PAGEANT PUPPETRY WORKSHOP IN ITALY

[Στάθης Μαρκόπουλος]

PAGEANT PUPPETRY WORKSHOP IN ITALY

JUNE 21 - 29, 2014

Learn to create large-scale puppets and other visual elements for site-specific community pageant in collaboration with local residents of a remote village in the Italian Alps. Led by artists Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles of Processional Arts Workshop (whose puppets lead NYC's Village Halloween Parade), participants create new works each year for the event, drawing on the oral histories, agrarian rituals, folklore, dance, and ecology of this little-known corner of Occitan Italy. After a decade, the festival and workshop have become an eagerly anticipated neo-tradition in the Maira Valley. For visiting participants, the event serves as a community arts laboratory that explores techniques for building large-scale puppets and processional elements, as well as strategies for developing site-specific events in general. For the local villagers, the event has become a means to preserve and disseminate fragile narratives and to celebrate a regional culture with roots dating back 1000 years.

Beyond the basic workshop in pageant-building, the week includes Occitan step-dancing sessions, trips to nearby Medieval churches and cheese farms, and other unpredictable wonders. The gourmet meals (3/day) are prepared with local "Slow Food" produce. Families/children welcome, no Italian language or puppetry experience required. The workshop is conducted in English, and we speak Italian and French as well.

Workshop fees start at 2300 Euros (about 3000 USD) and vary depending on accommodations, and include:

· Workshop tuition and all tools/materials
· Housing and daily traditional breakfast, lunch and dinner. Meals prepared from locally grown ingredients.
· Guided tour of medieval village of Elva, local cheese farm, hair museum, and other areas of interest
· Pizza baking in communal stone oven
· Traditional Occitan step-dancing lessons in village piazza


To enroll or learn more, visit the Processional Arts Workshop website @ http://www.superiorconcept.org/Morinesio
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Sophia Michahelles, co-director
Processional Arts Workshop (a.k.a Superior Concept Monsters)
www.processionalarts.org
90 La Bergerie Lane
Red Hook, NY 12571
(845)758-9976