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.

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.

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and the UConn Puppet Arts Program will present the 2015 UConn Fall Puppet Slam on Saturday, October 3 at 8:00 p.m. in UConn’s J. Louis von der Mehden Recital Hall. The UConn Fall Puppet Slam will feature short works by professional puppeteers, including Massachusetts-based puppeteers Brad Shur and Madison J. Cripps, as well as new works by talented students from UConn’s Puppet Arts Program. The UConn Fall 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.

The UConn Fall Puppet Slam is free and open to the public; donations are greatly appreciated. The event will take place in the J. Louis von der Mehden Recital Hall located at 875 Coventry Rd, Storrs, CT. These performances are recommended for mature audiences. For more information, call the Ballard Institute at (860) 486-8580, visit bimp.uconn.edu, or email us at bimp@uconn.edu.

As part of its Fall Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will host four forum events on Wednesdays in September through December at 7 p.m. in the Ballard Institute Theater located at 1 Royce Circle in Storrs Center.

The Fall Puppet Forum schedule includes:

September 23: Margarita Blush: “Unfolding the Story”

Join Puppet Arts Program Assistant Professor Margarita Blush in a discussion about the creation of her new international production Unfolding, which is being presented at the Ballard Institute September 18-20 and 25-27. For this original puppet production a diverse group of artists have come together to create a work delving into the themes of women’s wisdom and empowerment. The show features hand-crafted puppets, live acting, unique design, and original music.

October 28: Professor Sumarsam: “Javanese Puppet Theater and the West”

Javanase musician and scholar Sumarsam of Wesleyan University talks about the hybrid nature of Javanese wayang kulit shadow theater in the context of his fascinating new book, Javanese Gamelan and the West. Professor Sumarsam’s work analyzes the adaptations in gamelan art as a result of Western colonialism in nineteenth-century Java, showing how Western musical and dramatic practices were domesticated by Javanese performers to create hybrid Javanese-Western art forms, such as with the introduction of brass bands in traditional court music and western theatrical idioms in contemporary wayang puppet plays.

November 18: Tim Hunter, Samantha Olschan, and Honey Goodenough: “Puppetry and Digital Performance in Boston Hospitals”

Join us in a discussion of the exciting contemporary intersections of puppetry, digital performance, and medicine as we focus on two projects currently underway at Boston Children’s Hospital: the Interactive Media Wall designed by Professors Tim Hunter, Samanthan Olschan, and others in UConn’s Digital Media & Design Department, and the work puppeteer Honey Goodenough has been doing with the hospital’s Simulator Program.

December 2: Ines Zeller Bass and Eric Bass: “Sandglass Theater, from Thought to Image”

In conjunction with their retrospective exhibition at the Ballard Institute, Eric and Ines Zeller Bass describe their creation process with multiple collaborators over the past thirty years of Sandglass Theater productions. Marking the trajectory of this famed Vermont puppet company, Eric and Ines will trace Sandglass’ development from more dreamlike pieces to characters and themes strongly rooted in a more recognizable Vermont world, even as the puppets themselves remain metaphorical.

Admission to this event 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. This forum will also be live-streamed on our UStream page: http://ustre.am/15REP.

 

 

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will host its Fall Puppet Performance Series on four Saturdays from October to December 2015, featuring outstanding works for puppet theater by professional puppeteers from the Northeast. 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:

October 3: “Cripps Puppets: A Slice of Crazy Pie in 7 to 11 Acts” by Madison J. Cripps Join Madison and his cabaret style marionettes in this zany interactive show fun for the whole family. Each hand-carved marionette is a character unto itself! With original songs, harmonica and creative puns.

 

October 24: “Spooky-Silly Sing-A-Long” by Nappy’s Puppets Join in the fun as Jim Napolitano of Nappy’s Puppets presents some of the silliest sing-a-long songs known to man and monster alike!

 

 

November 14: “Isidor’s Cheek” by Sandglass Theater The award-winning classic performed by Ines Zeller Bass on a revolving stage. One day, Isidor’s cheek runs away, and he must search around the world to find it.

 

 

December 5: “Lollipops for Breakfast” by Bonnie Duncan A marvelous confection of friendship, invention, and adventure! You can’t have lollipops for breakfast! But today, Sylvie decides she’s going to break that rule, even if it means she has to make her own amazingly perfect lollipop from scratch. The show concludes with an interactive kids’ dance party!

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 through the CRT website. 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.