Description
There are many puppet festivals happening around the world. They started with many different reasons, and survived in many different ways.
This time we would love to hear the practices of Chicago International Puppet Festivals run one of the most important puppet festival in North America, how Lize Puppet Arts Colony in Taiwan become a laboratory for puppetry artists from many countries, and also an overview from Rolling Puppet Alternativa Theatre from Macau who did a research in several festivals in different countries.
The talk will be moderated by Maria Tri Sulistyani, the Artistic Director of Pesta Boneka.
Duration: 60 min
Artist Profile
Artist’s Profile:
Papermoon Puppet Theatre was founded in April 2006 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, by Co-Artistic Directors Maria Tri Sulistyani (Ria) and Iwan Effendi, a visual artist and Papermoon’s puppet designer. The two then work with Anton Fajri, Pambo Priyojati, Beni Sanjaya, and Herdiansyah Yoga in developing Papermoon.
To date, Papermoon has created more than 20 puppet performances, installations, and visual art exhibitions, which have toured more than 15 countries. In 2008, Papermoon launched Pesta Boneka, an international biennial puppet festival. The festival intends to invite puppet theatre artists worldwide to share their works in various spaces in Papermoon’s hometown.
Web: papermoonpuppet.com
IG: @papermoonpuppet
Tom Lee is a puppet artist, designer and director based in Chicago. He began his career at La MaMa Experimental Theater in New York. His work often explores the synthesis of manipulated objects, miniatures and puppet figures with film and animation.
Mr. Lee grew up in Hawai’i and studied traditional puppetry in Japan. He is a student of Japanese master puppeteer Kory? Nishikawa V with whom he created Shank’s Mare (2015) and Akutagawa (2023). His original work has toured the U.S., Japan, France, Bulgaria and Indonesia. Mr. Lee’s puppetry performances include War Horse (Broadway), Florencia en el Amazonas & Madama Butterfly (Metropolitan Opera) and The Queen of Spades (Lyric Opera Chicago).
He is the recipient of multiple Jim Henson Foundation grant awards for his original puppetry work and is co-director of the Chicago Puppet Studio and Chicago Puppet Lab. Tom teaches puppetry design and performance nationally and internationally.
Web: tomleeprojects.com
IG: @tlee668
Rolling Puppet Alternative Theatre is a member of the UMIMA festival committee. It is the first Chinese professional puppetry theatre group in Macau, characterised by a dark humour style that is suitable for audiences of all ages.
Incorporates multimedia puppet cinema technology and live music into our performances, resulting in a unique and avant-garde art form. Diverse range of themes in our work, including Chinese literature adaptation, documentary theatre, community topics, devise theatre, and the Hello Grown-ups Hello Kids series.
The founders of the group, Teng Teng and Kevin, both graduated from DAMU in Prague, Czech Republic. They have been dedicated to developing and promoting contemporary puppetry and object theatre in the Chinese-speaking world for many years.
Web: cutt.ly/rollingpuppet
IG: @rollingpuppet_macao
Lìzé Puppet Art Colony
An intimate playground for puppet arts.
A revitalised barn in Yilan now hosts the very first art colony in Taiwan targeting contemporary puppetry. On the basis of Puppet and Its Double’s twenty-year effort in the area, it attempts to establish a fascinating creative space to explore the possibilities of puppetry, to provide interactive art-and-cultural experience, to organise performances and exhibitions, to educate, and so as to inspire everyone with the infinite imagination in the intriguing world of art.
As a global art colony newly established to popularise puppetry, Lìzé Puppet Art Colony is not merely an important cultural spot in Yilan but also a creative hub and training base for Taiwanese puppet artists to connect to the world. Equipped with the puppet exhibition, a professional puppet building workshop, artists’ studios, rehearsal halls, performance spaces, it is one of the largest multipurpose artistic spaces for contemporary puppetry.
The regular programs taking place here include artist-in-resident projects, puppetry workshops, masterclasses, collaboration projects, and an international network bringing performances from other countries together, followed by in-depth tours related to the art of puppetry and the Lìzé International Puppet Festival to make puppetry more accessible to Taiwanese of all ages and to make an impressive globalised presence on the international space.
Web: lizepuppet.com.tw
IG: @lize_puppet_art_colony
