Author: Wicks, Emily

2016 UConn Winter Puppet Slam on 2/20 at 8 p.m.

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and the UConn Puppet Arts Program will present the 2016 UConn Winter Puppet Slam on Saturday, February 20 at 8:00 p.m. in UConn’s Studio Theatre. The UConn Winter Puppet Slam will feature short works by professional puppeteers and performers including Papel Machete (Puerto Rico); Great Small Works (Brooklyn); Kim Mikenis (Hamden, CT); and Zach Dorn (Florida), as well as new works for puppet and object theater by students and faculty from UConn’s School of Fine Arts, including object performance by Printmaking Professor John O’Donnell, new video animation by Digital Media and Design students; works-in-progress by Puppet Arts Program students, and a special appearance by UConn’s Rolling Tones a cappella group. The UConn Winter Puppet Slam is supported by the Puppet Slam Network.

The Puppet Slam movement is a nation-wide flowering of short puppet productions for adult audiences, encouraged by the Puppet Slam Network created by Heather Henson and Marsian De Lellis. UConn Puppet Slams have been taking place since 2008, thanks to the generous support of the Network. This year’s Winter Puppet Slam will again feature an exciting array of object-oriented performance forms that will expand the definitions of puppetry. Great Small Works’ Ode to Common Things is a “cranky” panorama performance based on a Pablo Neruda poem; Zach Dorn’s live webcast puppet video Jade features miniature cut-out puppets; and Papel Machete will perform a cantastoria picture performance about the Prison Industrial Complex titled If all lives matter ’cause we’re all created equal, why are some lives more equal than others? John O’Donnell’s Candle in my Carrot is an excerpt of a larger object performance piece he presented at the New Britain Museum of Art last fall; and New Haven-area puppeteer Kim Mikenis’s The Statue of Liberty Takes a Holiday combines puppets with live video projection. The Winter Puppet Slam will also feature sneak peaks of works from the upcoming MFA Puppet Arts Festival by Kalob Martinez, Anatar Marmol-Gagné, and Gavin Cummins; and Digital Media and Design professor Anna Lindemann’s students will present short digital animation films. The show will also include movement experiments by Puppet Arts students, and the dynamic unaccompanied singing of the Rolling Tones. The UConn Winter Puppet Slam is guaranteed to be visually and mentally captivating!

The UConn Winter Puppet Slam is free and open to the public; donations are greatly appreciated. The event will take place in the Studio Theatre located at 820 Bolton Rd, Storrs, CT. For directions to the Studio Theatre, visit crt.uconn.edu/directions/. These performances are recommended for mature audiences. For more information, call the Ballard Institute at (860) 486-8580 or email us at bimp@uconn.edu.

2016 Spring Puppet Forum Series

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As part of its Spring Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will host three forum events on Wednesdays in February through April at 7 p.m. in the Ballard Institute Theater located at 1 Royce Circle in Storrs Center. The Spring Puppet Forum schedule includes:

February 3: Roger Danforth, Playwriting for Puppet Theater

Noted director and dramaturg Roger Danforth, who also leads playwriting for puppetry workshops at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, will talk about the particular needs and possibilities playwrights face when writing for actors and objects

February 24: Alexander Gref and Elena Slonimskaya, Russian Puppet Theater

Join us in a discussion with two of Russia’s most dynamic puppeteers as they show us how the rich traditions of Russian vertep and Petrushka puppetry survive and flourish in contemporary performance and art therapy in the Russian Republic.

April 20: Laura Heit, The Puppetry and Animation of Laura Heit

In conjunction with her exhibition at the Ballard Institute—The Bureau of Small Requests—artist and professor Laura Heit (Northwest Pacific College of Art) will discuss her richly varied work in stop-motion film, live-action puppetry, drawing, and computer animation.

Admission to these events is free (donations greatly appreciated!), and refreshments will be served. Come early and experience our puppet exhibitions, as well as the video resources in our library nook. Visit bimp.uconn.edu for more information.

2016 Spring Puppet Performance Series

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will host its Spring Puppet Performance Series on four Saturdays from January to April 2016, featuring outstanding works for puppet theater by professional puppeteers. There will be two showings of each production, at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., in the Ballard Institute Theater located at 1 Royce Circle in Storrs Center. Productions and dates include:

January 30: Of Bread and Paper by Finn Campman

Of Bread and Paper is the story of a poor refugee trying to find his way home. His exile is self imposed but enforced by the struggles of the world: poverty, conflict, indecision, and love. Recommended for children aged 9 and above.

February 13: The Autobiography of James Mars: A Slave Born and Sold in Connecticut by Puppetsweat Theater

Using flat cut-out puppets and projected images, this show tells the story of James and Jupiter Mars, a father and son owned by a parson in Norfolk, Connecticut, demonstrating how these two remarkable men negotiated the complicated slavery laws of the nineteenth century. Recommended for children aged 9 and above.

 March 5: The Great Red Ball Rescue by Faye Dupras

A family trip to the beach goes awry when a young boy’s favorite Red Ball is whisked away by the tides. Join Jasper, a timid kid with a big imagination, as he sets out on an adventure across the ocean, under the waves, and up into the clouds.

