Andy just finished up a Theater of the Oppressed facilitator training with Marc Weinblatt at the Mandala Center for Change. He's incredible, they're incredible, and they work using applied theater, anti-oppression education, grassroots community workshops, mask work, movements arts, ritual and play.
www.mandalaforchange.com
Then he joined forces with the the maestro Giovanni Fusetti, who was teaching Bouffon and the Ecstasy of Mocking at the Celebration Barn in Maine, USA. Both Jen and Andy have studied The Red Nose with him, which he introduces as.... "Welcome to a unique adventure, in which poetry meets healing and your personal clown will reveal some aspects of your own crazy wisdom.
A human being, alone in front of the audience, a Red Nose, the smallest mask in the world.
www.GiovanniFusetti.com
Meanwhile, Jen headed to NYC to work with TOPLAB, taking a Theater of the Oppressed Workshop "Looking at Class Consciousness, Class Struggle and Self-Organizing Using Image Theater" facilitated by Janet Gerson and Marie-Claire Picher.
www.toplab.org
Next week she heads back to Glover, VT, to play in the open field and under the wide sky with Bread and Puppet Theater. Donation run, for over 50 years, Bread and Puppet uses cardboard and cornstarch to create political absurdity and dreamscapes. According the the founder/orchestrator Peter Schumann, "Puppet theater is the theater of all means. Puppets and masks should be played in the street. They are louder than the traffic. They don’t teach problems, but they scream and dance and display life in its clearest terms. Puppet theater is of action rather than dialogue. The action is reduced to the simplest dance-like and specialized gestures. A puppet may be a hand only, or it may be a complicated body of many heads, hands, rods and fabric. We have two types of puppet shows: good ones and bad ones, but all of them are for good and against evil. ” -Peter Schumann
www.breadandpuppet.org
And she's planning to round out the season with the Manitoulin Clown Conservatory in Canada.
http://www.manitoulinconservatory.com
We're soaking up all the inspiration and insight to bring into our work and out to all of you!
