MayDay Staff 2009
Ceremony Section
Sandy Spieler
Sandy Spieler is a painter, sculptor, performer, teacher, theater
designer and director. She is the Artistic Director of In the Heart
of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre since 1976, and is one of the
company's founders.
Her work includes tiny odd shows, 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 led residencies throughout the region.
She asks that performance awaken us to the “Wonder! ?” of
our everyday lives. Sandy feels privileged to work daily with the amazingly
creative team of passionate people that cluster around In the Heart
of the Beast Theatre.
Various awards, commissions and fellowships throughout
the years have recognized her work. Sandy has an MA of Cultural Performance
form 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. She is
the mother of two wonderful young adults.
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.
Julie 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 twenty 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, Invigorate the Common Well, Beneath the Surface, When We
Look, On the Day You Were Born, Coyote Stories and the MayDay
Parade and Ceremony.
Kristi Ternes
Kristi Ternes is a local wingnut who has worked out of Bedlam Theatre
for the past eight years. She has also worked with Barebones
Productions,
Open Eye Figure Theatre, Interact Center for the Arts and Jar of Mold
Productions.
She recently created Iron Mermaids at Bedlam Theatre which
was featured in American Theatre Magazine and her shadow puppet collaboration
with Roger Peet entitled Autotomy received a “Best
Show with Unseen Actors” in the 2004 Best of City Pages edition.
Section One: Save Our Assets
Alison Heimstead
Alison Heimstead is a parade and spectacle artist. She has helped
communities all over the United States create puppeted events including:
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Parade School with Nana Projects, Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, Islewilde! on Vashon Island and Barebones Halloween
Harvest Extravaganza. She is delighted to be working on the Mayday
Parade.
Janaki Ranpura
Janaki Ranpura connected with the Twin Cities puppet community through
Gotama, an HOBT mainstage production in 2006.
Having trained at the
Lecoq school in Paris, she is a performer who writes and creates
solo puppet shows. She is exploring ways to connect science with
theater. She leads community arts work here and afield: she directs Islewilde in
Washington state, an annual puppet-based arts festival on Vashon Island
near Seattle.
She also works on Barebones Productions' local Halloween
puppet celebration, and has designed and taught for several parades
in Taiwan.
She tours two of her shows: Our Dread of
Blood, a toy theater show in which the audience participates
in a heart surgery; and Lovesick Sea Play, a high seas
adventure about the perils and pleasures of love. In 2008, she won
a UNIMA Citation of Excellence. J-J Trinket’s Series is Janaki's
production company. Visit
her website.
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
a group of roustabouts for the Old Reliable Horsedrawn Spectacular -
a horse and wagon tour from northern Vermont to central Massachusetts.
She
has also recently taken up ventriloquism and has already won or almost
won three different gong shows! She continues to work with the
Barebones Halloween show and has recently retired from the jug band
contest.
This is Lindsay's 3rd year on the MayDay Staff.
Mark Safford
Mark Safford has been a puppeteer in the Minneapolis, St. Paul area
since 1991 with Galumph at the Jungle.
Since then, he or his
puppets have appeared at the Ordway, the Red Eye, In the Heart of the
Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Theater de la June Lune, the Minnesota
Opera Co., Bedlam Theater, and in many public parks and riverside
squats for the Barebones
Halloween Extravaganza of which he was
a co-founder and active supporter and participant for the last
fifteen years.
When not at HOTB, Mark is usually working for
Art Start , East Side Arts Council, Leonardo’s Basement , or
Barebones productions or the Ordway’s Children’s
Festival, or other event fundraisers for Barebones Halloween Show.
Harry Kingham
Harry Kingham is currently working as an intern with HOBT.
Harry is
from the UK where he trained in Physical Theatre at Hope St Ltd, Liverpool
(2000). When he is in the UK he performs with Street Theatre Duo, “Fools
Rush In” and works in community circus as a unicyclist, stilt
walker and fire performer.
Recently he has worked as a volunteer with
the Liverpool Lantern Company and with the Welshampon Festival of Fire.
Section Two: Sprout!
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, Steppingstone Theater, and ArtStart. She co-founded both Magic
Lantern Puppet Theater (2000) and the Midtown Market puppet series
Stories on a String (2004).
