculousness. She adores working with her partner Rob with their company, Owlicorn, and making felted creations. www.jennyhann.com / @thepuppetprincess
ROB PEDINI (he/him/his) grew up in New England in a very happy, artsy family. He spent his youth creating, daydreaming and consuming endless hours of TV and movies. He performed musical theatre in college and then shuffled-off to NYU to study film. Post-college, he dove into the NY Improv scene at Caroline’s, Stand Up NY and Gotham Comedy Club. Next, was a literal fall into physical comedy off-broadway with Blue Man Group, Metropolitan Playhouse, Mook Productions andThe 42nd St. Bindlestiff Cirkus. He’s written, directed and produced with NY Renaissance Faire, Eerie Entertainment and at House of Mirth, he was a Haunted House creator! He’s toured with THINKFAST! Interactive, as a game show host and StarQuest International, as a dance competition emcee. His film, TV and voiceover credits include;Superior, Urchin, Disney Audio: Peter Pan and he was a detective on America's Most Wanted. He recently returned to his love of music and singing, was a musical puppeteer with Wildlife Theatre and is currently lead singer/emcee with 80s Tribute Band Guilty Pleasures. He has a super-talented daughter, Gracie and is thrilled to be creating magic with Jenny Hann and our Company, Owlicorn, Inc. www.robpedini.com
Navenad “The Wandering” BY MAGGIE WINSTON
Navenad “The Wandering” is a performance inspired by the life and poetry of Rokhl Korn. Rokhl (Rachel) Korn (1898–1982) was a female Montreal-based Yiddish poet. Three of her poems depict three periods of her life; her childhood in rural Poland, her mid-life and escape from Nazi occupation, and her vibrant life in the Montreal Yiddish arts community on “The Main” (St. Laurent Blvd.) The piece is a nostalgic, sensorial and layered glimpse of her life and poetry, using a table-top puppet, crankies, shadow puppetry, and digital projection. Presented in English and Yiddish. Spoken text by Anna Gonshor. Music by Antonia Hayward.
MAGGIE WINSTON is a puppeteer, clown, educator and community engaged artist. She is the Artistic Director of Lost & Found Puppet co. currently based in Montreal, QC, Canada, produces original performances utilizing puppetry in many styles, physical theatre, clown, storytelling, music, and other multidisciplinary art practices. L&FPCo explores themes such as family, cultural history, human relationships to objects, nature, and spirituality. There are stories about lost socks, giant junk monsters, larger-than-life invasive plant species, beaver dreams, and grandma’s memories in her recycled quilt. Productions have toured internationally since 2007. Originally from Baltimore, MD, USA, Maggie graduated from Carver Centre for Arts and Technology (MD, USA), she received a BA in Performance/Puppetry at Sarah Lawrence College (NY, USA). She is currently studying puppetry at l’Université de Québec à Montréal in the Diplôme d’études supérieures spécialisées (DESS) en théâtre de marionnettes contemporain. Recipient of Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award- Emerging Artist in Community Arts (2010).
I May Be Ugly but I'm Also Scared by AMANDA CARD
Meet Ethel, a 2.5 year old opossum. Watch as Ethel tries to secure her legacy in real time. I May Be Ugly But I’m Also Scared uses mask performance and puppetry to share Ethel’s uniquely marsupial perspective. Embrace the trash.
