By Jane Catherine
Preston Foerder
By Eric Novak
Sarah Provost, Nancy Salomon Miranda and Jane Stein
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VOICE 4 VISION 2004
THE LONE RUNNER: THE MYTHICAL LIFE JOURNEY OF NIKOLA TESLA
by JANE CATHERINE SHAW
This puppetry and mixed media piece follows the life of Nikola Tesla. An inventor contemporary with Thomas Edison, Tesla's inventions and research did much to advance the use of electricity and associated sciences at the turn of the century. However, he is largely unknown by most-though he has a passionate, almost cultist following among a select few. The point of departure for this piece was a short sentence that read, in part; "An eccentric inventor who had a platonic love relationship with a white pigeon." Further research revealed a man endowed with great genius, intuition, torturous obsessions and phobias and a drive to secure his place in history. Feted and adored by celebrities as a young man, he died penniless and unknown. His great love was indeed, a white pigeon.
Jane Catherine Shaw (creator, director) began working with puppetry in 1986 in Atlanta, Georgia at the Center for Puppetry Arts. She curated the Center's XPT workshops, co-authored its mainstage production Dinosaurs, and created works for the Center's museum theatre.
As part of La MaMa, Ms. Shaw traveled to Turkey to create Youth Without Age, Life Without Death, which featured puppets of various styles and scales. Ms. Shaw began working with Lee Breuer (Mabou Mines) during his production of Epidog, and has continued with Peter and Wendy, Ecco Porco, and the Obie award winning Dollhouse. She also works frequently with Theodora Skipitares on her many productions, from puppet construction to performance. Recently she traveled to India with Skipitares and La MaMa's Ellen Stewart to participate in a Puppetry Festival in Delhi.
The Lone Runner premiered at La MaMa in 1999, by invitation of Ellen Stewart, La MaMa's founder. Ms Shaw's most recent work there was Bed of Light (2001), which featured various styles of puppetry and other media in an exploration of recurring dream imagery from anonymous sources worldwide. Bed of Light was developed through the Arts at St. Anns Puppet Lab. Currently, she is preparing for two other productions for La MaMa. She is designing the giant puppets for La MaMa's revival of Motel by Jean-Claude van Itallie (October 7 to 10, part of van Itallie's America Hurrah trilogy) and directing her Universe Expanding (June 9 to 26, 2005), a new piece through the Mabou Mines Resident Artist Program and with a grant from the Henson Foundation.
THREE WORKS BY PROJECT B NANCY SALOMON MIRANDA, SARAH PROVOST, JANE STEIN
This evening consists of three works of contemplation, unsolicited recollections and internal monologues featuring live video and Bunraku style puppets. Expansive outdoor settings and intimate interior environments form the background against which these characters examine their lives. The program combines the stunningly detailed puppets of Jane Stein, the masterful puppetry of Sarah Provost, and theatrical vision of director Nancy Salomon Miranda to create an evening of extraordinary theater.
The keystone piece, Still Sounds, is an original sound/text collage jointly written by this collaborative team. A gray haired woman is seen on her porch rocker surveying the nocturnal woods. Four stark birch trees and a stone path glisten in the moonlight. This is the visual ground for a poetic sound/text collage based on solitude and memory. As she surveys the woods around her, she remembers her past. During this contemplation, unsolicited recollections interrupt her internal monologue as she tries to remember a childhood song. Her recollections take the form of overlapping songs, sounds and text that propel her to a realization that is visible to the audience through her dream-like, weightless state of joy and grace.
The evening will also include two other works (to be announced).
Creative Team of Project B:
Nancy Salomon Miranda (Co-Creator, Director) has been creating theater for almost 20 years in New York and Chicago. Known for her original adaptations of novels and short stories and her collaborations with both visual and musical artists, she has in recent years worked in experimental puppet theater. She collaborated with Project B on If You Take a Fish Out of Water Will It Swim?, seen at the Puppet Lab this past spring. Her adaptations include "The Four Directions," a visual/performance-art collaboration with an installation artist, Bombazeen, a music/theater performance piece and Bestiario, a movement/theater performance piece. The latter two are collaborations with the same designer and composer and adapted from the magic realism literature of South America. Miranda's work has been seen at One Dream, HERE, Naked Angels, Downtown Art Company, Six Figures, Bank Street Theater, Charas/El Bohio and St. Anns Warehouse as part of the Puppet Lab. She holds a B.S. from Northwestern University and a M.F.A. in Directing from Columbia University.
Sarah Provost (Co-Creator, Performer) appeared in The Adventures of Charcoal Boy, developed through the Mabou Mines Resident Artist Program and the Arts at St. Anns Puppet Lab in 2004. In addition to her work with Project B, she has created two original solo works, combining monologues, puppetry and object theatre: Antarctica Hangs Up performed at Todo Con Nada, and A Pipe Dream, performed at the First Annual New York Fringe Festival and at the Painted Bride in Philadelphia. In addition to creating original work, she has fostered ongoing relationships with numerous artists and companies, most notably with Mabou Mines and with Theodora Skipitares Skysaver Productions. Her performances with Skipitares include Optic Fever, A Harlot's Progress, Body of Crime, Under the Knife and Underground. Performances with Mabou Mines include the Obie-award-winning Peter and Wendy: at the New Victory Theater and various tours, Ecco Porco at PS 122, and Epidog at HERE. Provost's other performance credits include The Long Christmas Ride Home at the Vineyard Theatre, Maya The Bee at the Culture Project, The Lone Runner at La MaMa and Interesting Times at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival. She has done voice-over work for USA Networks interactive website. Seeing Ear Theatre, and was a regular player on WBAIs monthly radio play, Automatic Vaudeville.
