Tag Archives: Puppets

October 2, 2024 · 11:25 am

It’s puppet season at You Are Here Gallery

*Mothman*, inspired by the legendary 1960’s sightings of a giant moth-humanoid creature in West Virginia, will be on display in Puppets and Performance (Tom Sarver, 2024).

October has long been puppet season for me. For many years, it was the time of the year when I was organizing the Black Sheep Puppet Festival, an epic national festival of puppetry performance that happened at the Brew House on the South Side of Pittsburgh (1999 through 2008). The festival was always around Halloween. The puppets were often creepy. The cobwebbed Brew House, in need of major repairs at the time, added to the ambiance.

Flash forward to 2024. Early in the year, the crew at You Are Here Gallery in Jeanette, PA contacted me about participating in a community puppet festival in the small town about 45 minutes southeast of Pittsburgh, near Greensburg. I visited You Are Here and saw the first floor gallery and workshop space on the second floor. The organization is a refreshing burst of arts activity on a small town main street. Mary Briggs, Jen Costello and Natalie Condrac talked about a lineup of festive activities that they were planning for October, culminating in the Jeanette Halloween parade. I agreed to conduct a community puppet making workshop and to exhibit in a gallery exhibition of puppets.

Puppets by Tom Sarver that will be on display at You Are Here gallery, starting October 5th (created 2009 through 2024).

This Saturday October 5th from 6 PM to 8 PM is the opening of the You Are Here exhibition Puppets and Performance. I will be showing an assortment of small puppets. Other exhibitors include D.T. Burns, Sasha Schwartz, Sherri Roberts, Joann Kielar, Maddie Macek, Ayne Terceira and Lindsay Goranson. The show is curated by Natalie Condrac. The show runs through Saturday, November 16th.

Kristen Sarver, Tom Sarver, Joann Kielar and Albert Pantone, with Joann’s *Traditional Wife* puppet at the Puppets and Performance opening reception.

Exhibiting artist and puppeteer Sherri Roberts, performing at the opening reception of Puppets and Performance.

I’ll be conducting a two-day workshop in puppet making, Monster Under Your Bed – Community Puppet Making Workshop, on Saturday October 12th at You Are Here Gallery (1 PM to 4 PM) and on Saturday October 19th at Jeanette Library (1 to 4 PM). The workshop is for adults and families with children ten years old and up. Anyone under 16 must be accompanied by an adult guardian. The workshop is free but preregistration is required. More information about the workshop can be found here.

Tom Sarver creating *Mothman* in his workshop.

On Friday, October 25th, You Are Here will be holding Puppet Open Mic Night, with hosts D.T. Burns and Natalie Condrac. Puppet making workshop participants are encouraged to come and perform with their puppets at this event. More information here.

On Wednesday, October 30th, 2024, the Jeanette Halloween Parade takes place, starting at 7 PM on Clay Avenue. I’ve heard this is a wild event and another great opportunity to show off a puppet!

Exploring puppetry is a great way to tell stories, meet new people and get creative. You don’t need special skills to get started. Everyone is invited to check out the activities.

And if you are in Jeanette Wednesday through Sunday before 2pm, I would recommend stopping by Peinetti’s Bakery and coffee shop!

Flight Out of Time / Puppet Show at Carnegie Museum of Art

Hugo Ball & Emmy Hennings traverse the battlefields of the Great War.

On January 16^th, I presented a new show with collaborator Michael Cuccaro at the Carnegie Museum of Art, as part of their Culture Club programming for the 2013 Carnegie International. The fifteen-minute, Dada-inspired show was performed toy theatre-style in the Museum Café with a cast of newly crafted puppet characters including Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Tristan Tzara and a drone. Sets for the production included a battlefield scene, the interior of the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, Switzerland, 1916 and Hugo Ball’s bedroom. The Carnegie Café was transformed into an installation for the International, making it an interesting venue for the event. Also performed that evening was Museum Piece: For Margo Lovelace, a puppetry performance by Paulina Olowska, performed by Kristen Barca and Joann Kielar.

Emmy Hennings performing a dance at the Cabaret Voltaire.

In the fall of 2012, I met Polish artist Paulina Olowska. She was visiting to plan her 2013 Carnegie International installation for the Carnegie Café. We talked about the beginnings of the Dada movement at the Cabaret Voltaire and her plans to transform the museum café into a cabaret atmosphere. When Olowska later invited me to work on the performance piece for her project (and exhibit a collection of my puppets), I began thinking about creating a show about the ideals of early Dada artists.

Dada founders Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball at the Cabaret Voltaire.

It’s difficult to think about the trauma experienced by European artists living during World War I. What were artists to do at a time when humanity was pushed to the edge? The reality of war and suffering permeated everyday life. New, more efficient weapons, tanks and gasses were implemented. What were artists to do in this time of trauma? The Cabaret Voltaire was an outlet for artists and intellectuals to express their disgust, their needs and their aim to redefine art.

Tristan Tzara delivering his Dada Manifesto at the Cabaret Voltaire.

Today, wars are often managed by drones controlled from locations far from the battlefield. We watch football, go to the movies and get into arguments at the supermarket as wars are being waged halfway around the world. In developing this new puppet show, I thought about the iconic figure Hugo Ball, dressed in a shiny cone-shaped bishop’s outfit. I wondered what Ball, his wife Emmy Hennings and other Zurich Dadaists of 1916 would think about the world and warfare today.

Bedroom scene, as Ball is about to be visited by an errant drone from 2016.

The puppet show, Flight Out of Time (after Ball’s diaries), recreates the scene of The Cabaret Voltaire. A fantastical ending suggests a prophetic element in Ball’s prose. The show includes an adaptation of Tristan Tzara’s Dada Manifesto as well as a reenactment of Hugo Ball’s sound poetry.

A drone “flies out of time” from 2016.

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Filed under Art, Events, Puppets

Tagged as 2013 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Puppets, Tom Sarver

October 14, 2013 · 11:35 am

Puppet Collection at 2013 Carnegie International

A collection of thirty puppets and puppet show props that I made and used in performance from 1997 though 2013 is currently on display as part of Paulina Olowska’s cabaret installation Puppetry in America in Truly a Lonely Craft in the 2013 Carnegie International. I met Olowska and co-curator Daniel Baumann in November of 2013, when the artist visited the Carnegie Museum of Art to plan the transformation of the museum’s Carnegie Cafe into a cabaret installation inspired by puppetry and the legendary Pittsburgh puppeteer Margo Lovelace. I shared my collection of puppets, props and posters, and was later invited to participate in the project.

Aside from the collection, I also organized a performance for the opening day of the International with Pittsburgh puppeteers Kristen Barca and Joann Kielar. Based on Olowska’s cabaret concept, the performance titled Museum Piece: For Margo Lovelace involved Barca and Kielar manipulating marionettes on a sculptural stage to a piano and accordion score. The piece, which is now on view as a video recording, played to a packed crowd on opening day.

Yawny

Puppets made from fabric, wood, paint, hardware and found objects.

Monster Burger looks out at diners in the Carnegie Cafe.