The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will present a free online Engineering in Puppetry Puppet Forum on Thursday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. ET via Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute). The forum will feature world-renowned puppeteer Basil Twist, Interim Department Chair of the UConn Department of Dramatic Arts Ed Weingart, and UConn Department of Mechanical Engineering Professor Jason Lee. This event is co-sponsored by the UConn School of Engineering and the Krenicki Arts and Engineering Institute, a program of UConn’s Schools of Fine Arts and Engineering.

Engineering in Puppetry will examine the nature of engineering principles and practices as they appear in different forms of puppetry, including attention to Basil Twist’s 2015 production of Sisters’ Follies, to which Ed Weingart contributed rigging and flying direction. Puppetry and engineering are both intimately connected with the performance dynamics of materials and objects. How and in what manner does puppetry reflect and perform the principles of engineering? How does engineering reflect the performance interests and possibilities of puppetry? Presentations by Twist and Weingart discuss and examine the nature of engineering in puppetry from the perspectives of a puppeteer and a technical director; Professor Lee will add to the discussion from his perspective as a mechanical engineer. 

Basil Twist is a third-generation puppeteer and native of San Francisco. The sole American to graduate from the École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres, France, Basil’s showmanship was spotlighted in New York by The Jim Henson International Festival of Puppetry with his award-winning The Araneidae Show. This recognition, coupled with the ground-breaking and multiple award-winning Symphonie Fantastique, revealed Twist as a singular artist of unlimited imagination. He has conceived and directed two successful operas, Ottorini Respighi’s La Bella Dormente Nel Bosco and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, for the Houston Grand Opera. Broadway credits include puppetry design for Charlie and The Chocolate Factory; Oh, Hello!; The Addams Family; and puppetry direction for the beloved Pee-Wee Herman Show. Twist is a frequent collaborator with Lee Breuer/Mabou Mines. His work has received an Obie, Drama Desk Awards, UNIMA Awards, Bessie Awards, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, and a Henry Hewes Award. He has been honored with a MacArthur, Guggenheim and USA Artists Fellowships, as well as a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. 

Edward Weingart is an Associate Professor of Technical Direction at the University of Connecticut where he is currently serving as the Interim Department Head for the Department of Dramatic Arts. He also works as the Director of Special Projects for Creative Conners and works in the US and abroad as a Flying Director for the performer flying company Vertigo. He is an ETCP certified Rigger (Theater) and a CM certified hoist technician. New York credits include flying direction for Basil Twist’s Sister’s Follies and automation system design for Jorden Wolfson’s Colored Sculpture which premiered at the David Zwirner Gallery and has since toured to France, the Netherlands, and London. He has also worked as the head rigger and automation supervisor for the Calgary Stampede Grandstand Show in Calgary, Alberta Canada. In addition to specific shows he has also designed several stock automation products at Creative Conners which are used in theaters across the country and abroad. Ed holds a BFA in Design/Technical Theater and an MFA in Technical Direction from UConn.

Jason Lee is an Assistant Professor-in-Residence at UConn’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he teaches a variety of mechanical engineering courses. Two of the courses he focuses on are First Year and Senior Design project-based courses. In these courses he teaches basic prototype design, project management, and design testing principles which are crucial in any application. His past research projects focused on materials and heat transfer for manufacturing and aerospace applications. He is also interested in the application of engineering in sports performance, whose design principles mirror those of puppetry.   

The Engineering in Puppetry forum will be streamed live on the Ballard Institute’s Facebook page  (facebook.com/BallardInstitute) on Thursday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. ET and will be available afterwards on both the Ballard Institute’s Facebook page and YouTube channel (youtube.com/channel/UC3VSthEDnYS6ZjOwzT1DnTg). 

As part of the online 2020 Fall Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry will host “Things That Act Shakespeare” with Dr. Jungmin Song on Thursday, November 12 at 7 p.m. ET. This forum will take place on Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute/) and will be available afterwards on Facebook and the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry YouTube channel (youtube.com/channel/UC3VSthEDnYS6ZjOwzT1DnTg).

Professor Song will discuss the ideas behind her current Ballard Institute exhibition Shakespeare and Puppetry, which questions our preconceptions of character and asks what it means for objects to have stage presence. Dr. Song will consider Shakespeare productions by such puppeteers and performers as Forced Entertainment, Hogarth Puppets, and the Little Angel Theatre from England; ShadowLight Productions, Fred Curchack, Jim Rose, Bread and Puppet Theater, and Great Small Works from the U.S.; and Dov Weinstein from Israel. 

