Project Budget

Grant Request

Title:

Artists:

Description:

Brouhaha Productions

Minneapolis MN

Alison Heimstead

Vasilisa in the House of the Forest MotherWrongly spurned by her unloving step-family for letting the hearth fire go out, Vasilisa is sent into the woods toretrieve a glowing ember from the witch Baba Yaga. With only the blessings of her departed mother to guideher, Vasilisa sets out to recover fire for the hearth. Along the way Vasilisa encounters 3 horseman, a floating pairof helpful hands and various creatures of the woodland who offer her aide and assistance as she claims thepower of her own intuition in preparation for a harrowing and ultimately enlightening encounter with BabaYaga, the Forest Mother who sees deeply into the hearts of all with an unflinching eye for truth.

$3,000

$3,000

1. Mercurious Lumen (2004, Polnau) 2. Serpiente (1998, Polnau) 3. Saint Plays (2007, Heimstead) 4.Hidebound (2012 Heimstead) 5. Lantern Fest (Heimstead)

1-3 Director, designer, performer, 4-6 Director, designer, puppet captain

This video sample combines the puppetry and pageantry work of Alison Heimstead and Daniel Polnauand pairs it with music produced and performed by Jim Parker, and exemplifies of the collaborativepotential of our ensemble.

612-413-3919

3220 18th Ave S55407

iheartpuppets@gmail.com

VIDEO SAMPLE

CONTACT

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In The Heart of the Beast Puppet And Mask501 (c)(3):

2008 - Ronald Reagan Love Story

PAST GRANTS AWARDED

WORKSHOP

Brouhaha Productions

Project Description

“Vasilisa in the House of the Forest Mother” The members of Brouhaha Productions are requesting the support of the Henson Foundation Workshop Grant for our team to begin production on Vasilisa in the House of the Forest Mother, a visual interpretation of the Slavic Folktale Baba Yaga. This funding will support performance workshops, construction of the necessary puppets and the creation and performance of an accompanying musical score. In our story, Vasilisa is falsely accused of letting the hearth fire die out by her unloving step-family, who send her out into the woods to retrieve a new glowing ember from the witch Baba Yaga. With only the blessings of her deceased mother guide and protect her, Vasilisa sets out on the long and arduous journey to Baba Yaga’s fearsome home (a hut raised up on the legs of a chicken. Along the way Vasilisa encounters a colorful trio of horseman, a floating pair of helpful hands and various creatures of the woodland who offer their aide and assistance to her as she claims the power of her own intuition in preparation for a harrowing and ultimately enlightening encounter with Baba Yaga, the Forest Mother who sees deeply into the hearts of all with an unflinching eye for truth. Each of the three horsemen (red, white, and black) offer Vasilisa the opportunity to recognize a vital strand of her core strength (passion, integrity, and the capacity to sit with and attend to the complexity of seemingly incompatible and contradictory truths. From the woodland creatures Vasilisa learns to recognize the power of her own innate perceptions of the natural world, and from the floating hands she learns to power of controlling one’s own sense of perspective. Strengthened by these insights, Vasilisa prepares to confront Baba Yaga and ask for what her heart desires. The production will use puppets (bun raku and shadow puppets), mask characters and animated puppet lanterns to create this retelling of the classic Baba Yaga story. The inclusion of these three approaches to puppet theatre will enable the artists to manipulate scale as a means of contextualizing changing power-relationships between main characters, and between the main characters and the natural and super-natural worlds. The inclusion of three animated lantern puppets and 3 masked creatures of the woodland will enable 6 audience members to participate in the framing of the main storyline, which will be told mainly through bun raku and shadow puppetry. At the end of the workshop process, Brouhaha Productions will present a work-in-progress evening, performing and documenting the work before an assembled audience of community partners and potential community partners from Slavic and other Eastern European diaspora communities in the Twin Cities Metro area. The evening will conclude with a celebrator dance party to celebrate Vasilisa’s triumph. Project Timeline January 1, 2017: Puppet design and construction begins January 15, 2017: Creation of musical score begins. February 1, 2017: Workshop rehearsals begin. March 1-15, 2017: Presentation of work in progress March 15-April 1, 2017: Evaluation and determination of next steps.

