“Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers” Now on Exhibit

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An eye-opening exhibition of a ground-breaking 20th-century American puppeteer, Dick Myers, is now on display at the Ballard Museum.  ”Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers” is a fascinating in-depth look at a puppeteer’s puppeteer—an innovative and ingenious designer, builder, and performer whose work, while highly respected in the international world of puppetry, never brought him fame.

Curated by Puppet Arts Program graduate student Seth Shaffer, “Exceptional and Uncommon” brings together scores of rod puppets, marionettes, and hand puppets designed and performed by Myers; innovative sound, lighting, and stage equipment he designed; photographs of Myers at work and in performance; and a documentary video filmed and edited by Shaffer in which Myers’s friends and colleagues describe his work and his life.

Dick Myers was one of the leading American puppeteers of the later 20th century.  Although his work is now relatively unknown, in its time his puppet shows were highly respected by puppeteers around the world for the compelling and original design of the puppets, Myers’ skillful manipulation, and the challenging tasks he set out and achieved with his creations.

In the early years of his career Dick Myers worked with many well-known puppeteers including Connecticut’s Rufus and Margo Rose, and Martin and Olga Stevens of Indiana.  He was, however, best known for his unique solo rod puppet shows: Dick Whittington’s Cat (1966), Cinderella(1967), Beauty and the Beast (1969), Simple Simon (1976), and Divertissement (1978).

“Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers” is a revelatory and thought-provoking window into puppetry of the late 20th century, when American puppeteers combined technological innovations with home-grown humor and popular culture in order to re-define puppetry as an aspect of contemporary American culture.

Summer Family Puppet Series

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This Summer, The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry will once again be presenting puppet shows for all ages performed by students from the famed UConn Puppet Arts Program.

Every Saturday from June 29th to July 27th at 3 pm, join us for these exciting and unique presentations.

Performances will take place at The Puppet Arts Complex (as the Thompson Building on this map) down the street from The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry on UConn’s Depot Campus off US-44.

June 29th, 3 pm: Puppet Arts Family Friendly Potpourri! Vignettes from current Puppet Arts students including “The Fluff Catillion,” a meow-velous toy theater by Dana Samorski and Carianne Hoff, and “The Most Beautiful Tree” a toy theater production by Anna Fitzgerald.

July 6th, 3pm: Seth Shaffer performs Dick Myers’ Cinderella with Myers’ unique rod puppets. Come early or stay late and check out the Dick Myers exhibition at The Ballard Museum.

July 13th, 3pm: Xing Xin’s Shadow Show. Xing Xin Liu’s original pieces of shadow theater, inspired by her studies with Chinese Shadow Puppet masters.

July 20th, 3pm: Seth Shaffer performs Dick Myers’ Beauty and the Beast with Myers’ unique rod puppets. Come early or stay late and check out the Dick Myers exhibition at The Ballard Museum.

July 27th, 3pm: Sarah Nolen’s Tales from the Woods including her shadow puppet performance of “Lisa the Wise.”

 

Performances are $5  for Adults and $3 for children. Come early or stay late to see the current exhibitions at The Ballard Museum.

A Toy Theater by Dana Samborski and Carianne Hoff

 

Summer Family Puppet Series

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This Summer, The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry will once again be presenting puppet shows for all ages performed by students from the famed UConn Puppet Arts Program.

Every Saturday from June 29th to July 27th at 3 pm, join us for these exciting and unique presentations.

Performances will take place at The Puppet Arts Complex (as the Thompson Building on this map) down the street from The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry on UConn’s Depot Campus off US-44.

Seth Shaffer will perform Dick Myers’ Cinderella

June 29th, 3 pm: Puppet Arts Family Friendly Potpourri! Vignettes from current Puppet Arts students including “The Fluff Catillion,” a meow-velous toy theater by Dana Samorski and Carianne Hoff, and “The Most Beautiful Tree” a toy theater production by Anna Fitzgerald.

