Thursday, April 5, 2012

Lots of fun stuff happening this month! Plenty of opportunities for puppets to see, puppets to build, and puppets to schlep! So Carpe Puppetdiem and join us:

[Here's a summary, scroll down below for full details for each event.]

Saturday, April 21st at 8pm: Puppet Underground Cabarette
Help us welcome touring NYC puppeteer Erin Bell with her new fabulous show and other local performers! Need volunteers to help usher and set up, contact Nikki at nicole.martin524@gmail.com

Friday, Apr 13th at 7pm: Occupy GALA & Puppet Underground's "Live Rehearsal"
Help us support Occupy GALA's fabulous gathering of political performers from around DC. We need volunteers to come play with our puppets and experiment with what we might do for May Day! Contact Janelle at janellet@occupydc.org

April 4-16th: Puppet-Building for School of the Americas Watch Days of Action
Need volunteers to help build the puppets and to help operate them on the day! Contact Ken at akeneka@gmail.com

May 1st! May Day!: Festival and March
Need performers and volunteers for a puppetry pageant! Join our rehearsal on Apr 13th at Occupy GALA or contact Fhar at fhartha@gmail.com

In solidarity,
Puppet Underground

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Puppet Underground Cabarette
(smaller, shorter, and better than ever!)
Saturday, April 21 at 8pm

At La Casa: 3166 Mt Pleasant St NW

$15-$5 Sliding Scale Donation

The Line Up!:

Do Right Belly Fire, Do Right Monkey Brain by Erin Bell
We're so excited to get to present this touring show from NYC puppeteer Erin Bell! A toy theater symposium on desire and love! Prairie dogs, neuroscientists, and synchronized swimmers chew on frenchified theory (a la Delueze, Guattari and Pema Chodron), with a cockroach opera sprinkled on neuroscience bits.

Debt Ceiling and Other Vicious Lies by Puppet Underground's very own Ken Srdjak

Poetry by Zein Elamine

And possibly more.

Probably.

Only one way to find out.

Come!

Questions? Concerns? Direct responses? Blocks? VOLUNTEERS?? Email Nikki at nicole.martin524@gmail.com

(Funding made possible in part by the Puppet Slam Network -- www.puppetslam.com)
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Puppet Underground will be holding a "Live Rehearsal" on the street in front of GALA theater as our contribution to the event. We'll be playing around with puppets with awesome beats provided by community congueros, exploring power dynamics through the puppets and figuring out what we might come up with for the May Day Festival! Meet at GALA Theater at 7pm to join (or watch) the rehearsal! Contact Janelle at janellevyn@gmail.com with questions or to RSVP!

Occupy GALA Theatre-An Artistic response to the world's social and political realities.
DJs, Rock, Reggae, Hip-Hop, Spoken Word, Poetry Monologues & Art

2 NIGHTS: April 13th & 14th @ 8pm

Quique Aviles brings back "Don Ama" from "El Canuto del Roc", an elderly-Salvadorean-peasan
t DJ, to lead the troops occupying GALA Hispanic Theatre in an evening of true community art, protest and celebration.

Political artists are taking over the GALA building for TWO days beginning at the sidewalk level on 14th street, all the way to the roof of the GIANT grocery store parking lot. FOUR different levels of art, DJs, ambience, and performances by artists that have something to say about the human condition. This is a different kind of show. More laid-back, our bar will be open all night. You can bring your drinks into the theatre and you will have plenty of time to hang out for the whole evening. Show starts at 8pm, but you’re welcome to come and hang out earlier and you’re welcome to stay late.

Just so we’re clear, the actual performance part of the show begins at 8pm, but there will be pre-show havoc on 14th street by community congueros and The Puppet Underground. We will be reminding you and sending you updates, pictures and links about the featured artists in the next couple of weeks so keep your eyes open.

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Join the Puppetistas!
We'd love for you to lend a hand, heart, and imagination to the art-tillery to hit the streets this year for the School of the Americas Watch days of action! We need help building puppets over the next week and a half, and need folks to rehearse with us on 4/15 and perform the puppets on 4/16! All experience levels welcome :)

Please call ken at 202.640.8213 or email him at akeneka@gmail.com to let him know you're coming, for directions, questions, etc!

Build Times
April 4-8th - 24/7 flex schedule at the Lamont Street Collective: 1822 Lamont St NW
April 14th - 1:45pm-3:15pm puppet building workshop at Metropolitan Community Church: 474 Ridge St, NW
April 9-15th - 5pm to 10+pm - at the DC51 warehaus

Rehearsal
April 15th at 5-6:30pm at the DC51 warehaus

Performance
April 16th: 11 am gathering and prep at Upper Senate Park (200 New Jersey Ave NW )
marching to congress at noon!

For more info on the SOAW and the days of action, visit: www.soaw.org

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May Day Festival and March!
May 1st, in Malcolm X Park
Festival in afternoon
Meet for March at 5pm


May Day is symbolic for many reasons, all of which relate to bringing people together, co-creating new possibilities and building solidarity. It is an ancient holiday marking the return of spring and a time of rebirth. Since the Haymarket Massacre of 1886, it has also been recognized globally as International Workers’ Day. And, even more recently, May Day has become an occasion to highlight the struggle for immigrant rights in the US.
In honor of this day and its many meanings, we hope to bring DC's artists, activists and organizers together across silos to work on this common project as a way for us to get to know and trust one-another. We believe that a low-stakes festival will help create a good spirit among us as well as the base-line of trust, familiarity and solidarity needed to engage in more high-stakes struggle together further down the line.

To that end, we invite any and all who are interested in contributing to this collective effort to join us for our next coordinating meeting on Wed, April 11th from 6-8pm (location TBD... RSVP to fhartha@gmail.com to be notified)

As a celebration of the diversity of cultures of resistance, we envision this as a space for people and groups to contribute together to an event that everyone wants to see and participate in. This May Day Festival is organized by everyone, for everyone - so, we hope you'll come and join us!

We'll need your artistry and creativity! Please join us to plan the festival! Join us to make the pageant! Or just pencil it you calendars to come!

If you have questions or if you want to get notices about meetings and planning updates, contact Fhar: fhartha@gmail.com

If you want to get involved in the pageant, email Janelle: janellevyn@gmail.com