She has received grant awards from the
Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Puppeteers
of America, and the Jerome Foundation. She was recently named a Minnesota
State Arts Board Artist Educator. Anne is currently exploring textile
arts and working on her children's book titled Nalah and the Pink
Tiger. Visit
Anne's Website
Bart
Buch
Bart Buch is a puppeteer, poet and teaching artist. His career
in puppetry began 13 years ago creating bedtime puppet shows, about
a salmon and starfish falling in love, in his backyard for friends
and neighbors.
He has worked with In The Heart of the Beast Puppet
and Mask Theatre for 10 years as a puppeteer, teacher, puppet designer,
and is currently Education Co-Director. Through Heart of the
Beast and independently, Bart has worked with a wide variety of populations
including churches, small rural towns, elementary schools, homeless
shelters, a chorus, queer youth, adults with developmental disabilities,
union workers’ children, and a GLBT families’ organization,
to create puppet parades, ceremonies, community rituals, and performances.
He
also has been creating his own independent poetry-puppetry performances
for 10 years working with the poetry of Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich,
Wendell Berry, Samuel Coleridge, Walt Whitman, Federico Garcia Lorca,
his own poetry and others. His independent puppet show, Ode to
Walt Whitman, is being performed at HERE Arts Center in New York
City June 3-7, and at Heart of the Beast next fall.
Kevin Long
Kevin
Long has been working with puppets for eleven 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 sixth year on the MayDay staff.
Kevin also performs his own original puppetry work. Kevin 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 also performs
as a singer/songwriter.
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).
Stacy Lee King
Stacy Lee King first found a purposeful approach to theatre while
studying Ritual Poetic Drama in the African Continuum with Dr. Tawnya
Pettiford-Wates and an awesome crew of performing artists in Seattle,
WA. She further explored technique and theory in The Theatre Conservatory
at Chicago College of Performing Arts. In Chicago, Stacy Lee became
involved in spectacle and puppet performance as a core creator/performer
with Manifest Theatre and worked with Redmoon Theater (The Bug
Show,
Twilight Orchard, and (as a designer) Princess Club).
In Minneapolis, she has performed with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet
and Mask Theatre (May Day 2008: A New Bridge; Decorate the Well in Gratitude; and La
Natividad) and Sandbox Theatre (The Horse, The Bird, The Monkey,
and the Dancer). With the performance project a.a. king & sons, she
is planning a puppet-filled midwestern bike tour for the summer of
2010. She is ecstatic to work with the May Day artists and experience
this massive parade making process.
Section Three: All We Have
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 Ud din 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. Since he moved to Minnesota, he has continued
to develop new puppet work oriented to family audiences in South
Minneapolis. This year Gustavo is part of MayDay 2009, as Parade Section
Leader.
Malia Burkhart
Malia Burkhart has worked with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre
since 1999. Malia is a graduate of the Perpich Center for Arts Education, and
received a BA in "Art as Community Activism" and Studio Art through
St. Olaf College.
Malia performs and teaches residencies in puppetry
through many organizations in the Twin Cities. Malia has worked on puppet-projects
in Taiwan, Japan, on the ocean in a Peace Boat, Argentina, Chile, and Korea. For
more information, check out her website at www.artsbymalia.com
Tina Nemetz
Tina Nemetz been working and volunteering around the Beast for 15 years. This
is her third year on the MayDay Art Staff. She is a resident of Powderhorn
Park neighborhood.
Tina is a sculptor and mentor in the Women’s Art Registry
of Minnesota. She currently is works on community metal casting projects in
Minnesota and Iowa.
Emma Byron
Emma Byron is a UK-based visual artist, maker and performer. She works with
puppetry and performance installation - from large scale spectacle to smaller
scale shadow theatre and visual storytelling.
She has worked and trained with visual performance companies including Welfare
State International and Horse and Bamboo Theatre; and has made puppets, installations,
carnival costumes and other images for community festivals, protests and contemporary
ceremonies.
Angie Courchaine
Angie Courchaine is new to May Day, and very excited to be part of it. She
is a visual artist, actress, and longtime dancer, having performed for many
years in Eastern Wisconsin and more recently in Bad Sushi Theater’s “Last
Right” in the Twin Cities.
Angie is currently branching out into choreography,
and recently completed a residency at Burroughs Elementary School, creating
and teaching a performance featured in the Augsburg Peace Prize Festival.
She
is an Architecture/Urban Studies/Sustainability student at the University
of Minnesota and is very interested in social justice and the arts, which
led to her present participation in the HECUA City Arts Program.
In addition
to May Day, Angie is currently helping plan Actifest at the U of M through
her involvement with Amnesty International.
At Large:
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.