Postcard From China

I was honored that my dear old friend, Kuang Yu, from our days as students at NYU, invited me to join her, and her husband, to be teaching artists on a special mission to re-introduce the ancient art of "Chinese Shadow Puppetry" to children in a innovative summer camp pilot program inChina. Their company, Chinese Theatre Works (CTW), a non-profit located in NY, specialized in creating 'theatre works' retelling old chinese stories and folktales in eclectic ways, uses puppets projected onto a screen making for a wonderful cinematic effect. Through a contact in the US, CTW collaborated with Mr. Ma, the head of "Dreamland Education Center" , DEC, a recreational school for writing and arts studies, in Nanjing. Late in the spring DEC organized 50 kids between the ages of 7 and 14 to attend  camp for the first time on their own. 


Parents of the children requested the program include singing in English with some dancing thrown in, along with a couple of Broadway show tunes. So this is where I came in.  requested the Their shows also incorporate live character performance, chinese opera and music. Since I am not trained in the puppetry c Here we are preparing our lesson plans. I will be learning a lot about puppetry from them and am delighted to be flexing my theatre muscles once again in this unique  way! I will look forward to sharing in POSTCARDS FROM CHINA! 

More Info on Artists:
www.chinesetheatreworks.org
www.doubleimagetheatrelab.com