The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut, in partnership with the Mansfield Downtown Partnership, will host Community Puppet-Building Workshops for area residents on Saturday, September 6 and Saturday, September 13 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Ballard Institute workshop space (1 Royce Circle, Storrs, CT). The workshops will be led by the Director of Boston’s Puppeteers Cooperative, Sara Peattie, and the Director of the Ballard Institute, Dr. John Bell, in collaboration with the UConn Co-op Bookstore.

Workshop attendees will make oversized masks of their favorite Connecticut authors. Participants will be invited to parade with their puppets in the Celebrate Mansfield Parade on September 21, beginning at noon. After the parade, the masks will be displayed at the UConn Co-op Bookstore in Storrs Center.

These mask-making workshops are free and open to all who would like to participate. Attendees are not required to attend both workshops and can drop in anytime between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. to take part in the workshops. No prior puppet-building experience is necessary.

Pre-registration is recommended. Contact Emily Wicks at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at 860.486.8585 or emily.wicks@uconn.edu.These workshops are supported in part by the Downtown Mansfield Partnership. For more information, visit bimp.uconn.edu.

Students from UConn Professor John O’Donnell’s Experimental Animation Art class will present their works at the Ballard Institute Performance Space on May 29 at 6:00pm.

Admission is free.

Featuring the works of

Casey Higgins

Desiree Fredericks

Erica Laucella

Nick Ransom

We invite you to join us on Wednesday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m. in the new Ballard Institute at Storrs Center for our next Spring Puppet Forum event with Roman Paska titled “The Quintessence of Puppetry.”

Internationally acclaimed puppeteer, director, and writer Roman Paska discusses his work for live performance and film, as well as his theoretical writings about the nature of puppet performance.

Admission to this event is free (donations greatly appreciated!), and refreshments will be served. Come early, and experience our three new puppet exhibitions in our new Storrs Center home, as well as the video resources inour library nook. This forum will also be live-streamed on our UStream page. Visit bimp.uconn.edu for more information.

We invite you to join us this Wednesday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the new Ballard Institute at Storrs Center for our next Spring Puppet Forum event with Richard Termine titled “Puppets Through the Lens: Photography and the Performing Object.”

Acclaimed photographer and UConn Puppet Arts graduate Richard Termine will discuss the dynamics of capturing puppet performance via the camera, and his photographs in the current Ballard Institute exhibition devoted to his work.

Admission to this event is free (donations greatly appreciated!), and refreshments will be served. Come early, and experience our three new puppet exhibitions in our new Storrs Center home, as well as the video resources in our library nook. This forum will also be live-streamed on our UStream page. Visit bimp.uconn.edu for more information.

We invite you to join us this Wednesday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the new Ballard Institute at Storrs Center for our next Spring Puppet Forum event with Dr. Robert S. Herr titled “Puppets at the Vanguard:  The Strident Voice and Radical Politics of Mexico’s Post-Revolutionary Teatro Guiñol.”  This forum is co-sponsored by El Instituto: UConn’s Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean and Latin American Studies.

Dr. Robert S. Herr, from Dartmouth College’s Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies Program, will discuss the nature of 1920s and 30s activist puppet theater in Mexico, when artists, teachers and state officials collaborated to stage educational plays in working class neighborhoods and rural communities in an effort to foster revolutionary citizens.

Admission to this event is free (donations greatly appreciated!), and refreshments will be served.  Come early, and experience our three new puppet exhibitions in our new Storrs Center home, as well as the video resources in our library nook. This forum will also be live-streamed on our UStream page.  Visit bimp.uconn.edu for more information.

The Ballard Institute’s Spring 2014 Puppet Forum Series features an array of fascinating approaches to the world of puppetry from renowned scholars, puppeteers, writers, and photographers in a program of Wednesday evening events at the new Ballard Institute at Storrs Center, 1 Royce Circle in downtown Storrs.  Each puppet forum will begin at 7:30 p.m., and will also be streamed on the internet.  These events are free and open to the public; donations are gratefully accepted.  Refreshments will be served.

The Puppet Forum series includes the following presentations:

March 12: Grant Hayter-Menzies, Shadow Woman: The Extraordinary Career of Pauline Benton.

Co-sponsored by the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute.  Author Grant Hayter-Menzies discusses his new book about Kansas-born puppeteer Pauline Benton (1898-1974) who discovered piyingxi shadow theater in Beijing, mastered its techniques, and popularized the form across the United States during the Great Depression.  In conjunction with the UConn Co-op Bookstore at Storrs Center.

March 26: “Rod Puppets and the Human Theater: Frank Ballard Productions at  UConn.”

Join a panel discussion with student curator Sarah Nolen, Puppet Arts faculty, and alumni about Frank Ballard’s rod puppet productions at UConn, the nature of rod puppetry, and the design, construction, and performance processes of this work.

April 9: Robert Herr, “Puppets at the Vanguard:  The Strident Voice and Radical Politics of Mexico’s Post-Revolutionary Teatro Guiñol.”

Co-sponsored by El Instituto.  Dr. Robert S. Herr, from Dartmouth College’s Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies Program, discusses the nature of 1920s and 30s activist puppet theater in Mexico, when artists, teachers and state officials collaborated to stage educational plays in working class neighborhoods and rural communities in an effort to foster revolutionary citizens.

April 16: Richard Termine, “Puppets Through the Lens: Photography and the Performing Object.”

Acclaimed photographer and UConn Puppet Arts graduate Richard Termine discusses the dynamics of capturing puppet performance via the camera, and his photographs in the current Ballard Institute exhibition devoted to his work.

April 30: Roman Paska, “The Quintessence of Puppetry.”

Internationally acclaimed puppeteer, director, and writer Roman Paska discusses his work for live performance and film, as well as his theoretical writings about the nature of puppet performance.