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VOICE 4 VISION 2007Tin Lightningby Chris Green, Lisa Gonzales, and Erin OrrNov. 29 _ 8:00, Nov. 30 _ 9:30, Dec. 1 _ 8:00, Dec. 2 _ 4:30Conceived 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.ABOUT THE ARTISTSChris 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. Anns 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 Noahs 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.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 Lorcas 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.The Jester of Tongaby Joseph SilovskyDec. 6 _ 9:30, Dec. 7 _ 8:00, Dec. 8 _ 9:30, Dec. 9 _ 3:00The 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. Anns 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. Tiger Plus: An Evening of Overhead Projection by Chinese Theater Works (Kuang-Yu Fong and Stephen Kaplin)Nov. 29 _ 9:30, Nov. 30 _ 8:00, Dec. 1 _ 9:30, Dec. 2 _ 3:00The evening is comprised of two plays. In Tiger Tales, a wise old rabbit tells her grand-daughter some of her adventures, recounting with verve and a sly, subversive humor some of the episodes surrounding Tigers rise to power, his abusive rule and ultimate downfall. This shadow theater piece, using figures modeled on antiques from our collection, deals humorously with issues of power and survival of the small and powerless in todays modern jungle. The Turkey Vulture is the NYC premiere of a short piece about savage birds and the people who love them. In it, CTW's Stephen Kaplin brings his award-winning design talent to Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Plays in 365 Days Project.ABOUT THE COMPANYChinese Theatre Works (www.chinesetheatreworks.org) 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 was 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. ABOUT THE ARTISTSKuang-Yu Fong studied Chinese Opera in Taiwan and China, specializing in the Hau San female singing and dancing roles, taught Chinese Opera movement in in China for four years, and earned an M.A. in Educational Theater from N.Y.U. She has taught at Pace University since 1990. She conceived and directed Kasper as a Banana (1993), Book of Songs (2006), Toy Theater Peony Pavilion (2001), Tiger Tales (2002) and Three Women, Many Plays (2005). She has written a book with Stephen Kaplin, Tabletop Theater: Puppetry for Small Places (2003).Stephen Kaplin studied puppetry at UCONN under Dr. Frank Ballard. He designed and built giant puppets for Times Square 2000 ; shadow figures and puppet sequences for Julie Taymor's Lion King, Juan Darien and The Green Bird ; shadow sequences for Lee Breuer's Peter and Wendy ; puppets for the Public Theater's The Tempest and The Caucasian Chalk Circle ; and did puppetry design for Ping Chongs Cathay (for which he received a 2006 Henry Hewes Award for Notable Effects). He is also\a co-founding member of Great Small Works. Shuyun Cheng worked for ten years TV program producer, theater producer, scriptwriter, childrens theater teacher, puppet designer and puppeteer at Shiny Shoes Childrens Theater in Taiwan. Her TV production Hi, Anybody at Home? was nominated for an Emmy award. Another program, A-Go-Go Theater , was selected as Taiwans Best Childrens TV Program of 2000. Since moving to the U.S. and graduating from NYUs Educational Theatre Program, she has worked as a teaching artist for the New Victory Theatre and elsewhere. She coordinates CTW's Arts in Education program. Morgan Eckert is earning an MA in Educational Theatre at NYU. She has been a puppeteer, actress and educator at McCarter Theatre Center, Mum Puppettheatre and Pig Iron Theatre Company. Night Shade by Carrionettes (Liz Adele Allen, Sarah Frechette, Jason Thibodeaux and Alain Z)Dec. 6 _ 8:00, Dec. 7 _ 9:30, Dec. 8 _ 8:00, Dec. 9 _ 4:30.Night Shade is a modern myth in a timeless cloak. Three evocative shadow-theater tales: Haunted Projectile, Carrion and Order of Wolf, blend 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 where they are tempted by exotic sea monsters and dance in the tangled 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. Witness the trials and tribulations of a young boy. The choices he makes to resurrect his possessed sisters and save his haunted town will decide all of their fates or be lost forever. A show of supernatural things -- honoring the innocent, sinister, intimate and haunted. Night Shade has an original musical score by artist Metralleta from NYC; composer and multi-instrumentalist Blake Madden from Seattle, Washington; and amatuer composer Oviedo Menendez from Portland, Oregon.Artists Liz Adele Allen, Sarah Frechette, Jason Thibodeaux, Alain Z and composer Blake Madden have fused together as Carrionettes. This artistic collective blends illustration, puppetry, film and sound into forms of bewitching cinematic theater. Carrionettes' Haunted Projectile, with music by Metralleta, opened for post punk band Japanther, where it lit up Live With Animals Art Space in Brooklyn. It was also performed at the 2007 Puppeteers of America National Puppetry Festival. Puppets on Film Dec. 2 _ 8:00A provocative, challenging, and savvy collection of puppet shorts created by the next generation of small-scale artists. See www.voice4vision.org for updates. Puppet Art Attacks Dec. 9 _ 8:00 (special price: $8)A puppetry slam of 3-5 minute short works of genius by a variety of puppet artists.
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