Jane Stein (Co-Creator, Designer) is a sculptor who has created masks, props and puppets for the theater. Her work has appeared in productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in dance, opera and television. She began her theatrical work as a mask maker for the New York Shakespeare Festival and has contributed work to many Broadway shows including Lenny, Jesus Christ Superstar, Pippin, Chicago, The Magic Show, Equus and Bette Middlers Clams on the Half Show Review. Her dance credits include masks for Martha Graham, Rod Rodgers Dance Company, and the New York Baroque Dance Company. She has worked conceiving, designing and performing with Peter Lobdell in a movement theater piece, Masquerade, which appeared at the Edinburgh Festival and toured Europe and regional U.S. theaters including NYC. A collaboration with the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble produced LAmfiparnaso, a madrigal comedy with puppets, which toured the U.S. She created a life size deer puppet for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, after Freda Kahlos self-portrait The Wounded Deer. Her six portrait puppets made for John Jeseruns Point of Debarkation were nominated for the American Theater Wing Award. Recently she has designed sets and puppets for Inverse Theaters New York productions of Midnight Brainwash Revival, American Revolution and Lost.
THE BACON/MINGUS TRIPTYCH by ERIC NOVAK
The Bacon/Mingus Triptych is inspired by the paintings of Francis Bacon and the music of Charles Mingus. The work is a surreal meditation on the human condition in three parts. Communicated solely through music and movement, the piece investigates themes of art, violence and sex. In Part I, Myself When I Am Real, an abstract portrait is brought to life as an everyman returning home from work to the sanctuary of his piano. The transcendent aspects of art and music are explored through the deconstruction of the puppet. Part 2, Fact Leaves Its Ghost, depicts the relationship between violence in the animal kingdom and in human society. From the ancient dance of predator and prey in the wild, to the artist and landlord in the city, the consequences of violence are considered. Part 3, Diane, utilizes the same deconstruction motif as a metaphor for the biology of our bodies. A woman visits a mans apartment for a polite date, which falls prey to the irresistible forces of nature.
Eric Novak (Creator, Director) is a puppet designer and director working in Brooklyn, New York. For the past two years, Eric has conceived, designed and directed The Bacon/Mingus Triptych. Novak designed and directed his first short piece, E-Volution, which appeared in the 2000 Henson Festival Cabaret at P.S.122 and at HEREs Puppet Parlor. Currently, he is developing The Adventures of Charcoal Boy through the Arts at St. Anns Puppet Lab and the Mabou Mines Resident Artist Program. As technical director at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia, Novak designed sets for two main stage productions directed by Jon Ludwig, Rainforest Adventures and The Body Detective. He was the Master Carpenter for Kwaidan by Ping Chong. He also produced and designed sets and puppets for a six-episode puppet serial called Rex Rocket in Outer Space, which was a huge hit in Atlanta. Novak has worked with Basil Twist on numerous shows including The Long Christmas Ride Home, Symphonie Fantastique, Red Beads and Master Peter's Puppet Show.
LONERS by PRESTON FOERDER
Loners is an insightful and often extremely humorous journey through the worlds of the alone. Preston Foerder, using a variety of puppet techniques, examines the people society tends to ignore. Through a series of short sketches we enter the worlds of these characters, in life, fantasy, and classic works of art. From the ridiculous to the sublime, he presents puppet characters that will not soon be forgotten.
Preston Foerder (Creator, Director) has worked with Poko Puppets, Puppetworks, the Yueh Lung Shadow Theatre, Bill Baird's Marionettes, the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts, Theodora Skipitares, Mabou Mines (Peter and Wendy) and the Metropolitan Opera. He designed, built and played the title character in both the theatrical production and film of Patrick Breen's play Phinehas. He has twice studied at the prestigious Institut International de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres, France on scholarship from UNIMA-USA and the Institut. In 1991, Foerder produced his first show, Slovenly Peter, an adult puppet theatre piece which went on to receive the UNIMA-USA Citation of Excellence. He has produced six puppet theatre pieces for both adult and family audiences. He has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and Mexico, at both national and international festivals. He was a '95/'96 recipient of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Performance. His last piece, Interesting Times, an adult puppet theatre piece based on chance, chaos and complexity theories, was commissioned by the Contemporary American Theater Festival. That piece was funded in part by a Jim Henson Foundation Grant. Foerder received another Jim Henson Foundation Grant for his solo piece, Loners. In the summer on 2002, he was guest artist at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center Puppetry Conference, where he created a production based on Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark.
Post Card Design by Jason Wong
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