Sat Nov 2 (9am-10:30am @ Community School of Music and Arts) Light and Heavy, Big and Small with Katya Popova
In the course of the workshop we will create big puppets from very light paper, with very heavy sack feet (sand or grains), as well as simple smaller marionettes and table top puppets. KISS (keep it simple stupid) is our mantra! This workshop is great for kids or grown ups alike. For all ages!
About Katya- Katya Popova is a Boston based artist, working at the intersection of painting, performance, and design. Katya received training in the fine arts in Moscow, Russia, before studying graphic design in the US. In addition to working as a graphic designer and illustrator, Katya has a background in physical theater and puppetry, often collaborating with sound artists. Her works explore what could have been by tracing the physical gestures and material qualities of everyday things.
In the past ten years, she has presented her work at numerous street festivals, shows and galleries, participated in artist residencies, and worked on projects with the Bread and Puppet Theater.
Katya is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA and received an MA at Boston University. Presently she teaches courses on Visual Art, Design, and Performance at the New England Conservatory of Music. Price $25.
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Sat Nov 2, Parade Puppets for Your Community (9am – 12:15pm @ Community School of Music and Arts) with Cheryl Capazzuti
Participants in this workshop will design and build a parade mask that can be easily transformed into a giant puppet. This workshop will focus on accessible and light-weight construction techniques using recycled materials for making the heads of giant puppets. Capezzuti will bring her set of interchangeable and swap-able puppet bodies so we can take our work on a test run at the Puppet Homecoming Parade on Sunday afternoon.
She will share the tools, skills, patterns, and techniques that she uses to make hundreds of puppets with people of all ages in her Pittsburgh community. As a bonus, participants will learn a selection of dances for giant puppets, inspired by her favorite project to date, Giant Puppet Dance Club. Ages 10 and up.
Cheryl Capezzuti has been making giant puppets and community-interactive public art experiences in Pittsburgh for more than 25 years. She is best known for the artist-made, people-powered First Night Pittsburgh Parade which features about 300 giant puppets, puppet-mobiles, dozens of musicians, pedicab puppets and over 400 volunteers making it happen. She’s been an Artist-in-Residence at the Pittsburgh International Airport where she made puppets to parade through the airport completely out travelers’ discards and she’s been commissioned by the City of Pittsburgh to tell its history using giant puppets for the Bicentennial Parade. She teaches at Falk Lab School at the University of Pittsburgh where her Giant Puppet Dance Club may be the most unexpected student program. Between parades, her puppets are housed at the Braddock Carnegie Free Library, one of Andrew Carnegie’s first libraries, and can be checked out by anyone with a library card for events, celebrations and just for fun. Learn more at www.puppetsforpittsburgh.com. Price $35.00
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Sat Nov 2, Puppet-athalon (10:45-12:15 @ Community School of Music and Arts) with Mary Nagler
Are you athletic? Have you aspired to be? Have you ever fantasized about being in the Olympics and winning gold? Here is your chance to make your dream come true! Popular at Regional Festivals on the West Coast, and at Dragon Con, the Puppet-Athlon is sweeping the Nation!
Training begins at the Puppet -Athlon workshop (Sat Nov 2, 10:45am -12:15pm) with some of the participants competing on the Puppet-Athlon course on stage before a cheering crowd (Potpourri show Sat, Nov 2, 10pm at CSMA)! Judges will decide who will win Gold, Silver, or Bronze, and go on to take their place in Puppet -Athlon history!! Ages 10 and up. Price $15.
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Sun Nov 3, Heads-Up (9am-10:30am @ Community School of Music and Arts) with Laurencio Ruiz
This workshop consists of creating a whimsical Luchador or Luchadora (wrestler) Mask Puppet Head with two paper cups that can bring home. The eyelids will be pre-cut to facilitate time managing and eye-moving effect. Additional materials will be supplied to participants to create their own puppet face. Great for children 5+. Parent assistance needed for children under 5. Workshop duration: 30 to 45 minutes.
Laurencio Ruiz is a lecturer of scenic design and puppetry at the Penn State School of Theatre. He holds an M.F.A. in Scenic Design from Penn State School of Theatre, and a B.A. in Graphic Design from Universidad Autónoma de Mexico, where he also studied visual arts. His experience as a trans-disciplinary designer and artist includes sets, costumes, puppets, masks, and props for cabaret, theater, television and film in Mexico and the U.S. Since his involvement with puppetry, he has been creating, directing, and performing original puppet shows at the Eugene O’Neil Theatre Center as an Emergent Artist, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philly Fringe Festival among other venues. He also received the Excellence and Variety Award in the field of short form adult puppet theatre by the National Puppet Slam Network, presented at the National Puppetry Festival in UConn, 2015; the KCACTF Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Scenic and Costume design for ‘Picnic’ in 2012, and for ‘Medea’ in 2006; the PSU College of Arts and Architecture Creative Achievement in Theatre Award in 2001. Price $17.