July 6th, 3pm: Seth Shaffer performs Dick Myers’ Cinderella with Myers’ unique rod puppets. Come early or stay late and check out the Dick Myers exhibition at The Ballard Museum.

July 13th, 3pm: Xing Xin’s Shadow Show. Xing Xin Liu’s original pieces of shadow theater, inspired by her studies with Chinese Shadow Puppet masters.

July 20th, 3pm: Seth Shaffer performs Dick Myers’ Beauty and the Beast with Myers’ unique rod puppets. Come early or stay late and check out the Dick Myers exhibition at The Ballard Museum.

July 27th, 3pm: Sarah Nolen’s Tales from the Woods including her shadow puppet performance of “Lisa the Wise.”

 

Performances are $5  for Adults and $3 for children. Come early or stay late to see the current exhibitions at The Ballard Museum.

A Toy Theater by Dana Samborski and Carianne Hoff

 

Ballard Institute Moving to New Location in Downtown Storrs this Fall

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The new Ballard Institute at Downtown Storrs will be located in this complex.

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, part of the University of Connecticut’s world-renowned puppet programs in the School of Fine Arts, will become part of Downtown Storrs in the fall.

The museum will relocate from its current location at UConn’s Depot campus to a more accessible exhibition and performance space that is part of the new branch of the UConn Co-op in Downtown Storrs.

“Our move to Downtown Storrs is a great opportunity for the Ballard Institute to thrive in the middle of a busy community environment,” says John Bell, Director of the museum and a theater historian. “We are looking forward to expanding our hours of operation, presenting more puppet performances, forums, film showings, and symposia, and collaborating with other parts of the UConn and Mansfield community.”

In its new home, the Ballard Institute and Museum will occupy 4,332 square-feet of museum, performance, and support space on the first floor of the building, providing for an expanded space for one large exhibition or two smaller simultaneous exhibitions.

“We are very excited about the move,” says Cynthia van Zelm, Executive Director of the Mansfield Downtown Partnership, Inc. “We feel it will be a destination for visitors with a key location inside the UConn Co-op and near restaurants and other businesses in the downtown.”

The Museum’s permanent collection includes 2,500 puppets consisting of a wide variety of marionettes, hand puppets, shadow fingers, rod puppets, toy theaters, and other figures, as well as hundreds of traditional puppets from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. It also includes hundreds of books and more than 1,000 videos and other audio-visual resources.

William Simpson, President and Chief Operating Officer of the UConn Co-op, says working with the Museum in its new Downtown Storrs location will create an innovative experience for the UConn Co-op and its patrons.

“This will offer the bookstore customer/museum patron a unique environment that they will want to experience again and again. We can’t wait,” says Simpson.

Tony Sarg marionettes from “The Mikado” (1936).

Current exhibitions at the Museum at the Depot campus include “Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers,” the first-ever exhibition devoted to the unique puppetry of Dick Myers, whose one-man shows excited audiences around the world in the mid-20th century; and “Strings, Rods, and Robots: Recent Acquisitions,” which showcases the exhilarating diversity of puppets from around the world recently acquired by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.

UConn is one of only two universities in the country offering a bachelor’s of fine arts in puppet arts and the only one offering master’s degrees in puppet arts. Graduates of the program perform and design for many theatres around the world. Shortly before her death earlier this month, Jane Henson, a puppeteer and original collaborator with Muppets creator Jim Henson, donated $100,000 to establish a scholarship fund for students majoring in puppet arts.

Downtown Storrs is a new mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented downtown in Mansfield, Connecticut.  The downtown features shops, restaurants, services, and apartment homes that are interspersed with a town square and public areas in a new neighborhood located at the intersection of Storrs Road and the University of Connecticut.

 

“Strings, Rods, Robots: Recent Acquisitions” Showcases Global Puppet Traditions and Innovations

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Kathpulti Marionettes from Rajasthan, India

Puppets from around the world representing several centuries worth of global traditions, as well as as cutting-edge hybrids of puppetry and digital technology, make up the rich array of performing objects on display in the Ballard Institute’s new exhibition Strings, Rods, Robots: Recent Acquisitions.

