Phantom Limb Company
Conceived by Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko
Choreography by Ryan Heffington
Five-thousand years of environmental change unfold beneath the boughs of the world’s oldest living tree in this phantasmagoric mix of puppetry, choreography, music, and macabre fairy tales from Phantom Limb Company (69 ̊S., 2011 Next Wave). In a dark wood filled with tech-savvy forest creatures and humans navigating an increasingly Googleable world, a series of surreal wordless vignettes unfolds. Marionettes and masked performers channel fragments from Gilgamesh, Snow White, and other tales, resulting in a poetic and enchanted mirror of our hubris and hope that illuminates the long history of humanity’s place in nature, with and without nurture.
Direction and design by Jessica Grindstaff
Original music and puppet design by Erik Sanko
Costume design by Henrik Vibskov
Lighting design by Brian H. Scott
Sound design by Darron L. West
Projection design by Keith Skretch
Dramaturgy by Janice Paran
Creative Producer Mara Isaacs/Octopus Theatricals
Co-produced by Oz Arts Nashville
Co-commissioned by BAM, CAP UCLA, the New York University Abu Dhabi Arts Center and ASU Gammage at Arizona State University
Co-founders of Phantom Limb Company Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko lead this master class that focuses on how to tell a story using abstraction, movement, and marionettes.
Phantom Limb co-founders Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko and Daniel Schrag, director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, examine our tempestuous relationship to the environment.
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