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Sat Nov 2, Sock Stick Puppets (10:45-12:15 @ Community School of Music and Arts) with Ryobina
Not your usual sock puppet! Make an easy to create stick puppet using a sock and materials you can easily find at home, such as sticks, paper, fabric, pipe cleaners, yarn and markers! You can use any extra materials you might find, like buttons, lace, or feathers! There is no sewing or gluing necessary, but both are optional. Younger people might need some help, but this is a fun class for any age; grown ups are allowed to play, too! Your puppet can be a person or an animal, and very simple or fabulously fancy!
Ryobina is a figment of her own imagination. A whimsical storyteller, puppet builder, and performer who creates strange and silly worlds. She makes short films, organizes Puppet Slams and events, and teaches puppet building & performing workshops. She creates theatrical productions with Honeyball Puppetry; RoRo Art is her toy-making business; and Puppet What What is the irrepressible sock puppet who bosses her around. Price $25.
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Sun Nov 3, Paper Dragon Puppets (9am-10:30am at the Community School of Music & Arts) with Ryobina
Build a large paper dragon based on a simple template, and fancy it up with different types of paper and shapes for the wings, tails, feet, horns, etc. A finished Dragon with be partially 3-D (a bit like origami; head, feet, wings) & partially flat (for flexibility; body and tail) and perhaps up to 1 foot long, with 2 rods for control. It can be person or an animal, and very simple or fabulously fancy! For adults.
Ryobina is a figment of her own imagination. A whimsical storyteller, puppet builder, and performer who creates strange and silly worlds. She makes short films, organizes Puppet Slams and events, and teaches puppet building & performing workshops. She creates theatrical productions with Honeyball Puppetry; RoRo Art is her toy-making business; and Puppet What What is the irrepressible sock puppet who bosses her around. Price $20.
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Sat Nov 2, Puppetry on Broadway (10:45am-12:15pm at the Community School of Music & Arts)
From the Pridelands to Arendelle, puppetry is a crucial part of storytelling, especially on Broadway. In this fun panel, come hear from the puppeteers, puppet builders and puppet designers who have made their dreams of working on Broadway into a reality. Prepare to be inspired! For adults.
Julia Schemmer is a graduate student, freelance production assistant and puppeteer based in New York City. Select production credits include Broadway: A Beautiful Noise, Back to the Future, Lempicka, MJ, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. TV: The Tonight Show, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Saturday Night Live, The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Schemmer holds a B.A. from Wilmington University in Communications and Marketing, and is currently pursuing her Master’s in Business Administration. Price $15.
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Sun Nov 3, Mask and Movement (10:45-12:15 at the Community School of Music & Arts) with Adelka Polak
For adults. This workshop gets our blood flowing while introducing various body work techniques used to approach the creation of a character through the physical presence. The focus of the workshop holds the potential to increase individual strength, stamina and stage presence. Spoken words, emotions and body language become more powerful with the consideration of posture, breath and gesture in the development of techniques that internationally-acclaimed mask performer Adelka Polak has developed over the years, including from her late Masque Theatre mentor Larry Hunt.
Adelka Polak, founder of Sova Dance & Puppet Theater, based in CT & mainly serving schools, arts venues and community organizations in New England and NYC, including performances at Madison Square Park and Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. In 2023 we had our first tour that included Wolf Trap Children’s-Theatre-in-the-Woods, the Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry, and the Puppet Showplace Theater! Adelka is a dancer, puppeteer, mask-performer and movement director whose work has brought her to Denmark, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Taiwan, Scotland and Turkey.
In an original theatrical production of “”Ajijaak on Turtle Island” at the New Victory Theater she worked with puppets from the Henson Creature Shop in a show led by artists Heather Henson, Jim Henson’s youngest daughter, and Grammy-Award winner Ty Defoe. She also worked with Squonk Opera who went “from junkyards to Broadway” and performed at Lincoln Center Outdoors and LaMama, E.T.C. with the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater of NYC. Ms. Polak was featured on CPTV’s “Spotlight on the Arts” with Masque Theatre & Larry Hunt in a segment nominated for a cultural Emmy in 2010 and produced by Ed Wierzbiecki.