Dr. Jungmin Song completed a practice-as-research PhD titled Animating Everyday Objects in Performance at the University of Roehampton in 2014. Her writings have appeared in Performance Research, Artpress 2, Asian Theatre Journal, and Contemporary Theatre Review. In 2017 she edited a special issue of the British journal Puppet Notebook on Shakespeare and puppets, and was a researcher in residence at the Institut International de la Marionnette (IIM) in Charleville-Mézières, France to lay the ground for a book on Shakespeare and puppetry. As a puppet maker she has participated in numerous projects, including the Royal Shakespeare Company and Little Angel Theatre’s co-production of Venus and Adonis (2004).  She has taught in the fields of theater and fine arts at the University of Roehampton, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Kent. 

For more information and to learn about other online programming, email bimp@uconn.edu.

For its second online installment of the 2020 Fall Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry will host “The Renaissance of African American Object Performance” with noted puppeteers, artists, scholars Edna Bland, Paulette Richards, Schroeder Cherry, and Anwar Floyd-Pruitt on Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. ET. This forum will take place on Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute/) and will be available afterwards on Facebook and the Ballard Institute YouTube Channel (youtube.com/channel/UC3VSthEDnYS6ZjOwzT1DnTg).

African American puppetry and object performance is in a state of rapid and profound change. As the organizers of this Puppet Forum describe it, African American puppeteers are “part of a movement rediscovering the art of puppetry,” while at the same time the world of puppetry is discovering African American puppeteers. The Ballard Institute’s “Renaissance of African American Object Performance” Puppet Forum will bring together four prominent figures of the African American puppet revival to discuss how they are working to change the nature of puppetry in the U.S., and how American puppetry is beginning to recognize the work of Black puppeteers. The forum will also mark the release of the Ballard Institute’s Living Objects: African American Puppetry online catalogue of images, artist biographies, video documentation, and over twenty new essays, scripts, and interviews about African American puppetry, based on the Ballard Institute’s 2018-2019 exhibition, symposium, and festival of the same name. Moderated by educator, teaching artist and puppeteer Edna Bland, this forum is co-sponsored by the UConn Department of Art and Art History (art.uconn.edu/).

Moderator Edna Bland is an educator, teaching artist, puppeteer and arts integration specialist who honed her knowledge and skills at such prestigious institutions as The Kennedy Center’s VSA and CETA programs, Lincoln Center Education’s Teaching Artist program at the Juilliard School, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. Prior to becoming an educator, Edna worked in the entertainment industry at such organizations as the New York Emmy Awards and Sony Music Entertainment. As a puppeteer, she was mentored by the late Caroll Spinney (“Big Bird”) and Dr. Loretta Long (“Susan”) from Sesame Street, and was a touring puppeteer in Jane Henson’s Nativity. Her work has been exhibited at the Ballard Institute as part of the Living Objects: African American Puppetry exhibition, and as part of the South Florida Puppetry Guild exhibit at the Miramar Arts and Cultural Center. She has an M.F.A degree in Entertainment Creative Writing, and an M.S. degree in Entertainment Business from Full Sail University; a B.S. degree in Organizational Management from Nyack University, and an A.A.S. degree in Music Business from Five Towns College. 

Dr. Paulette Richards is an independent researcher and teaching artist who uses animatronic puppetry to introduce K-12 students to basic robotics concepts.  She has taught animatronic puppetry workshops at Decatur Makers, the Dekalb County Public Library, the Center for Puppetry Arts, and the Puppeteers of America 2017 National Festival.  She served as co-curator with Dr. John Bell of the Ballard Institute and Museum’s Living Objects: African American Puppetry exhibit and was recently elected to the board of UNIMA-USA, the U.S. chapter of the Union International de la Marionnette. “The Black Lives Matter movement,” she writes, “has made my research feel urgent and relevant for the first time in my life because I see puppet theater and object performance as a powerful mode of resistance to the objectification of Black bodies.” Richards is completing two essays, about blackface material characters and the ritual functions of white supremacy; and a community of African American doll collectors. She is currently planning an exhibition of African American puppetry that should open at the Center for Puppetry Arts in the fall of 2021, and researching a book on object performance in the Black Atlantic.

