MayDay Staff 2008
Ceremony
Sandy Spieler
Sandy Spieler is a painter, sculptor, performer, teacher and theater
director. She is the Artistic Director of In the Heart of the Beast
Puppet and Mask Theatre in the USA since 1976, and is one of the company¹s
founders. Her work includes tiny puppet shows performed in a suitcase,
main stage theater productions, and the Annual MayDay Parade and Ceremony
involving thousands of participants in her diverse urban home community
in Minneapolis, USA. She has directed Ceremonial Events in South Korea,
Los Angeles, and the Dominican Republic, and built several public installations
honoring Water. She asks that performance awaken us to the “Wonder!?” of
our everyday lives.
Sandy¹s work has been recognized through numerous
awards including the Bush Foundation¹s Leadership and Artist Fellowships,
Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, Jerome Travel and Study Grants,
and Intermedia Arts/McKnight Interdisciplinary Fellowship. She has
an MA Cultural Performance from Bristol University England, studied
puppetry arts at Bread and Puppet Theatre in Glover, Vermont, Balinese
masked dance at New York University, and is part of the International
ECOARTS network.
Julie Kastigar Boada
Julie Boada (Performer / Puppeteer) is a puppeteer and visual artist
with a B.A. in Studio Art and American Indian Studies. She has been
involved with HOBT for nineteen years, and has been teaching residencies
for seventeen years. In addition to having her art work in shows at
the First People’s Gallery, Katherine Nash, and WARM, she has
also worked on the summer native teen mural project with the Minneapolis
American Indian OIC and a mural project for Anoka School District.
In addition, Julie has taught for The Native American Theater Project,
Indian Fine Arts Association, American Indian Health Board, and at
the University of Minnesota Studio Arts Department, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Julie has been involved in numerous productions with In Heart of the
Beast including A COMPANY OF ANGELS, THE PINK DRESS, INVIGORATE THE
COMMON WELL, ON THE DAY YOU WERE BORN, COYOTE STORIES and the MayDay
Parade and Ceremony.
Esther Ouray
Esther Ouray is a puppeteer with a degree in theatre arts and a vast
training in dance and movement. She has been involved with HOBT for
over twenty-five years, and has worked with the theater in a variety
of capacities including residencies. In addition to working at HOBT,
she has worked with Kids Solidarity Theatre, Illusion Theatre, Interact,
Epoch Productions, Jewish Community Center of St. Paul, At the Foot
of the Mountain Theatre, and Voices of Sepharad.
Reed Aubin
Reed
Aubin (Performer/Puppeteer) is a puppeteer, playwright, translator,
and musician in his first year working with In the Heart of the Beast
as a MayDay Artist. He has a B.A. in Anthropology and Linguistics from
Brown University, where he also completed a certificate program in
playwriting with a focus in Ritual Theatre. Originally from Washington
State, Reed has lived extensively in Latin America and around the U.S.,
performing with Nicaraguan Teatro SubImp, Argentinian Puppet Theatre
La Chancleta Rota, Rhode Island's Home Planet Theatre, and Understory
Theatre, which he continues to direct. Staged Productions include PEZ/PESCADO:
AN EAT PLAY, THE BUSTED LEVEE PUPPET SHOW, AGUA QUERIDA (HA AIX), THE
BIODIESEL PUPPET SHOW, and NOT A KERNEL TO EAT. His first stint with
HOBT was last year as a musician for HOW FLOWERS CHANGED THE WORLD.
Reed has worked as a permaculture designer, historian, Alaskan fisherman,
carpenter, web designer and spanish translator/interpreter. He plays
a mean mambo piano and blues harmonica. Visit Reed's Website
Section 1:
Racing to Collapse
Duane Tougas
Duane Tougas has been working at HOBT since 1991. He has traveled
the world serving as a performer, designer, builder and puppeteer.
Duane has worked with communities and organizations to create performances
and festivals. He is a 2001 Jerome Grant recipient and a multi-disciplinary
artist always experimenting in new forms.
Julian McFaul
Julian McFaul is a local artist and actor who has enjoyed building
and performing for this community, immensely, since 1992.
Lindsay
McCaw
Lindsay McCaw resides in the hills of southwest Wisconsin. Lindsay
is one half of the Dolly
Wagglers puppet company with Adam Cook. They most recently joined
forces with other cardboard slingers for the Winter Boxcutter Cabaret
Tour. Lindsay also helped Grammas Saggy Jug Band archive its second
victory this winter at the annual Jug Band Battle. This is her second
year on the MayDay Staff. She has also recently worked with the Barebones
Halloween Show and Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont.
Visit
Lindsay's Blog
Section 2:
Change of Heart
Tina Nemetz
Tina Nemetz been working and volunteering around the Beast for 15
years. This is her second year on the MayDay Art Staff. She is a resident
of Powderhorn Park neighborhood. Tina is a Mentor in the Women’s
Art Registry of Minnesota. She currently is working on community metal
casting projects in Minnesota and Iowa.
Mary Plaster
Mary Plaster is multi-media artist residing with her family in Duluth.
Her graduate background is painting; especially egg tempera, because
of the alchemical process with animal, vegetable, and mineral materials.
She is currently a Doctor of Ministry candidate in Matthew Fox's University
of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, CA. Her theatrical puppet, props
and scenic painting internship began in Minneapolis in the 1980s with
the Children's Theatre Company and she has worked over the years with
several street and community theater groups, including volunteering
in a few HOBT MayDay parades. She learned most of her papier-mâché and
other cheap art magic during a three-year stint with the experts of
Teatro Libre of Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico. In 2008 Mary received the
McKnight Arrowhead Regional Arts Council individual individual career
development grant to participate in the July Apprenticeship program
with Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont.