 

Jim Henson’s “Wizard of Id”

The exhibition, curated by UConn Art and Art History graduate student Lindsay Simon, showcases an exhilarating diversity of puppets from around the world recently donated to the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.  Strings, Rods, Robots exhibition brings together ancient puppet traditions and Modernist innovations, with objects ranging from Vietnamese water puppets, Persian ritual marionettes, and Javanese shadow puppets to 1930s Alabama marionettes, department store automata by Ellen Rixford, a lifesize robotic marionette by French media artist Zaven Paré, traditional Egyptian shadow puppets, a Dada-inspired marionette by Australian artist Sally Smart, a spectacular Danish toy theater, and a stunning array of global puppet forms collected by John E. and Marilyn O’Connor Miller.

Electronic Marionette by Zaven Paré

These visually striking–and sometimes startling–juxtapositions reveal the contemporary world of puppetry as a fecund and florid network of hybrid culture, where centuries-old traditions of epic, religious, comic, and political puppetry performed with wooden, cloth, and leather figures rub shoulders with mechanical or electronic puppets made of plastic, metal, and glass.  And yet, despite these fascinating contradictions, the old and new puppets continue to reveal to us what is happening in our societies, with insight, humor, and wisdom.

“Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers” Now on Exhibit

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Cinderella and the Prince, from Dick Myers’s “Cinderella”

An eye-opening exhibition of a ground-breaking 20th-century American puppeteer, Dick Myers, is now on display at the Ballard Museum.  “Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers” is a fascinating in-depth look at a puppeteer’s puppeteer—an innovative and ingenious designer, builder, and performer whose work, while highly respected in the international world of puppetry, never brought him fame.

Curated by Puppet Arts Program graduate student Seth Shaffer, “Exceptional and Uncommon” brings together scores of rod puppets, marionettes, and hand puppets designed and performed by Myers; innovative sound, lighting, and stage equipment he designed; photographs of Myers at work and in performance; and a documentary video filmed and edited by Shaffer in which Myers’s friends and colleagues describe his work and his life.

Dick Myers was one of the leading American puppeteers of the later 20th century.  Although his work is now relatively unknown, in its time his puppet shows were highly respected by puppeteers around the world for the compelling and original design of the puppets, Myers’ skillful manipulation, and the challenging tasks he set out and achieved with his creations.

In the early years of his career Dick Myers worked with many well-known puppeteers including Connecticut’s Rufus and Margo Rose, and Martin and Olga Stevens of Indiana.  He was, however, best known for his unique solo rod puppet shows: Dick Whittington’s Cat (1966), Cinderella (1967), Beauty and the Beast (1969), Simple Simon (1976), and Divertissement (1978).

“Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers” is a revelatory and thought-provoking window into puppetry of the late 20th century, when American puppeteers combined technological innovations with home-grown humor and popular culture in order to re-define puppetry as an aspect of contemporary American culture.

UCONN Spring Puppet Slam: Friday May 3rd, 8 pm at The Palace Theater in Stafford, CT!

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Back in February our UConn Winter Puppet Slam was thwarted by snow. Thankfully, Spring is here and the event–now the UConn Spring Puppet Slam is back on for Friday May 3rd at 8pm.

The show will take place at a new location: the Palace Theater in Stafford, Connecticut, a few miles from the UConn Main Campus. Tickets are $5. You can buy them in advance here.

Our UConn Spring Puppet Slam performers will include Great Small Works, performing their toy theater spectacle Living Newspaper; Jana Zeller, performing a hand-puppet excerpt from her Spybird Theater production Eye of the Storm;  Jim Napolitano presenting a dynamic shadow theater show; and Puppet Arts students  Anna Fitzgerald, Carianne Hoff, Seth Shaffer, Dana Samborski, and Sarah Nolen all presenting new works for puppet and mask theater.  Join us for this exciting event!

