Events

UConn Puppet Alumni Open House at Ballard Institute

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Join us during UConn’s Alumni Weekend at an open house for UConn Puppet Alumni, on Saturday, June 4 from 3 to 5 p.m.  The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry on UConn’s Depot Campus will host an open house event to welcome UConn Puppet Alumni and the people who love them.

Join us for snacks and refreshments and meet with other puppet alumni.  We will offer free tours of our two new exhibitions devoted to the work of our namesake: Frank Ballard: An Odyssey of a Life in Puppetry, (curated by puppet alumna Rolande Duprey) and Frank Ballard: Roots and Branches.

Help us with our on-going documentation of Puppet Arts history by recording your stories and thoughts about your work here, Frank Ballard, and other aspects of UConn puppetry.

We will be happy to show you what we are doing at the Ballard Institute, including our workshops, forums, traveling exhibitions, conference(s), tours, and ongoing preservation, digitization, repair, and cataloguing projects.

Hope to see you on June 4!

Two new exhibitions dedicated to Frank Ballard, now open!

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Come see our newly opened exhibitions—Frank Ballard: An Odyssey of a Life in Puppetry(curated by UConn Puppet alumna Rolande Duprey) and Frank Ballard: Roots and Branches—examine Ballard’s life and work, his creation of the UConn’s famed Puppet Arts Program, and his many spectacular puppet productions.

Frank Ballard: An Odyssey of a Life in Puppetry

Frank Ballard’s rich career as a director, designer, and teacher is celebrated in this retrospective curated by UConn alumna Rolande Duprey.  The exhibition presents the stories, designs, construction processes, and performance of Ballard’s many productions, including rare video footage, as well as the many personal challenges Ballard faced in his career.  Featuring puppets and sets from The Bluebird, Two By Two, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Magic Flute,Peer Gynt, The Golden Cockerel and other productions.

Frank Ballard: Roots and Branches

What made Frank Ballard, born in Alton, Illinois in 1929, pursue a life in puppetry?  This exhibition examines the many influences on Ballard’s work, from the 1930s traveling shows of Romain and Ellen Proctor, to the puppet modernism of Tony Sarg, Rufus and Margo Rose, Marjorie Batchelder McPharlin, and Jim Henson.  Frank Ballard’s fascination with the Kungsholm Miniature Opera and Sidney Chrysler’s toy theater operas is explored, as well as the influences of a wide range of global puppet traditions Ballard studied, including Karagöz, Javanese rod-puppet theater, and Chinese shadow theater.

 

2011 Spring Opening Gala!

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Dear Ballard Institute Friends,

We would like to invite you to attend the spring opening of the Ballard Institute, and two new exhibitions dedicated to our namesake, Frank Ballard, in a gala opening celebration on Sunday, March 27 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Ballard Museum on the University of Connecticut’s Depot Campus.  The exhibitions—Frank Ballard: An Odyssey of a Life in Puppetry (curated by UConn Puppet alumna Rolande Duprey) and Frank Ballard: Roots and Branches—examine Ballard’s life and work, his creation of the UConn’s famed Puppet Arts Program, and his many spectacular puppet productions.  The event will include free museum tours, refreshments, and a program of Gilbert and Sullivan songs sung by members of the UConn Music Department’s Opera Studio.

Again, we are located at:

Ballard Museum on the University of Connecticut’s Depot Campus

6 Bourne Place, Unit 5212

Storrs, Connecticut 06269-5212

(for directions see) bimp.uconn.edu

International Puppetry Conference

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The University of Connecticut hosted the International Puppetry Conference on April 1-3, and it was an amazing event for all 160+ scholars, puppeteers, and students who attended.
See the IPC website for more information.

The conference sought to explore new approaches to critical thinking and theorizing about puppetry and performing objects of all kinds, and to bring new multidisciplinary views to bear on the subject of puppetry—conceived in the broadest terms—in order to enrich, expand, and enliven the field of discourse.  The conference was the first large-scale international scholarly puppetry conference in the U.S.

An anthology of articles first presented as papers at the conference is now in preparation, edited by Claudia Orenstein of Hunter College, Dassia Posner of Northwestern University, and John Bell of the Ballard Institute.

We hope to post images and video documentation of the conference on this site.  Stay tuned!

Puppetry and Postdramatic Performance
802 Bolton Rd., Unit 1127 Storrs, Connecticut 06269-1127
puppetconference@gmail.com
860- 486- 0339 (BIMP)