Visit
Mary's Website
Section 3: - Now
Anne Sawyer-Aitch
Anne Sawyer-Aitch is a puppeteer, stilt-walker, playwright and arts
educator. Specializing in color shadow puppets, stilt puppets, and
masks, she has created and performed in theaters and festivals around
Minnesota. She has worked with Chicks on Sticks, In the Heart of the
Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, Open Eye Figure Theater, Galumph Interactive
Theater, The Minnesota Science Museum, Steppingstone Theater, Barebones
Productions, and ArtStart. She co-founded both Magic Lantern Puppet
Theater (2000) and the Midtown Market puppet series Stories on a String
(2004). Her more recent works include the full-length, multi-media
shadow show Ala Dean and the Marvelous Lamp (Center for Independent
Artists, 2006) and Bate, Bate Chocolate (2007).
Anne
has received grant awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan
Regional Arts Council, Puppeteers of America, and the Jerome Foundation.
She is currently working on a new children's book, Nalah and the Pink
Tiger. Visit Anne's Website
Ramon Cordes
Ramon Cordes has been hanging around the HOBT since he was a little
boy. Now he spends his time making art, working (money for art), and
hanging out with loved ones. And rolling around town on wheels.
Section 4:
But Think Ahead
Bart Buch
Bart Buch is a puppeteer, poet and teaching artist who has worked
with HOBT for ten years. He has been in the main stage HOBT productions
Winter Dreams, Gyre, The Nightingale, Seed, La Befana, Invigorate the
Common Well and has been on MayDay Staff for ten years also. He teaches
puppetry-arts residencies around the Twin Cities and throughout the
state. He is currently touring his puppet show, Ode to Walt Whitman,
and developing a new blacklight-theatre, puppet adaptation of The Little
Prince by Antoine de Exupery. Bart is an Interim Education Co-Director
at HOBT.
Janaki Ranpura
Janaki
Ranpura connected with the Twin Cities puppet community through Gotama,
a HOBT mainstage production in 2006. Having trained at the Lecoq school,
she is a performer who has focused for the last few years on puppet
building and manipulation. She has directed parades in Taiwan through
the Dream Community and directs Islewilde, an annual puppet-based arts
festival on Vashon Island near Seattle. Her current solo performance
series, Operations Theater, explores ways to make scientific facts
viscerally available to an audience. She intermittently tours two shows:
Dread of Blood, a toy theater show in which the audience participates
in a heart surgery; and Lovesick Sea Play, an ever-changing exploration
of monogamy through pirates. J-J Trinket’s Series is Janaki's
production company. Visit Janaki's
website.
Kevin Long
Kevin Long has been working with puppets for ten years. During that
time Kevin has worked with The Bread and Puppet Theatre (Vermont),
Madcap Productions (Ohio), In The Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask
Theatre (Minnesota), Barebones Productions (Minnesota), and Open Eye
Figure Theatre (Minnesota). This is Kevin's fourth year on the MayDay
staff. Kevin sometime performs his own original work with his fledgling
company called The Shoestring Puppet Theatre. The Shoestring Puppet
Theatre scored a hit at the 2005 Minnesota Fringe Festival with "The
Adventures of Can-Man". Kevin has a BA in Theatre from Truman
State University in Kirksville, MO. In addition to being a puppeteer
Kevin is the vocalist and guitarist for the Minneapolis band "Boxcutter".
Section 5 - We Are
Gustavo Boada
Gustavo
Boada is a visual and performance artist with more then 23 years experience
working in professional theaters in Peru, Chile, Puerto Rico and the
USA. Gustavo is well known for his work with traditional dance and
mask performance (Asian, European and Andeans) as well as designing
and building puppets, performative structures and set design. Gustavo
has worked with a number of puppet theaters including, Bread and Puppet,
the Puerto Rican Puppet Theater, and with Puppetry in Practice at Brooklyn
College as Artistic Director. In June 2003, Gustavo moved to Philadelphia
and founded the non-profit NAYLAMP Street & Puppet
Theater creating four annual street theater plays, Children play's
and a theater version of Farid Uddin Attar 'The Conference of the Birds" and "Memories
of fire ' based in poems of Margaritte Yourcesnar. Gustavo has been
working as artist in residency with Spiral Q Puppet Theater. In 2007
He was part of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater as
Mayday Parade Section leader. This year Gustavo is part of MayDay 2008
staff as section leader.
Masanari Kawahara
Masanari Kawahara is a performer who incorporates puppetry, mask
and clowning into his work. He has been a company member of In the
Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (HOBT) since 1998. At HOBT,
Masanari has collaborated on main stage productions, most recently
Beneath the Surface (2008), La Natividad (2008 and 2007), and Come
To The Well (2007). He was the co-creator and designer for GOTAMA:
Journey to the Buddha (2006), recognized by City Pages as one of the
ten great sets/scenic designs of the year. In addition, Masanari has
conceived, designed, and directed several solo short works including
GOJIRA! (2006-2008). He created a performance art piece, RETURNING
as the recipient of the Naked Stages Program (2004) and was the recipient
of the Blacklock Fellowship for Emerging Artists (2003).
2008 Parade and Ceremony Staff
Ceremony
Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Section 4
Section 5