Pan-Am 2004 The Plan

The Pan American Puppetry Arts Institute

At the foot of Mount Hunger in Worcester, Vermont USA

July 18 to Aug 15...2004
with weekly performances!.

All of June first two weeks of July....Pre Pan-Am workshops in puppet construction open to all, contributions appreciated, learn all you need to know about armatures, clay sculpture and papier Mache'...Call for details, 802,223,4051

Week One..Create a version of, "Two Weddings and an Assassination" ..which we produced in Vermont with the help of Lisa, Janice,Tomas, Richard,in 2002..and which we have just remounted here in Jalpan de la Sierra, in Queretaro, Mexico..
The '04 summer version we hope will reflect the struggle for oil that occurred in Mexico while Trotsky was here in the 1930s, and the role of
President Cardenas who declared ,"The Oil Under the Ground in Mexico belongs to the Mexican people", an exact contrary of last year's Rockefella character, who declared, "The oil belongs to the Rockefellas and the American people must pay the max.."
We also want to include in this version the influence of the Surrealists especially Andre Breton.Which we think will lead us to a surrealist puppet? We have been making multiple versions of the same character, Diego for instance, really big, really small, as a mask and, as an actor. Frida in the same formats, then mixing them up..the little Frida challenges the giant Diego, the little Diego pleads with the giant Frida...This construction and puppet theatre workshop will end with a performance on Saturday night July 24...
Richard and Jerome have expressed interest and their intentions to participate in this event..

Week two, Movie week,
Features the residence of Nora Jacobson, and a new effort to make a movie..There is a lot of room for discussion here, but here are some ideas. We want to take the material from the first week, the puppets and the dialogues, the conflicts and the images, the scenes, and re-organize them for the camera and for a short movie format. Do you remember those mimes, Polish I think, in the Tom Stoppard movie , "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern" are dead, who told the whole Hamlet story in two or three minutes?
We are imagining that we can make a movie in a week, or at least shoot the footage and edit a first draft. There are lots of opportunities here, for actors puppeteers, stage craft people, sound and video people, photographers..
Our Mexican guests for this summer are likely to be involved with these first two weeks.
The plan is to show the rushes to the public on Friday night, July 30.

Week three, Parade week, August 1 to 7
With Janice Walrafen as guest artist,This week will be about construction of large puppets, mounting them, manipulating them and making them mobile..we will use the same Diego and Frida, material, make some more
elements and put together a Saturday parade for Burlington's Latino Festival that will rock the city!!

Week four, Canadian theme..August 8 to 14 Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message" Bury your TV...We have talked about this before but this year we are going to do it. Multi media, Puppets and TV..Battle of the humans against the cyclops!! Auto-liberation, a simple solution to the media problem...I will ask Antoinette Jacobson and Dennis Darrah to provide music for this event Sax and Fire Organ. Saturday night performance. We are collecting TVs, if you have one you can give us, please bring it by, you will not get it back..

Post Pan Am, Transitioning to the Halloween show, planning, discussion, some workshops and meetings through September and October, Halloween production schedule to be announced...

Hope you can participate, Dragon Dance Theatre exists thanks to your cooperation and participation....
Sam and Katah