1998
PROJECT GRANTS
by Carter Family Marionettes
Photo by Carter Family
Marionettes
Alchemilla Puppetworks – Life of a Tree
A non-verbal piece about a tree and its creatures with an elaborate musical score by Bernd Ogrodnik. ($2,000)
Carter Family Marionettes – Mrs. Twig and the Stupid Machine
A collaboration with video artist Robert Campbell to creat a science fiction fantasy as the third play in the Mrs. Twig trilogy. ($2,000)
Center for Puppetry Arts – Kwaidan
A piece by Ping Chong, Jon Ludwig, and Mitsuru Ishii based on the Japanese ghost stories of Lafcadio Hearn. ($4,000)
Ellen Driscoll – Ahab’s Wife
A performance piece inspired by Moby Dick that combines movement, poetry, and visual art. ($3,000)
Preston Foerder – Interesting Times
A large-scale puppet work examining the principles of chaos and complexity theories through the life of one man. ($3,000)
by Ellen Driscoll
Photo by Peter Schweitzer
GOH Productions – The Golem
A second phase of development for an interpretation of the Czech Jewish legend. ($3,000)
Barbara Pollitt – From Sorcery to Science
An evening of orchestral works selected from pieces performed at the 1939 World’s Fair. ($2,000)
Redmoon Theater – Hunchback
An adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, using various styles and sizes of puppets. ($3,000)
David Rousseve/REALITY – Love Songs
A new dance-theater work featuring puppets by Debby Lee Cohen. ($3,000)
Basil Twist – Symphonie Fantastique
An underwater spectacle created with abstract form, materials and movement set to the music of Hector Berlioz. ($3,000)
SEED GRANTS ($1,000)
Saw Theater – A Criminal Story
A piece examining the psychological development of a criminal through a montage of image and text.
by Preston Foerder
Photo courtesy of the artist
Atlas Mason – The Homunculus Project
A mask and puppet piece exploring the nature of solitude through three female icons.
Azdak’s Garden Inc./ Puppetsweat Theater – The Poe Project: The Fear Within
A shadow play/oratio adaptation of three stories by Edgar Allen Poe set to music.
The Cosmic Bicycle Theater – The Crazy Locomotive
An adaptation of S.I. Witkiewicz’s 1923 play incorporating puppets, actors, video projection, and a live score.
Dragon Dance Theater – Sol y Luna: The Childhood of the Sun and the Moon
An international collaboration with artists from Latin America and Canada recounting the creation myth from Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley.
The Elementals – The Elementals
An evening of puppetry pushed to the limit, with hand and rod, shadow play, masks, and hand puppets.
Janie Geiser – The Arrangement of Things
A two-part puppet theater work inspired by two film genres – the western and the melodrama.
Great Small Works – Metropolis
A handpuppet show inspired by Fritz Lang’s film of the same titleabout the privileged son of an industrialist.
by Saw Theater
Photo courtesy of the artist
Hystopolis Productions, Inc. – Dracula
An adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel satirizing modern mythology while invoking powerful images of phantasm and melodrama
Los Kabayitos Puppet Theater – Work After Work
A work by Michael Romanashyn based in part on the life of Muhammad Ali, with puppets and live actors.
Sandglass Theater – The Pig Act
A piece envisioning the world as a circus tent, where a small being must perform an act to ensure its survival.
Underground Railway Theater – Alice Underground
An adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass using masks and a variety of puppetry styles.
“Funding from the Henson Foundation helped allow us to take chances. We created Mrs. Twig for ourselves. We wanted to experiment and do something more political and adult-oriented than our usual family shows. We didn’t really worry about whether anyone else wanted to see it! Somewhat to our surprise,Mrs. Twig turned our to be very popular with both kids and adults… Plucky, polite and morally courageous Mrs. Twig has become a bit of a cult heroine amount puppeteers around the Country.”
– Chris Carter
“Puppet theater is an art form that integrates so many disciplines, in our case dance, poetry, music, sculpture and drawing through the art of shadow play. I will never forget the sense of critical mass and synergy of all these elements coming together.”
– Ellen Driscoll
“It is an important contribution of the Foundation to enable performances not only in NYC where such work is not uncommon but outside of the metropolitan area. Only by reaching these audiences can adult puppetry truly be accepted. People who had an idea such an art form existed had their eyes opened.”
– Preston Foerder
“The powerful, ephemeral presence created by these works spoke to the very nature of what was of most interest to me: the relationship between artist and object. The experience of the Henson Festival played an integral part in shaping the work I make today.”
– Mark Fox, Saw Theater