Passion project pulls at their heart strings
Tara Travis is no stranger to puppetry. Her work with Sticky Fingers Productions resulted in the puppet “traumedy” Down the Drain, the puppet ballet Swamp Lake and Fluffy 10th Street. She has also toured the country presenting puppet workshops.
Co-founding the first Vancouver International Puppet Festival with equally passionate puppet peeps Jeny Cassady, Morris Chapdelaine and Dusty Hagerüd is something completely different.
“We’re putting on a festival with no funding whatsoever that is completely passion driven,” said Travis. “We might be completely nuts, but this just seems like something that should happen.”
Granville Island Cultural Society executive director Barbara Chirinos spurred on the idea. Then the team put together family-friendly (Before Dark) and adult-only (After Dark) programs, a film screening, workshops, panels and a walking tour of global puppets on display in the windows of 13 participating local merchants. Contributions from the Granville Island Cultural Society and fundraising slams held over the past year raised enough money to enable the event.
“The international aspect for our first year is actually the puppet exhibit, as our performers are either local or from exotic locales such as Edmonton,” she said. “We will see how it goes and then our global ambitions can come.”
The work required to design, build and present a puppet show by its very nature means puppeteers are an isolated group. Travis said one of the secondary goals of the festival was to create a space where the community can come together and gain greater recognition for its hard work. There is certainly a good variety of choices in the programming.
“We received 30 submissions to jury, the majority of which were family friendly such as UpCYCLEd Stories: Interactive Bike Marionettes (Saturday, 5:15 p.m., and Sunday, 9:15 a.m.), which is really cool marionettes created from bike parts in a show that includes film, marionettes and audience interaction,” said Travis.
“We also have two great adult presentations from Vancouver with Carnival Sized Cinnamon Hearts’ Fierce and Fearless (Friday, 9:15 p.m., and Sunday, 7:45 p.m.) — a very different kind of Grimm’s fairy tale — and a rare mature show titled Inside Outlet by Mind of A Snail, well-known for their family shows.”
There is even a film premiere of a reality style mockumentary following four puppeteers competing for a job on a popular children’s TV show. Titled The Sunflower Hour, the comedy proves sometimes puppets, puppeteers and the people who hire them all might be a bit unsuitable for prime-time viewing (Sunday, 9:15 p.m. Adults only).