UNIMA Asian Puppetry Festival in Sichuan 2014

Unima Asia is holding their first ever puppet festival in Nanchong, Sichuan in June 2014!  There is sure to be lots of shadow puppetry performers and performances there.  Join us!

http://www.apac-unima.com/thread-3834-1.html

The Shadow Woman has been Published!

Grant Hayter-Menzies’ amazing book The Shadow Woman has been published!

You can read my full account of the book and Grant’s work here.

If you have any interest in Chinese shadow puppetry, it’s a truly incredible account of North America’s first practitioner and her unparalleled dedication to the form.  Order it from Amazon or request it from your local bookseller!

Congratulations Grant!

Chinese Shadow Puppetry in Minnesota

Dear Readers,

This project is a culmination of both my research as a Chinese shadow puppet scholar/practitioner and work as a theatre maker.  It is a merging of these two things and so much more.  It is my small way to say I Heard You and Thank You to all the Chinese shadow puppet artists who have opened their work, homes and stories to me throughout the years.  It is also my way to say I Love You to the form itself.

If you are in the Twin Cities area, please consider spending a night with us, a cup of hot tea and the shadows.

Thanks, Annie Rollins

Info below:

There's Nothing To Tell (没有什么可说）is a full length work for the shadow theatre that mixes traditional Chinese and North American styles to present the story of a Grandfather shadow puppeteer in China's dying dynastic period through the Communist Revolution and into the modern era.  

As his only Granddaughter recounts his life story in shadow, questions arise of our place on the human continuum and the inheritance of story.

This production is traditionally presented in-the-round, please be prepared to move or stand throughout the performance.   

Appropriate for ages 8+

All tickets $5.

Showtimes:

·      Friday, March 15^th, Performance 7pm
·      Sat, March 16^th, Lecture/Demo/Public Workshop 2pm  

·      Sun, March 17th, Performance 7pm
·      Fri, March 22nd, Performance 7pm

·      Sat, March 23rd, Performances 2pm & 7pm
·      Sun, March 24th, Evening Performance 7pm

The show runs about 55 minutes.

The Lecture/Demo/Public workshop runs about 90 minutes.

www.hobt.org for more information or make a reservation at Brown Paper Tickets http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/343750

Public Chinese Shadow Puppet Workshop in Beijing

Atelier, a great resource for extending fine arts learning to the foreigner population in Beijing, is holding a week intensive workshop with Hanfeizi in the heart of the Sanlitun district.  If you're in the area, check it out!

For the post in Beijing's City Weekend, click here. 

For a link to Hanfeizi's past work, click here.

UNIMA China holds first Shadow Puppet Intensive at Shanghai Theatre Academy

As UNIMA-China grows in strength and importance, they're beginning to broaden their educational endeavors.  I'm happy to say that they've started with a shadow puppet intensive at the Shanghai Theatre Academy's new puppet program.  More to come in the spring!

Click here to see posting or cut and paste the link below:
http://www.apac-unima.com/thread-3830-1.html

Shadow Woman

As part of my continued research stateside, I’ve come into contact with a surprising number of amazing scholars, students, enthusiasts and cheerleaders for the work – egging me on and keeping me going.   

A few days after I landed back on US soil this past December, I was gifted a present in my inbox.  One Grant Hayter-Menzies, a biographer living in the west of Canada, had found me through my blog and asked if we could chat as he was in the midst of finishing a biography about Pauline Benton.  Pauline Benton, hmmm.  My mind ticked back through my dusty Rolodex of names – and - oh Yes.  I knew about her Chinese shadow puppet collection – now housed with the Chinese Theatre Works company in New York - and a few tidbits about her life, but the details were fuzzy.

We started a correspondence, Grant and I, and after an interview, chats via phone and email, I was gifted the opportunity to read his manuscript before it’s officially published next year through McGill-Queens University Press.  I can’t tell you what a dream it was to read, both for content and also for its writing.

Pauline Benton was an American Woman from Kansas, born just before the turn of last century.  She fell in love with puppetry in 1923 when she encountered her first shadow puppet performance in the courtyard of her Aunt Emma, who was then teaching in Beijing.   From there, she dedicated her life to become its lone steward in the states – the first female puppet master in the west and a collector, collaborator and creator of shadow puppet shows in her own right.  Her company, The Red Gate Shadow Players, were ambassadors for both the Chinese people and their incredible folk artistry during an ever-changing relationship to the states.

Instead of giving you more of a summary, I’ll simply encourage you to buy the book.  I’m just so sorry you have to wait. 

What Grant does so well with all his beautifully researched facts is make it, her and shadow puppetry, come to life.  He places her amazing story within such a rich context that you can’t help but be transported.   He takes you to Beijing in the 1920s, with all its chaos and tumult.  You also get to travel to New York in the early part of the century and around the country as a fledgling Chinese shadow puppet troupe tries to make a name for themselves despite the obvious obstacles.   Between performances at the White House for the Roosevelts and the seedy streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown, you can feel the determination and dedication of Pauline and her troupe mates. 

Of all the historical books I’ve read on shadow puppetry, this is the one I will reread over and over again – if not for pleasure, then for encouragement.  To know of a woman doing much the same work nearly 80 years earlier makes me feel comforted, supported.  I’ve got company on the puppet trail.   Somehow, without even knowing much about her, I seemed to have traced much the same path and even drawn many of the same conclusions on my own.  We seem to be kindred spirits, only separated by time.   Now, I simply have to live up to the rest of the trail she blazed for a Shadow Woman.

The story is echoing a theme in my recent musings of the past year, driving home the fact and fear of knowing that the stories we carry die with us if we don’t share them.  Whose responsibility is it to share these?  The teller or the listener?  As I finished the Epilogue, I had a moment of panic followed quickly by gratitude.  I can already tell this story, this work, will continue to impact me for many years to come – and to think it could have so easily remained buried and eventually lost forever but for another story hunter who saw its quiet potential.

This is a book for anyone who recognizes the inherent curse and blessing in a passion you can’t ignore.

    

I will certainly post the book’s release on the blog!

Shadow Woman, The Extraodinary Career of Pauline Benton by Grant Hayter-Menzies.  Due out in early 2013 from McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal.

Visit Grant’s other works here at: http://redroom.com/member/grant-hayter-menzies

Information on the Pauline Benton collection at Chinese Theatre Works: http://www.chinesetheatreworks.org/w/education/images/