Dr. Schroeder Cherry began making art and playing with puppets as a child in Washington, D.C. Over time he incorporated his childhood pastime into his thirty years of professional museum work. Dr. Cherry has held positions at museums across the U.S., including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution’s Anacostia Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Maryland Historical Society. At The Lila Wallace Funds in New York he was a program officer for museums and arts organizations, and between 2002 and 2010 he served on staff at the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington, D.C., first as Deputy Director for Museums and later as Counselor to the Director. Cherry earned a bachelor of arts in painting and puppetry from the University of Michigan; a masters degree in Museum Education from The George Washington University; and a doctorate in museum education from Columbia University. He has travelled nationally and internationally to speak on learning in museums. Cherry currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

Anwar Floyd-Pruitt is an interdisciplinary artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, focusing on puppetry, self-portraiture, and community art. A 2020 MFA graduate of UW-Madison, Floyd-Pruitt also earned a BA in psychology from Harvard University and a BFA in sculpture from UW-Milwaukee. In addition to teaching puppetry workshops, Floyd-Pruitt produces and performs a family-friendly, hip-hop singalong called Hip Hop Puppet Party, which was awarded a Madison Arts Commission Blink Grant. Last winter, he was invited to participate in Roots of the Spirit-Imagine Puppets at ArtServe in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where he displayed a collection of puppets made with youth from the Dane County Juvenile Detention Center. Anwar is the winner of the 2020 Russell and Paula Panczenko MFA Prize at the Chazen Museum of Art, where his first solo exhibition, Supernova: Charlotte & Gene’s Radical Imagination Station, opens this fall. Most recently, Floyd-Pruitt installed an abstract sculptural wildflower garden outdoors, as part of Wormfarm Institute’s Fermentation Fest.

For more information and to learn about other online programming, visit bimp.uconn.edu or email bimp@uconn.edu.

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will present a free online Women’s Suffrage Puppet Pageant on Facebook Live as part of the reimagined 17th annual Celebrate Mansfield Festival on Saturday, Sept. 26 at 4 p.m. ET on Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute). The pageant will feature toy theater works created by amateur and professional puppeteers from around the world. 

The theme for this year’s Ballard Institute community pageant for the Celebrate Mansfield Festival is a celebration of the women’s suffrage movement. The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment in the United States, which guarantees and protects women’s constitutional right to vote. The Ballard Institute will use this anniversary to acknowledge the complex history of the women’s suffrage movement, and the leadership of women of color, Native women, working-class women, and immigrant women in the struggle for suffrage; as well as the movement’s intersections with abolitionism and other movements. To honor this milestone we will celebrate women’s suffrage heroes from around the world, including Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Jovita Idár, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Mai Ziadeh, and Luisa Capetillo, among others, noting the successes of the movement, and also its challenges in the face of racism and forces opposed to suffrage.  

All workshop participants will perform their short works (three to five minutes long) as part of the pageant, which will be streamed live on the Ballard Institute’s Facebook page  (facebook.com/BallardInstitute) on Saturday, Sept. 26 at 4 p.m. ET and will be available afterwards on both the Ballard Institute’s Facebook page and YouTube channel (youtube.com/channel/UC3VSthEDnYS6ZjOwzT1DnTg). 

This community puppet project is sponsored by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut and the Mansfield Downtown Partnership, Inc. For more information about the 17th Annual Celebrate Mansfield Festival, visit downtownstorrsfestival.org.

The Mansfield Downtown Partnership is an independent, non-profit organization comprised of the Town of Mansfield, the University of Connecticut, and individual business members and residents. The Partnership seeks to foster the continued development, management, and promotion of Downtown Storrs. For more information about the Partnership, visit mansfieldmdp.org.

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and the UConn Puppet Arts Program will present, for the very first time, an online version of its popular UConn Fall Puppet Slam on Friday, Sept. 25, 2020 at 8 p.m. ET on the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute/). The 2020 UConn Fall Puppet Slam: Online! will feature short works by professional puppeteers and performers from around the United States and across the world, including Linda Wingerter of the Stringpullers Puppet Company, Flock Theatre, Campfire Tales, House of Funny Noises, and new works by UConn Puppet Arts students and recent alumni.

The 2020 UConn Fall Puppet Slam: Online! will showcase the work of Campfire Tales, a transcontinental company made up of Ali DeRegt, Emma Fisher, and Monica Ila; the UK-based company House of Funny Noises; Derron Wood and Flock Theatre of New London, Connecticut; Bonnie Kim of Keaau, Hawaii; Florida-based puppeteer Jack Fields; Linda Wingerter of the Stringpullers Puppet Company; and UConn Puppet Arts alumni Maggie Flanagan, Esme Roszel, and Austin Costello.

The UConn Fall Puppet Slam will also feature new works by UConn graduate and undergraduate students from the UConn Puppet Arts Program. Funding for the UConn Fall Puppet Slam: Online! is made possible in part by the Puppet Slam Network.