Please find a map and other information here.

This event is supported by a generous grant from the Puppet Slam Network.

Great Small Works' Living Newspaper

UConn Puppetry Will Be Featured in “World of Puppetry” Events at Windsor Art Center, March 16-April 27

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Giant puppet by Anne Cubberly.

Scores of puppets created by Frank Ballard, UConn Puppet Arts students and teachers, and selections from the Ballard Institute puppet collections will be featured in The World of Puppetry, an exhibition of puppets and accompanying talks, performances, and workshops at the Windsor Art Center in Windsor Connecticut.  Curated by famed Hartford kinetic sculptor and puppeteer Anne Cubberly, The World of Puppetry will feature talks by Puppet Arts Director Bart Roccoberton (April 7), Ballard Institute Director John Bell (April 14), a Puppet Pot Pie Puppet Slam organized by Puppet Arts Technical Supervisor Paul Spirito (April 6), and performances by UConn Puppet Arts alumnus Jim Napolitano (April 18), as well as workshops and presentations by Anne Cubberly herself.

The opening reception for The World of Puppetry is Saturday, March 16.  See below for a full schedule of events.

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The World of Puppetry

Opening Reception March 16, 5-7 PM

Members’ Preview 4:30 PM

The exhibition will feature puppets by UConn Puppet Arts founder Frank Ballard.

Please join us at the Windsor Art Center for this exhibition of puppets, talks, performances and workshops to learn more about the World of Puppetry. Curated by kinetic sculptor, Anne Cubberly. A special thank you to the Puppets Arts Program and Bart Roccoberton, and the Ballard Museum and John Bell, University of Connecticut, Storrs, for the loan of puppets for this exhibition.

Thursday, March, 21 • 6:30-7:30 PM. How I Became The Puppet Lady. Anne Cubberly will talk about her adventures in becoming a kinetic sculptor and community artist. FREE.

Saturday, April 6 • 2-4 PM. Puppet Pot Pie. A program bringing together wonderful puppeteers from our region. Fun for the whole family. Suggested donation: $10/adults; $5/kids 6-12; kids 5 and under FREE.

Sunday, April 7 • 1-2 PM. Behind The Puppet Stage. Talk by Bart Roccoberton, Professor of Puppet Arts, University of Connecticut. FREE.

Saturday, April 13 • 2-4. PM Puppets Alive workshop with Anne Cubberly. Children of all ages make their own puppets. Suggested donation: $5/door.

The exhibition will also include Tolu Bommalatta shadow figures from Andhra Pradesh, from the Jano Fairservis Collection.

Sunday, April 14 • 2 PM. Puppets, Modernism, and Global Culture. Talk by John Bell, Director, Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry. FREE.

Thursday April 18 • 6:30-7:30 PM. Puppet theater performance with Jim Napolitano of Nappy’s Puppets to entertain, inspire and educate the audience on the range and scope of puppetry as an art form. Suggested donation: $10/door

Saturday, April 20 • 2-4 PM. Shadow Puppet workshop with Anne Cubberly, Puppeteer. Children and adults. Suggested donation: $5/door.

All events will take place at the Windsor Arts Center, located at the corner of Central Street and Mechanic Street in downtown Windsor, Connecticut, just north of Hartford.  The Arts Center is open Thursday 6 to 8 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.   See the Windsor Arts Center website for directions.

March 13 Puppet Forum Will Celebrate Manteo Family’s Sicilian Puppetry in New York City

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Tony De Nonno and a Sicilian marionette. Photo courtesy Tony De Nonno.

Join us Wednesday, March 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ballard Institute to welcome producer-writer-director Tony De Nonno in a celebration of the Manteo Family Sicilian marionette tradition, which for many decades in the early 20th century was a hallmark of New York City’s cultural life.   De Nonno’s lecture, presentation, and marionette demonstration will feature live performances of the colorful and vivid Sicilian marionette tradition, as well as a screening of De Nonno’s film about the Manteo Family, It’s One Family: Knock on Wood.