AMANDA CARD (she/her/hers) is a multidisciplinary theatre artist from Nashville, TN currently based in New York. A Jill of all trades, Amanda tells stories about glitter, death, and radical girlhood that embrace disruptive emotional honesty. She has worked as an actor, producer, director, playwright, puppeteer, deviser, movement director, and teaching artist. She has worked with Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival, Nashville Children’s Theatre, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Nashville Repertory Theatre, Nashville Story Garden, Sideshow Fringe, and The Kindling Arts Festival. Her play The Lil Amanda Show premiered at the 2019 Kindling Arts Festival and received a full production as part of Sarah Lawrence College’s New Works Festival in February of 2020. In July of 2020, Kindling Arts Festival commissioned a digital adaptation of The Lil Amanda Show which became Lil Amanda is a Potty Mouth. She is pursuing her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College, where she worked as a production assistant and swing puppeteer for the workshop production of Dan Hurlin’s Bismarck. Most recently, her work has appeared in Great Small Works' Virtual Toy Theater Festival, Kindling Arts Festival's Kindling Sparks, Verge Theater Company's Virtual Cabaret (winner of the Nashville Scene's “Best Theatre At Home” Award), and Nasty, Brutish & Short’s Virtual Puppet Cabaret. Amanda is a Resident Artist with the Spring 2021 Object Movement Digital Puppetry Festival. AmandaCard.com
About the Curators
MAIKO KIKUCHI received her MFA in Sculpture from Pratt Institute in 2012. She is a multidisciplinary artist working in illustration, painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, animation and puppetry/ performance. Her recent object theatre pieces include Daydream Tutorial (Under the Radar at the Public Theater, LaMaMa, and FiveMyles Gallery), PINK BUNNY (Japan Society), and Daydream Anthology (St. Ann’s Warehouse). As a visual artist, she has presented her work at the Crown Heights Film Festival, the group exhibition “NO PARKING” at Ca’ d’Oro Gallery, and Unwritten Stories at HERE Art Center.
ROWAN MAGEE is a puppeteer and educator from Troy, NY. He has puppeteered on international tours with Phantom Limb Company, Robin Frohardt, Nick Lehane, and Dan Hurlin, and in New York City for American Opera Projects, Trusty Sidekick, Chris Green, Spencer Lott, and the National Theater in the 2018 Tony Award winning Broadway revival of Angels in America. Rowan operated the reference puppet for the titular character in the upcoming feature film Clifford the Big Red Dog, in theaters Fall 2021. He has designed puppets for The Dalton School, St Mark’s School, and Lincoln Center Education, taught for CO/LAB, Marquis Studios, Manhattan Youth, The Brooklyn New School, and Story Pirates, and he has received a Jim Henson Foundation Grant for his marionette show No 1 Chinese. During the pandemic, Rowan directed puppetry for Yiddish New York 2020, The Dalton School’s Hamlet Project, and is designing puppets for a recent Henson Workshop Grant Recipient: One Night in Winter, by Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi.
JUSTIN PERKINS is a puppet artist and educator. He has appeared in works by Basil Twist, Ping Chong+Company, Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, Tom Lee, Lake Simons, Patti Bradshaw, Puppet Cinema, Unitards, imnotlost and more. Recent work includes Dianamas, an installation presented at Labapalooza 2019 at St. Ann's Warehouse, and Unicorn Afterlife (recipient of a Workshop Grant from the Jim Henson Foundation) which was presented as a work-in-progress at the Center at West Park in 2019. Justin is also Program Director at New Country Day Camp, a program of the 14th St. Y. www.justinaperkins.com
SUPPORT OBJECT MOVEMENT
Please consider making a donation to support the Spring 2021 Object Movement Puppetry Festival. We rely on the generous support of people like you to make this program possible. Your donation will help us pay all the wonderful humans who work to put on the festival, including the artists, the curators, the production technicians, and the administrative staff.
The Center at West Park, Inc. is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. Donations to the Center at West Park are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
About the Center AT WEST PARK
The Center at West Park is a community performing arts center based in the historic West Park Presbyterian Church, a New York City landmark. We present engaging and boundary-pushing early-career and established artists through our artist residency programs, provide affordable rental space for artists to develop their work, and steward the restoration of our historic home’s landmark exterior. The Center is a secular, 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.
Staff
Zachary Tomlinson, Artistic Director
Natasha Katerinopoulos, Managing Director
Dane Jerabek, Marketing Associate
Board of directors
Marian M. Warden, President
Marsha Flowers, Vice President
Theodore S. Berger, Treasurer
J. Pat O’Connell, Secretary
Beryl Abrams
Robert L. Brashear
Jennifer Rogers Carlock
Don Frantz
Don Marinelli
Derrick McQueen
Mitchell Schamroth
Olga Statz
Susan E. Sullivan
THANK YOU
The SPRING 2021 Object Movement Festival was made possible, in part, by grants from:
Object Movement Puppetry Festival was made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and administered by LMCC.