On exhibit March 1-June 1, 2014
One of the groundbreaking aspects of Frank Ballard’s teaching at UConn was his innovative use of rod puppets—of all different forms and sizes—in rich spectacles featuring scores of characters and lavish sets.
Puppet Forum with Roman Paska on April 30, “The Quintessence of Puppetry”
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.
Puppet Forum on April 16 with Richard Termine, “Puppets Through the Lens: Photography and the Performing Object”
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.
Puppet Forum Wednesday, April 9: Radical Guiñol in Post-Revolutionary Mexico
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.
“Tito’s Dream” at the Ballard Institute Performance Space, April 4-5
We invite you to see Tito’s Dream, a work-in-progress production at the new Ballard Institute devised by UConn Guest Professor Carlos Garcia, Paulo Serantes, and several graduate and undergraduate students from the UConn School of Fine Arts, including Puppet Arts graduate student Anna Fitzgerald, who will be performing puppetry elements of the production. Tito’s Dream will be performed this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in our new theater space. For tickets:
FRI 4 APR at 7PM (reservations: (860)486-8580)
SAT 5 APR at 8PM (reservations: (860)486-2113)
SAT 5 APR at 10PM (reservations: (860)486-2113)
Carlos Garcia writes: “Tito’s Dream is a collection of short poems that describe the poetic journey of a boy (Tito) searching for his mother who left forever. Tito, naively believing that his mother moved to the moon, confronts many elements as he tries to reach her. He will also feel the pain of saying goodbye to his childhood friend, Paulina. This journey is an allegory of the passage from childhood to adulthood.
Cast: Darek Burkowski, Posy Knight, James Jelkin and Sarah Jensen
Puppetry: Anna Fitgerald
Music: Nick Trautman, Michael Albaine
Drawings: Kayla Blanchard
Costumes: Pat Ubaldi
Production: UCONN, Scott Ripley and Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry
Directed by Carlos García Estévez
Assistant Director: Paulo Serantes
at Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppertry, Storrs (CT)
Punto en el cielo
Go beyond the space,
get here.
Go beyond the time,
get now.
The here and now
is a beautiful star,
punto en el cielo
con ojos azules como la vida!
Little point,
there is no time, no space
but only here and now…
-pure state of an emotion-
Then sleep! Beyond it…
in that point
where you dream!
Tito’s Dream, 2nd Poem
Carlos García Estévez
UConn Puppet Forum Series will feature rich new facets of puppetry studies
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.
“Objects, Environments, and Actants” Symposium at UConn March 29-30
How do objects and spaces perform? What role does the material world play in performance? On March 29-30, 2014, scholars and artists will gather for a symposium titled “Objects, Environments, and Actants: Intersections in Material Performance.” The symposium will take place at the new Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry in Storrs Center, and is hosted by the Ballard Institute and the UConn Theatre Studies program.
This symposium asks us to think across disciplinary boundaries about objects and environments and their interactions with humans in performance. Drawing on recent scholarship in thing theory, material culture studies, puppetry studies, and object-oriented ontology, we will consider how puppets, props, costumes, masks, physical environments, and human actors intersect in performance.
The symposium will include scholarly papers, performances, roundtable discussions, and a tour of Jerry Rojo’s historic Mobius Theatre environmental performance space at the University of Connecticut’s Dramatic Arts Department.
Schedule (subject to change):
Saturday, March 29
9:00-9:30 Coffee
9:30-10:00 Welcome and Opening Remarks
10:00-11:25 Panel 1: Action and Automata
John Bell (Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry & Department of Dramatic Arts, University of Connecticut), “Robots and Performance: the Persistent Theatricality of Machines”
Nick Knouf (Cinema and Media Studies, Wellesley College), “Noise, Parrhesia, and the Enunciative Potentials of Performing Objects”
Thomas Meacham (Theatre Studies, University of Connecticut), “The Boxley Rood of Grace as Actant: Puppetry and Object-Oriented Ontologies of Iterative Affective Performance””
11:35-1:00 Panel 2: The Thing Chosen: How Objects Influence Performance
Elisha Conway (Department of English, McGill University), “Living Objects: Questions for Design and Acting in the Use of Puppets”
James Mirrione (Theatre Department, United Arab Emirates University),“Concerning the Concealed: the mask and puppetry art of Louay Assaf with United Arab Emirati Female Students in Measure for Measure”
Anna Fitzgerald (Puppet Arts Program, University of Connecticut), “A Thing Performed: Why and How to Choose an Inanimate Object on Stage”
1:00-2:00 Lunch
2:00-3:00 Performance and Discussion:
Adelka Polak (Artistic Director, SOVA Theater), “Environmental Entanglement”
3:05-4:35 Panel 3: Subjects and Objects in Performance
Jane Shaw (Independent Artist), “Performing The Real Thing”
Theodora Skipitares (Pratt Institute), “Rituals of the Performing Object”
Dawn Brandes (University of King’s College), “Looking Back: The Puppet’s Gaze in Neville Tranter’s The Seven Deadly Sins”
4:35-5:00 Free time
5:00-6:00 Tour of the Mobius Theatre at UConn’s Dramatic Arts Department
Led by Bart Roccoberton (Puppet Arts Program, University of Connecticut) and Jerry Rojo (Dramatic Arts, University of Connecticut, emeritus)
6:10-7:30 Dinner
8:00 Performance of Goblin Market
Directed by Penny Benson (Puppet Arts Program, University of Connecticut)
Sunday, March 3o
9:00-9:30 Coffee
9:30-11:00 Panel 4: Space, Place, and Scale
Lindsay Cummings (Theatre Studies, University of Connecticut), “How to Do Things with A Tuft of Grass: Theatre, Ecology, and the Non-Human Actor”
Jemma Alix Levy (Artistic Director, Muse of Fire Theatre Company), “Achilles’ Tent—A Place Within A Place”
Beth Milles (Department of Performing and Media Arts, Cornell University), “Occupation and Object: An Investigational Distillation—Over/taking Space and the Moment in Performance”
11:00-12:00 Richard Schechner (Performance Studies, New York University),
“Environmental Theater and the Performance Group: A Conversation with Richard Schechner” (via Skype from Abu Dhabi)
12:00-12:30 Wrap up
12:30-1:00 Goodbyes
DETAILS:
To register for the symposium, follow this link to our registration form: Spring 2014 Symposium Registration Form
Completed forms can be sent to bimp@uconn.edu or mailed to:
Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry
Attn: Emily Wicks
1 Royce Circle, Suite 101B
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06268
Contact information for local hotels can be found here: Places to Stay Near UConn
Objects, Environments, and Actants is organized by Lindsay Cummings, Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at UConn; John Bell, Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry; and Emily Wicks, Program Assistant at the Ballard Institute. Sponsored by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, the UConn Theatre Studies program, and the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut.