Showcasing the extraordinary power of Sicilian marionettes with puppets from the Manteo Family collection, De Nonno will take us on an enlightening journey into the life and legacy of puppeteers Mike and Aida Manteo and their children and grandchildren, a family bound together by a Sicilian folk tradition that spans a century in America, from the moment when the Manteo Marionette Theater was first established on Mulberry Street in Manhattan’s Little Italy in 1918.

Aida Manteo Grillo with Orlando, hero of Sicilian puppetry. Photo courtesy Tony De Nonno.

De Nonno’s presentation will engage the audience as active participants to marvel at the marionettes, resplendent in their suits of armor, who will strut, walk, talk and engage in battle-ready combat stances with chivalrous aplomb.

De Nonno will then introduce It’s One Family: Knock on Wood, his award-winning, nationally broadcast PBS Network documentary about the Manteos.

“I am looking forward to sharing this magnificent and enduring art form with everyone in attendance at the Ballard Museum of Puppetry,” Mr. De Nonno has said; “and especially revealing to them how the glorious Sicilian Marionette tradition contributed greatly to the birth of literature, history and so much more. It will be a joyous and memorable experience for all.”

Aida Manteo Grillo, “Papa” Mike Manteo, and Leo. Photo courtesy Tony De Nonno.

This event is free, and donations are greatly appreciated.  Refreshments will be served.  For directions to the Ballard Institute see this link.

For more info about Tony De Nonno please visit: www.denonnoproductions.com.

Ballard Museum Gala Opening Saturday, March 30

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Join us Saturday, March 30 from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Ballard Museum on UConn’s Depot Campus for our gala opening and celebration of two new exhibitions of extraordinary puppetry:  Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers, and Strings, Rods, and Robots: Recent Acquisitions.

Rod puppets by Dick Myers. Photo by Sara Nolen.

Exceptional and Uncommon: The Puppetry of Dick Myers is the first-ever exhibition devoted to the unique puppetry of Dick Myers, an unusually skilled—yet now relatively unknown—artist, engineer, and performer whose one-man shows excited audiences around the world in the mid-20th century.  This fascinating exhibition, curated by Puppet Arts MFA student Seth Shaffer, features Myers’ one-of-a-kind designs for Dick Whittington’s Cat (1966), Cinderella (1968), Beauty and the Beast (1972), Simple Simon (1976) and Divertissement (1978), as well as backstage views of Myers’ unique designs.

 

 

Marionette by Sally Smart. Photo courtesy of Contemporary Art Galleries.

Strings, Rods, and Robots: Recent Acquisitions showcases the exhilarating diversity of puppets from around the world recently acquired by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.  Curated by UConn Art and Art History graduate student Lindsay Simon, the exhibition juxtaposes ancient puppet traditions with Modernist interpretations, with objects ranging from Vietnamese water puppets, Persian ritual rod puppets, and Javanese shadow puppets to 1930s Alabama marionettes, department store automata by Ellen Rixford, a lifesize robotic marionette by French media artist Zaven Paré, traditional Egyptian shadow puppets, a Dada-inspired marionette by Australian artist Sally Smart, and a stunning array of global puppet forms collected by John E. and Marilyn O’Connor Miller.

 

 

The Gala Opening Day events will begin with a ribbon cutting ceremony with UConn School of Fine Arts Dean Bríd Grant, followed by guided tours of the exhibitions led by the curators.  At 3 p.m., Seth Shaffer and revered puppeteer Allelu Kurten, a longtime friend of Dick Myers, will discuss Myers’s work in a special UConn Puppet Forum in the Ballard Institute Conference Room.

Refreshments will be served throughout the event.

Following the Gala Opening, the Ballard Museum will be open to the public Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m.  Admission to the museum is free, but donations are greatly appreciated.

For more information about the Gala Opening, email bimp@uconn.edu.  Make sure to check our facebook page for regular updates on Ballard Institute activities.

For directions and map to the Ballard Institute see this link.