with
The Ballad of
Cupid & Psyche
by
Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith
and Daniel Jose Older The Typist
by
David Michael Friend February 2 & 3, 2007 Dixon Place
258 Bowery - 2nd Floor
New York, NY 100012

[Next bloK is April 12th & 13th, 2007]

Puppet BloK! features new works of puppetry, animation, music, and other innovative styles of performance by emerging and established artists from the NYC area.

Branching out of Dixon Place's own mission statement to focus on experimental works, Puppet BloK provides an all-encompassing venue for alternative modes of storytelling. Puppet BloK is a commune for installation art, animation, traditional and non-traditional puppetry, mask, music, film, commedia, and other extraordinary art forms. Works on the fringe that border on the sacred and profane, artists that are looking to go back to the heart of storytelling, who willingly tackle myths and allegories and relate them directly to us. Puppet BloK provides a haven for work that is uncomfortable and wonderful, work that is sculpted not polished, reactionary not static. Biting, but not perfect.

-Leslie Strongwater (curator)

Set in a war between god-birds and mortal-insects, The Ballad of Cupid and Psyche, gives new breath to the classic tale of love. Blending choreography, moving sculptures, and music, this piece is blossoming from its larval stages and learning to fly.

Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith is a Brooklyn based performer/puppeteer who has recently entered into the realm of teaching. This summer she helped in the creation of Happenstance Theatre's Prufbox for the Capitol Fringe Festival. Recent New York productions include Martin Halpern's Odysseus and Ajax with Tom Lee, Kate Brehm's A Seemingly Unified Spectacle, Mabou Mines' Red Beads, and Dragon Dreams a piece she created for the New York Public Library. Besides developing the original puppet extravaganza of the Ballad of Cupid and Psyche with writer/composer Daniel Jose Older, Lindsay is also involved in the larval stages of Juglares Empiricos Paranormales. When not puppeting, Lindsay keeps her hands busy with massage therapy and playing in the dirt.

By night, composer/storywriter Daniel Jose Older works as an EMS paramedic in New York City. By day, he organizes against gentrification and domestic violence with Make the Road by Walking and Brooklyn Connect. In between all that, he composes music and makes up stories.

[photo by Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith]

A man contends with an incorrigible Fate in The Typist by David Michael Friend.

David Michael Friend has been a part of the puppet community for close to a decade, helping to bring forth Drama of Works' Doctor Faustus, The Ballad of Phineas P. Gage, Curiouser and Curiouser and the Carnival of Samhain. He has also worked with Kevin Augustine, building and performing for Animal and the Czech-American Marionette Theater in their piece The Life in Times of Lee Harvey Oswald. His personal theatrical visions include Lunatic, a short about a lunar assembly line; and The Bident of Angels, about a fallen angel containing its inner demons. Currently, Friend is collaborating with Heather Henson in producing his first puppet film, Moonfishing. -- www.dmfriend.com

[photo by David Michael Friend]