BISMARCK (an excerpt) by Dan Hurlin. BISMARCK is a work of puppet theater based on the true story of Takako Konishi, who appeared wandering I-94 in in Bismarck, North Dakota dragging her carry-on luggage, wearing only a miniskirt and a cropped faux-fur jacket in the dead of winter. As a result of her outsider status (by virtue of her nationality, ethnicity, and language) and their inability to explain her behavior through a white, western lens, the local officials jumped to an absurd and ultimately tragic conclusion: She must be searching for buried treasure from the 1996 film Fargo.

Dan Hurlin’s work in puppetry has been presented in many American venues, such as Dance Theatre Workshop, St. Ann’s Warehouse, the Walker Art Center and RedCat, in addition to touring internationally. He has received an Obie Award, a Bessie Award, a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship in choreography, the 2004 Alpert Award in theater, and was named a 2009 United States Artists Prudential Fellow in theater. In 2013, he received the Rome Prize in visual art. For nine years, he was the director of the Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse and until his recent retirement, was the Director of the Graduate Program in Theater at Sarah Lawrence College.

Excerpt Experiment for Sorry About the Weather by Lake Simons. Collaborators: Erin Orr. Lake continues to dive into a new piece that will premier in NYC this May 2022. It is about her mother and her long journey into dementia. “I’ve titled this Excerpt Experiment because that is what it is. There are still many missing links in the show and I continue to experiment to find what is missing, which seems fitting somehow seeing that my mother is missing many many links into who she used to be and yet, somehow even through what she has become in her present thin layered state that barely seems to exist- she is still present.”

Lake Simons is a director, designer, puppeteer, physical performer, and a maker of things. She has collaborated with many artists creating theatre productions from the ground up utilizing puppetry, movement, & live music. Most importantly, Lake relies on make-believe. She and her collaborative partner, John Dyer, have created over a dozen original works. Lake has received multiple Jim Henson Foundation grants in support of her original puppetry productions. She has created productions for various institutions including Miller Theater at Columbia University and Texas Woman’s University, and has been a resident artist at The Carriage House and HERE. Her productions have been seen at many NYC theaters including HERE, La MaMa, Dixon Place, and Theatre for a New City. After 25 years of contributing as a director, performer, and designer, Lake recently took the helm as Managing Artistic Director of her family’s 45 year old theatre, Hip Pocket Theatre in Fort Worth, TX. Lake is a co-director for the Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, and teaches puppetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Lake attended Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris and North Carolina School of the Arts.

Photo Credit: Jane Catherine Shaw

A Grand Panorama by Theodora Skipitares. This evening’s performance is a work-in-progress selection of scenes from A Grand Panorama, the story of Frederick Douglass’ obsession with photography. Frederick Douglass was the most photographed American of the 19th century (more photos were taken of him than of Abraham Lincoln). An optimist, he believed that the new technology of photography would redefine Black Americans and help end slavery.

Composer: Mazz Swift
Narrator: Darby Davis
Puppeteers: Jane Catherine Shaw, Jorge Blanco, Kimori Zinnerman, Cadjmere Swindel
Tech Design: Jim Freeman
Crankie Illustration: Klara Vertes & Trevor Legeret

Theodora Skipitares is an interdisciplinary artist based in NYC. Trained as a sculptor and theater designer, she began creating personal solo performances in the late 1970’s. Gradually, she moved away from autobiography, and began to examine social and historical themes. She introduced 3-D representations of herself into these performances, which she understood (later) to be puppets. She has created 30 works featuring as many as 300 puppet figures including The Age of Invention, an examination of 3 centuries of American invention; Defenders of the Code, a history of eugenics (named 1 of the 10 Best Plays by the NY Times); Under the Knife, a site-specific story of medicine which took an audience to twelve different theater environments; Body of Crime, a history of women in prison; A Harlot’s Progress, a chamber opera based on engravings by William Hogarth. These works are boundary-breaking experiments with puppetry, scale, video, music, and documentary texts. She has taught classes in settings such as Riker’s Island Jail and Bedford Hills Prison; and she has created performances in Brazil, India, Turkey, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia and South Africa. Ms. Skipitares is a Professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Trooper’s Brother (a work in progress) by Nami Yamamoto. Featuring dancers Takemi Kitamura, Leah Ogawa, and Anna Vomacka. Performing a new section of Trooper’s Brother, the piece is inspired by Nami’s experience going through multiple surgeries with Dr. Deborah Axelrod at NYU Langone Medical Center. Throughout the diagnostic process, her relationship with the doctor changed from calling her Dr. Axelrod to Deborah. Her observations and interactions with the doctor, her nurses and colleagues were the inspiration to create this work. The full-length piece will be performed at Roulette in fall 2022.

Nami Yamamoto, from Matsuyama, Japan, holds an MA in Dance Education from NYU and a BA in Physical Education from Ehime University. Her work has been funded by Creative Capital, Jim Henson Foundation, Creative Engagement by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, City Artist Corps, and others. She has been nurtured and inspired by her residency experiences at Movement Research, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, New Dance Alliance, and Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. Her work, Headless Wolf, received a New York Dance and Performance Award (the Bessies) for outstanding production in 2018. While her studio creation was paused in ‘20, Nami created dance films, powerless creature keeps going… documented at East River Park. Currently she is a Gibney DiP Resident Artist and an Artist in Residence at Center for Performance Research to develop Trooper’s Brother. Nami teaches dance at NYC public schools through Movement Research’s Dance Makers Program. namiyamamoto.com.