UConn Puppet Forum Series will feature rich new facets of puppetry studies
The Ballard Institute’s Spring 2014 Puppet Forum Series will feature 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 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 and Proselytizing: Politics and Nation-Building in Post-Revolutionary Mexico’s Didactic Theater”
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
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.
“Reverse Cascade” – A New Puppet Arts Production – Premieres at The Ballard Institute March 1st!
On Saturday, March 1st the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry will inaugurate its brand-new black-box theater in its Storrs Center home with Reverse Cascade, a new Puppet Arts Production by MFA candidate Anna Fitzgerald. The premiere performances of the production at 1:00 and 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 1 will coincide with the grand opening of the Storrs Center complex that day at 2 p.m.
In Fitzgerald’s new found-object puppet production juggling clubs, rings, scarves and clown noses transform before the audience to tell a story based on the life of Judy Finelli, the renowned San Francisco-based “new circus” performer and juggler whose body began to betray her. Eventually diagnosed with rapidly progressing Multiple Sclerosis, Finelli confronts the fact that she will lose the use of her body, and, it seems, her life’s work.
Reverse Cascade highlights the humanity of an artist and performer. At times both funny and tragic, the show the reveals the ups and downs of a life that seems to follow the bell curve of a “reverse cascade” juggling pattern. In addition to careful puppetry manipulation, the production also features Michael Albaine and Nicholas Trauttman of UConn’s Music Department, who accompany the performers with live original music.
There are nine chances to see this unique puppet performance, but seating is limited so reserve your tickets now at the Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s website. Tickets are $10 if purchased ahead online, $12 at the door, and $8 for students.
Performances:
Opening – Saturday March 1st – 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. (Ribbon Cutting for the new Ballard Institute at 2 p.m.)
Sunday March 2 – 8 p.m.
Tuesday March 4 – 8 p.m.
Friday March 7 – 8 p.m.
Saturday March 8 – 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Sunday March 9 – 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
New Ballard Institute at Storrs Center to Open Saturday, March 1 in a Gala Celebration
The new Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at Storrs Center will open its doors on Saturday, March 1 at 2 p.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Institute’s new address: 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs, Connecticut. The festivities will celebrate three new exhibitions in the museum, and also the opening of the entire 1 Royce Circle complex, which includes the UConn Co-op Bookstore and Le Petit Café as well as the Ballard Institute. The opening will also coincide with the production of the first theatrical performances in the Ballard Institute’s new performance space–Puppet Arts student Anna Fitzgerald’s master’s thesis project Reverse Cascade. The opening ceremonies are free and open to the public.
The three new exhibitions featured in the Ballard Museum’s opening will focus on the puppetry of Frank Ballard, the photographic work of UConn Puppet Arts alumnus Richard Termine, and selections from the Ballard Institute’s vast collection of global puppet traditions. These exhibitions will be on display through the end of May.
Puppets through the Lens: Photography by Richard Termine features the revelatory work of Richard Termine, performing arts photographer for The New York Times, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall, and an alumnus of UConn’s Puppet Arts Program. In over 60 photographs Termine documents the amazing new energy of contemporary puppet performance, from giant spectacles on Broadway and in Las Vegas to avant-garde works of New York’s downtown scene; the set of Sesame Street, and exciting experiments from the Puppet Slam scene, the National Puppetry Conference, and other dynamic venues of the current puppet revival.
Spectacular Extravaganzas: The Rod Puppetry of Frank Ballard focuses on the innovative use of rod puppets by Frank Ballard over the course of his career at UConn. Ballard’s use of a variety of rod puppet techniques in rich spectacles featured scores of characters and lavish sets. This exhibition, curated by Puppet Arts MFA student Sarah Nolen features figures made by UConn students for such productions as The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, Petrushka, The Golden Cockerel, and The Ring of the Nibelung, offering a new perspective on a dynamic aspect of Frank Ballard’s work.
The World of Puppetry: From the Collections of the Ballard Institute showcases an array of different puppets carefully selected from over 2,600 puppets in the Ballard Institute collections to reflect the amazing richness of global puppet traditions and contemporary innovations in puppetry. The exhibition’s array of handpuppets, marionettes, rod puppets, toy theaters, and shadow figures from around the world will include work by Rufus and Margo Rose, Charles Ludlam, Janie Geiser, Marjorie Batchelder McPharlin, Tony Sarg, Bil Baird, Frank Ballard, and puppets from Indonesia, Africa, Iran, Germany, England, Latin America, and France.