April 9: Help Save the Monkey! by Liz Hara and Marta Mozelle MacRostie

8-year-old Howard and 80-year-old Lillian must rush to save her monkey who is about to land from space. Despite setbacks, anxieties, and lasers, their friendship helps them on this epic adventure.

Ticket Prices: Adults: $10; Students: $7; Kids: $5

Tickets will be sold in advance through the Connecticut Repertory Theatre Box Office located in the lobby of the Nafe Katter Theatre at 820 Bolton Rd, Storrs CT 06269. Tickets may be purchased in person at the box office, by calling (860) 486-2113, or online at https://itkt.choicecrm.net/templates/UCRT/index.php?prod=bimp. A $3.00 surcharge will be added to any purchases made online or over the phone. Tickets may be purchased at the Ballard Institute on the days of performances. There will be a limited number of seats. For more information about these shows, visit bimp.uconn.edu or call (860) 486-8580.

“The World of Puppetry: From the Collections of the Ballard Institute”

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The World of Puppetry: From the Collections of the Ballard Institute showcases an array of different puppets carefully selected from over 2,600 puppets in the Ballard Institute collections to reflect the amazing richness of global puppet traditions and contemporary innovations in puppetry.  The exhibition’s array of handpuppets, marionettes, rod puppets, toy theaters, and shadow figures from around the world will include work by Rufus and Margo Rose, Charles Ludlam, Janie Geiser, Marjorie Batchelder McPharlin, Tony Sarg, Bil Baird, Frank Ballard, and puppets from Indonesia, Africa, Iran, Germany, England, Latin America, and France.

Holiday Hours

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The Ballard Institute will close at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, 12/24 and remain closed on Friday, 12/25. The museum will reopen for normal business hours on Saturday, 12/26.

On Thursday, 12/31, the museum will close at 5:00 p.m. and remain closed on Friday, 1/1. The Ballard Institute will be open on 1/2 and 1/3 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Happy Holidays!

Galleries Closed for Exhibition Installation, November 2-13

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From November 2-13, 2015, Ballard Institute staff will be deinstalling our current exhibition “The Work That Follows: 50 Years of UConn Puppeteers” and installing our new exhibition “From Thought to Image: 30 Years of Sandglass Theater.”  While the main galleries at the Ballard Institute will be closed during this process, the museum will remain open during normal business hours, and our exhibit titled “The World of Puppetry: From the Collections of the Ballard Institute” will be on display in the lobby.

We  invite you to join us for the grand opening of From Thought to Image: 30 Years of Sandglass Theater on Saturday, November 14 at 4:30 p.m. at the Ballard Institute. The opening events will include two performances of Isidor’s Cheek by Ines Zeller Bass of Sandglass Theater, at 1 and 3 p.m. in the Ballard Institute Theater.

“From Thought to Image: 30 Years of Sandglass Theater,” November 14, 2015-April 10, 2016

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This first-ever retrospective exhibition of work by the world-renowned Vermont-based puppet company co-directed by Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass features extraordinarily crafted puppets from ten different Sandglass productions dating from 1985 to the present. Including characters created by Eric Bass, Ines Zeller Bass, Jana Zeller, Dave Regan, Finn Campman, Matt Brooks and Coni Richards, the exhibition will trace Sandglass Theater’s development from such dreamlike pieces as Invitations to Heaven (1990) and The Village Child (1992) to stories strongly rooted in the recognizable Vermont world, such as Never Been Anywhere (1997) and All Weather Ballads (2010); and the profound contemplations of modern life in shows based on The Little Prince (Between Sand and Stars, 2005) and the life of renowned philosopher Walter Benjamin (One Way Street, 2002). In all these productions, the persistent metaphorical nature of the puppets remains a constant and compelling element of the work. The exhibition will be on display through April 10, 2016.

 

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Stevens Puppets, 10/30 at 7 p.m.

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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut presents a special guest performance of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by the acclaimed Stevens Puppets of Indiana on Friday, October 30 at 7 p.m. in the Ballard Institute Theater located at 1 Royce Circle in Storrs Center.

In this silly and non-scary version of Washington Irving’s classic piece of literature, children of all ages will follow the lanky schoolmaster Ichabod Crane as he sings, dances, and falls in love with the giggly Katrina Van Tassel. Audiences will watch breathlessly as Katrina’s father Baltus and the village goofball Brom Bones try to run Ichabod out of town by telling him the tale of the Headless Horseman. The Stevens Puppets bring this ever-popular classic tale delightfully to life with beautiful wooden marionettes. The entire production is underscored by classical music, and a fun time will be had by all! The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was originally adapted for marionettes in 1965 by legendary puppeteer Martin Stevens. In 2000, Dan Raynor, one owner of Stevens Puppets, adapted the original script, and took it out on tour that same year.

Ticket Prices: Adults: $12; Students: $8; Kids: $6

Tickets will be sold in advance through the Connecticut Repertory Theatre Box Office located in the lobby of the Nafe Katter Theatre at 820 Bolton Rd, Storrs CT 06269. Tickets may be purchased in person at the box office, by calling (860) 486-2113, or online at https://itkt.choicecrm.net/templates/UCRT/index.php?prod=bimp. A $3.00 surcharge will be added to any purchases made online or over the phone. Tickets may be purchased at the Ballard Institute on the days of performances. There will be a limited number of seats. For more information about this show, call (860) 486-8580.