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Brouhaha Productions

Budget

“Vasilisa in the House of the Forest Mother” Income Henson Foundation Workshop Grant $3,000 In-kind donationRehearsal and performance space - Tiny Town Studios Admission to work-in-progress showing: hat-pass donations Total Income: $3000 plus hat-pass donations Expenses $800 Puppet Design, Materials and Construction $400 Set Design, Construction, and Materials $322.50 Musical Composition $900 Rehearsal Time (3 performers @ $15 per hour for 20 hours) $150 Fiscal Agency Fee (5%) $427.50 Taxes (15% of $2,850) Hat pass donations: Musicians for post-show dance party Total Expenses: $3000 plus hat-pass donations

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Brouhaha Productions

Artist Description Alison Heimstead is a director and designer of puppet theatre, with work ranging in scope from intimate performances to large public-art spectacles. Her work has been seen at La MaMa, Brooklyn Academy of Music, St Ann’s Warehouse, Open Eye Figure Theater, Great Small Works –Toy Theater Festival, Museum of Jurassic Technology and many other locations. She created puppet spectacles all over the country, including co-founding Barebones Productions. She has studied puppetry with: Paul Zaloom, Dan Hurlin, Janie Geiser, Sandy Spieler, and Bread and Puppet Theater. Alison has created works of puppet theatre and spectacle performance in communities throughout the United State for over 20 years. Alison has served as a fellow at Intermedia Arts’ Institute for Creative Community Leadership Institute (Minneapolis, MN), exploring the role of puppet theatre and spectacle as a tool of public interface and community development. Alison holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in puppetry and theater design where she was a Jacob Javits Scholar. In her current position at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Alison serves as the Director of Performance Programs supporting the creation of new puppetry performance, and mentoring emerging artists through the theatre’s Puppet Lab program. Alison is also curator for the theatre’s popular Saturday Matinee season, facilitating the presentation of 20 family-family puppet performances each year. Daniel Polnau has created puppet parades, circuses, outdoor theatre spectacles, and public art for over 30 years. He is the founder of Dreaming Crow Puppet Collective and the creator and ringmaster of Strombolli's Medicine Show, an ongoing project blending puppetry, circus, and sideshow. Original stage productions include "Anaconda!" at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, "Sakti", and "Mercurious Lumen", at Bedlam Theatre in Minneapolis. He has performed at The Walker Arts Center, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Open Eye Figure Theatre. Daniel has extensive experience delivering puppetry workshops and residencies for educators, families, children and students of all ages and abilities as an independent teaching artist and through his work with COMPAS and Interact Center for the Arts. Awards include a Lila Wallace Readers Digest Artists International Fellowship, making possible a six-month residency in Bali and Indonesia studying indigenous art and puppetry, and a 6-month public art project upon return to Minneapolis. His projects and residencies have spanned the globe from Alaska to Bali to Moscow to Puerto Rico. Jim Parker is a performer composer and music educator. Jim’s recent work is focused on the music of Eastern and Central Europe via these ensembles: Traki (Bulgarian), Simbra Oilor (Romanian) Ukrainian Village Band, and the Ethnic Dance Theatre Folk Orchestra. Also an avid practitioner of music and dance from the rural Southeastern and Northeastern United States, he has played for literally hundreds of community folk dances and delivered music and dance workshops at festivals and venues around the county, and in Belgium, the Czech Republic, England, France, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Ukraine. As a composer, music director and performer for puppet theatre, Jim has scored numerous works over the past 20 years for a range of theatre companies, including In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Public Domain Productions and Magic Lantern Puppet Theatre.

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About Brouhaha Productions The members of Brouhaha Productions create dynamic, engaging works of puppet-theatre and place them contextually at the center of community celebrations, facilitating potent connection to the work and amplifying it’s meaningful impact through participatory spectacle and community folk dance. Alison Heimstead, Daniel Polnau and Jim Parker formed in 2016 to serve as a vessel for a common interest in East European pre-Christian folklore, Brouhaha Productions is seeking to create new works of puppet theatre based on the folk tales held in oral tradition by members of Slavic language speaking communities in our region. The members of Brouhaha productions believe that these ancient tales are brimming with rich multi-layered symbologies that are as relevant to modern life as they were in ancient times. The core artists of Brouhaha Productions have selected “Vasalisa in the House of the Forest Mother” as a first offering because each of our community partners (Bulgarian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian) has named the story of Vasilisa’s encounter with Baba Yaga as prominent in their folklore. We are presenting this work as a means of demonstrating the power and possibility of puppet-theatre, with the goal of engaging new and inspired partners to collaborate with Brouhaha Productions to record, create and perform the folktales held in store by members of their own communities.

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