She shares her knowledge of dance, puppetry and crossing artistic disciplines with audiences across the U.S. and abroad. She has worked with children across CT & the east coast building over 5,000 puppets annually now. She also taught with Z. Briggs and the Jim Henson Foundation in order to train educators, therapists and special education professionals how to use puppetry effectively in the classroom. She has worked as a professional puppeteer now for two decades, since she graduated from Chatham University with honors with a B.A. in Theatre and Cultural Studies in 2002.
Sun Nov 3, Puppet Jumpstart: LIVE! (9am-12:15 at the Community School of Music & Arts) with Brad Shur
Do you have a short puppetry piece you’re working on? Whether it’s on the page, on the stage or still mostly in your head, bring it on down and we’ll tinker with it!
For the last few years I’ve been teaching an online class called Puppet Jumpstart which focused on guiding aspiring puppeteers through the creation of their first (or newest) slam piece. This workshop will use some of those techniques to help participants continue to develop their work in progress. For adults!
Each participant should prepare to present up to five minutes of material. Using a guided process of group and instructor feedback, we’ll do our best to help each piece along, troubleshoot snags and share our varied expertise.
You can bring a piece at any stage of development whether that’s an elevator pitch, script, or a rough performance in progress. Due to limited time, this workshop is for works in progress where the final piece is short form. While we may be able to discuss technical questions, we will not have the time or resources to dive into the fine points of mechanical questions like puppetry mechanism.
Brad Shur is the founder of Paper Heart Puppets, touring in the Northeast region and beyond with original shows, workshops and residencies. Previously he was the resident artist for Puppet Showplace Theater where he developed many shows and led puppetry education programming for children adults and everyone in between.
Sun Nov 3, Beyond the Sock Monkey (10:45am-12:15pm at the Community School of Music & Arts) with Edith McCrea
Ages 12 and up. In 1932, the Nelson Knitting Company changed the heel-color of its famous seamless socks to red to distinguish them from knock-offs. Thrifty Depression-era toymakers quickly began making the red-heel socks into monkeys, and an iconic American folk-art was born. A wide variety of other sock animals and dolls soon followed. Meanwhile, by the 1920s, Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf system of education in Germany, had inspired the creation of beautiful hand-made dolls and puppets with minimalistic facial features and all-natural materials. In this workshop, we will explore sock-monkey and Waldorf techniques for making dolls and animals out of socks and knits. These figures can then be adapted as marionettes, rod puppets, or tabletop puppets.
Edith McCrea learned to make sock monkeys from her grandmother at a young age, and now makes monkeys, zebras, dinosaurs, sock dolls, Waldorf dolls, and other knit-fabric creations for children. She has built and performed puppets and made various bizarre props for The Cherry in Ithaca. She has performed, made puppets, written, and directed for Magic Garden Puppets, a Waldorf marionette troupe based in Cortland, New York. She has also made and performed crankies for the Ithaca Crankie Cabaret. Price $30.00
Sun Nov 3, Down with the 4th Wall!: Fresh Ideas for Audience Participation (10:45am-12:15pm at the Community School of Music & Arts) with Anna Sobel
For adults. Inviting audience members to participate in your performance involves some risk. After all, you’re relinquishing control. But exploring and playing with the audience can also create interesting, fresh experiences that can keep you entertained, as well– if there’s one thing that’s different at each show, it’s your audience! This lecture/demonstration will leave you with techniques to involve audiences of all sizes on a wide variety of levels, from seated participation to standing movements to onstage roles, all while avoiding pitfalls and maintaining control of the crowd.
Anna Sobel first trained with Blue Sky Puppet Theatre, a children’s puppet company based in Washington, DC. In 2003, she spent nine months in India on a Fulbright Fellowship to study puppetry as a tool for social change and education. She founded her one-woman company, Talking Hands Theatre, in 2004. Her shows are designed for children and focus on educational or social themes. She is based in Shutesbury, Massachusetts and tours all over New England. Price $15.
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Sat Nov 2, Marionette Character through Physical Discovery (9am-12:15pm at the Community School of Music & Arts) with Madison Cripps SOLD OUT
For adults
Build simple Marionette from objects and discover their personality through movement exercises.
MORE WORKSHOPS WILL BE ADDED SOON
This program is made possible (in part) with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant program from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the office of the Governor and NYS Legislature, administered by the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.
This program is made possible (in part) with funds from the Tompkins County Tourism Program.