Paperhand Puppet Intervention

Last updated
Paperhand Puppet Intervention
IndustryTheatre
Founded1998;25 years ago (1998)
Founder
  • Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger
Headquarters6079 Swepsonville-Saxapahaw Rd, Saxapahaw, NC 27340
Website paperhand.org

Paperhand Puppet Intervention is a puppet theatre company based in Saxapahaw, North Carolina and founded in 1998 by Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger. [1] [2] Frequently performing outdoors, the group performs original stories inspired by the relationship between the natural world and humanity. [2] [3] The stories include messages of social commentary and activism especially regarding conservation and race. [2] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Contents

History

Donovan Zimmerman

Donovan Zimmerman was born on June 2nd, 1970 in Cincinnati, Ohio and was raised by his single mother and his maternal grandmother in the Northside neighborhood of Cincinnati. At the age of nine, he was encouraged by his mother to audition for the School for Creative and Performing Arts. He graduated and started at the Art Academy of Cincinnati with a partial scholarship before dropping out to travel after his first year. In the next five years, he lived somewhat nomadically across North America, often spending time in hippie communes. He was inspired by a giant puppet show he saw in 1990 performed by Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont. [8] He contracted malaria in Southern Mexico with a group of friends before traveling to the Haw River Festival in Saxapahaw, North Carolina where he first met Paperhand cofounder Jan Burger. [6] He founded his first puppet company, Sticks and Stones Theatre, while living in Oregon. [1] [5] [9] [10]

Jan Burger

Jan Burger was born to European immigrant artists who had grown up in the Bruderhof commune, his mother worked as an illustrator and his father as a muralist. As a child, his family spend time in Northeastern Vermont where he first encountered Bread and Puppet Theater. He is a follower of their "Cheap Art" movement. [11] He dropped out of high school before beginning art school while doing carpentry work with his father. He hitchhiked aboard a train to North Carolina, where he met the organizers of the Haw River Festival. [6] While living in Boston, he worked with Food Not Bombs giving out free vegan meals on Boston Common. He frequently took puppets from the Boston Puppet Free Library to protests. Burger worked with Bread and Puppet Theater before he and his future wife Emma began living in their truck. He worked with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater while living in Minneapolis, Minnesota and worked with Wise Fool Puppet Intervention while living in the Bay Area of San Francisco, California. He began working with Art and Revolution Convergence producing block prints for the Acteal, Chiapes massacre vigil, a march for the United Farm Workers featuring a Cesar Chavez puppet, and constructing puppets to protest the continued bombing of Iraq. He was invited to come back to North Carolina by the organizers of the Haw River Festival to create a puppet show. He brought Zimmerman on as a collaborator to help with the story and music while he worked on the puppet construction. [1] [5] [6] [9]

Productions

*Performed as Dreaming Dog Puppet Theatre [9] [12]

Artistic style

Paperhand uses a variety of puppetry styles and are known for their giant puppets, shadow puppetry, masks, and stilt dancing. Their puppets are constructed using a combination of papier-mâché, cardboard, clay, bamboo, paint, cloth, among other discarded or donated materials. [1] [7] [15] Their shows feature a live band composed of instruments such as cello, drum, guitar, cymbal, chimes, violin, accordion, and flute along with vocalists to perform background music, musical numbers, and foley. The group performs frequently in outdoor venues, parades, local celebrations, and protests. [6] [9] [13] [16]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "About | Paperhand" . Retrieved 2023-08-26.
  2. 1 2 3 "'We reside where we are': Local performers use puppeteering for activism". 'We reside where we are': Local performers use puppeteering for activism – The Daily Tar Heel. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  3. ↑ "'Paperhand Puppet' Show Tells Story Of Our Relationship With The Earth". WUNC. 2021-09-23. Retrieved 2023-08-27.
  4. ↑ Woods, Byron (2019-09-24). "If Politics Is Public Storytelling, Then Puppet Theater Is a Natural Political Medium". INDY Week. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  5. 1 2 3 Collective19, Memory (2020-05-21). "To Whoever Witnesses It: An interview with Donovan Zimmerman of Paperhand Puppet Intervention". memory collective. collective memory. Retrieved 2023-09-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Little, Colony (August 2022). "World of Wonder: Paperhand Puppet Intervention" . Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  7. 1 2 WRAL (2017-07-31). "Paperhand opens 18th annual summer puppet show Friday". WRAL.com. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
  8. 1 2 Reporter, Local (2021-08-29). "Evoking Wonder and Building Community with Cardboard, Cloth and Clay: A Conversation with Paperhand's Donovan Zimmerman – The Local Reporter" . Retrieved 2023-09-05.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Zimmerman, Donovan; Burger, Jan (2021). Paperhand: Puppet Interventions with Cardboard, Cloth, and Clay (1st ed.). Paperhand Press. ISBN   9780578915920.
  10. ↑ "Donovan Zimmerman of Paperhand Puppet Intervention: "A New Paradigm"". Duke Arts. 2020-04-27. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
  11. ↑ "Why Cheap Art Manifesto – Bread and Puppet Theater". breadandpuppet.org. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  12. 1 2 3 4 "Past Shows | Paperhand" . Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  13. 1 2 Woods, Byron (2015-08-12). "Small things stir big emotions in Paperhand Puppet Intervention's most accomplished show to date". INDY Week. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
  14. ↑ "Our Summer Show | Paperhand" . Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  15. ↑ "Check out Chapel Hill's menagerie of marionettes". ABC11 Raleigh-Durham. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
  16. ↑ WRAL (2013-12-31). "Thousands watch acorn drop into 2014". WRAL.com. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
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