The UConn Fall Puppet Slam is free, but donations are greatly appreciated. These performances are recommended for mature audiences. The UConn Fall Puppet Slam will be available through Oct. 31, 2020 on the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry Facebook page (facebook.com/BallardInstitute/) and the Ballard Institute YouTube channel (youtube.com/channel/UC3VSthEDnYS6ZjOwzT1DnTg). 

For more information about these performances, please contact Ballard Institute staff at 860-486-8580 or bimp@uconn.edu.

For its first online installment of the 2020 Fall Puppet Forum Series the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will host “Out of the Shadows: the Henson International Puppet Festivals” with Leslee Asch on September 17 at 7 p.m. ET. This forum will take place on Facebook Live (facebook.com/BallardInstitute/) and will be available afterwards on Facebook and the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry YouTube Channel (youtube.com/channel/UC3VSthEDnYS6ZjOwzT1DnTg).

Join famed puppeteer Leslee Asch and Ballard Institute Director John Bell for an in-depth discussion about her new book Out of the Shadows: The Henson Festivals And Their Impact on Contemporary Puppet Theater. Between 1992 and 2000, the Jim Henson Foundation hosted five International Festivals of Puppet Theater in New York City, and developed a national touring program. The Jim Henson Foundation’s International Puppet Festivals brought puppet theater into mainstream American theater. Leslee Asch served as Producing Director, working with Jim’s daughter Cheryl, who served as Executive Producer, to present five award-winning festivals that would equal European festivals and put U.S. puppet artists on the international stage. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the last Henson Festival and the 30th Anniversary of Jim Henson’s death. Taking this timely opportunity for reflection and drawing from a wealth of first-hand experience, in Out of the Shadows Asch presents a visually rich narrative of the festivals and their continued legacy, including a comprehensive look at the contemporary puppet theater landscape. This forum is co-sponsored by the UConn Arts Leadership and Cultural Management program (sfa.uconn.edu/arts-leadership-cultural-mgmt/).

Leslee Asch began her career as a puppet builder and went on to serve as the Director of Exhibitions for Jim Henson Productions, curating and managing exhibitions world-wide. Asch later worked as the Executive Director of the Jim Henson Foundation and Producing Director of the Henson International Festivals of Puppet Theater. Asch has been a long-time trustee of the Jim Henson Foundation. She is a recognized expert in the field and has published articles and catalogs on the subject, including The Art of Contemporary Puppet Theater, for the Katonah Museum of Art.

For more information and to learn about other online programming, email bimp@uconn.edu.

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry will offer free online toy theater workshops to design and build scenes for a new Women’s Suffrage Puppet Pageant to be performed Saturday, September 26 at 4 p.m. on the Ballard Institute’s Facebook Live as part of the reimagined 17th annual Celebrate Mansfield Festival.

These free theater workshops will take place Saturday and Sunday, September 19 and 20 via Zoom. Registrants will build puppets and theaters on Saturday, Sept. 19 from 10 a.m. to noon ET, and then learn to perform and share their work with other participants on Sunday, Sept. 20 from 2 to 4 p.m. ET. Workshop participants will be invited to perform their short toy theater shows (three to five minutes) in the community Women’s Suffrage Puppet Pageant on Saturday, September 26 at 4 p.m. on Facebook Live.

The theme for this year’s Ballard Institute community pageant for the Celebrate Mansfield Festival is a celebration of the women’s suffrage movement. The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment in the United States, which guarantees and protects women’s constitutional right to vote. The Ballard Institute would like to use this anniversary to acknowledge the complex history of the women’s suffrage movement, and leadership of women of color, Native women, working-class women, and immigrant women in the struggle for suffrage; as well as the movement’s intersections with abolitionism and other movements. To honor this milestone we propose to celebrate women’s suffrage heroes and achievements around the world, including Ida B. Wells, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Jovita Idar, Zitkala-Sa, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Susan B. Anthony and others, noting the successes of the movement, and also its challenges in the face of racism and the strong forces opposed to suffrage.

No experience is necessary to participate in this two-part toy theater workshop and all ages may participate (adult supervision and assistance is required for children). There is no fee to participate (although donations are greatly appreciated!). Registration will be required by Wednesday, September 16. To register for the workshop, please fill out the registration form found below or here: https://forms.gle/ZcfLxmx9dBc1AiSZ6. Workshop registration will be limited.

This community puppet project is sponsored by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut and the Mansfield Downtown Partnership, Inc. For more information about the 17th Annual Celebrate Mansfield Festival, visit downtownstorrsfestival.org.