Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival & Théâtre De L'Entrouvert to Present ANYWHERE
Performances will run from 2/6-3/2 At HERE Arts Center.
HERE Arts Center will welcome ANYWHERE, a string-marionette show co-presented by Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and Théâtre de l'Entrouvert in collaboration with HERE's Dream Music Puppetry Program and Sublet Series. The New York Premiere of ANYWHERE, created and performed by puppeteers Mark Blashford and Ashwaty Chennat, will run February 6-March 2 at HERE Arts Center. The work originally debuted at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival where it performed to sold out houses, added houses and standing ovations.
A marionette made of ice will melt your heart in this exquisite string-marionette work. This Oedipus is ephemeral, a fallen, frozen puppet that gradually melts, then appears as mist and finally disappears in the forest. This Oedipus speaks cold truths about our bodies, our environment, our fragilities, and our wanderings in the infinite circle of renewal.
Performances are scheduled on:
Thursday, February 6 at 7pm (preview)
Friday, February 7 at 7pm (preview)
Saturday, February 8 at 7pm (Opening Night)
Sunday, February 9 at 4pm
Tuesday, February 11 at 7pm
Wednesday, February 12 at 7pm
Thursday, February 13 at 7pm
Friday, February 14 at 7pm
Saturday, February 15 at 7pm
Sunday, February 16 at 4pm
Tuesday, February 18 at 7pm
Wednesday, February 19 at 7pm
Thursday, February 20 at 7pm
Friday, February 21 at 7pm
Saturday, February 22 at 7pm
Sunday, February 23 at 4pm
Tuesday, February 25 at 7pm
Wednesday, February 26 at 7pm
Thursday, February 27 at 7pm
Friday, February 28 at 7pm
Saturday, March 1 at 7pm
Sunday, March 2 at 4pm
Tickets ($30) are available for advance purchase. The performance will run approximately 60 minutes, with no intermission.
Mark Blashford
(Puppeteer) is a professional puppeteer and builder specializing in marionette, shadow, rod and hand puppetry. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Puppet Arts from the University of Connecticut in 2017. He has also studied in Germany, the Czech Republic, the U.K, and Iceland with instruction from Bernd Ogrodnik. Blashford has worked with many theaters in addition to as an associate artist at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, where he originated and delivered Puppet Grams during the pandemic, and as coordinator of the Chicago Puppet Studio. Blashford now lives in Iceland and works full-time with Bernd Ogrodnik in the studios of Worlds of Puppets. He also manages and performs with his own company, Rootstock Puppet Works.
Ashwaty Chennatt
(Puppeteer) is a movement artist and educator whose interdisciplinary and cultural exchange work sows seeds for empathy-building experiences. She is a principal artist with Mandala Arts, where she has choreographed contemporary dance rooted in Bharatnatyam. Her work has been supported and recognized by Chicago Dancemakers Forum, Pivot Arts, 3Arts and the City of Chicago. She performed in the Chicago premiere of Anywhere in 2023 as part of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. Her work has been presented at Chicago Symphony Center, Art Institute of Chicago, Logan Center for the Arts, Links Hall, The Music Box Theatre, Pivot Arts Festival, Bridge Dance Festival and University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
Théâtre de l'Entrouvert was created in 2010 by Elise Vigneron trained in plastic arts, circus arts and puppetry arts (graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mézières). Digging a plastic language that speaks directly, to the senses, to the unconscious, immersing the spectators in an intimate and common experience is the artistic project that she develops. Together with the spectators, the company walks towards this territory of the in-between, on the border between the visible and the invisible, the animate and the inanimate, the shadow and the light. The company has performed in internationally renowned theaters and festivals such as the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, SPAF, Seoul Performing Art Festival in Seoul (South Korea), the international festival of Puppet Theater in Charleville-Mézières (08), the Biennale des puppetry arts in Paris, the Biennale Corps Objets images at the TJP, CDN in Strasbourg (67), the National Theater of Montévidéo (Uruguay), the Municipal Theater of Rosario (Argentina), the FIMFA festival in Lisbon (Portugal), Mime London Festival in London, the UNIDRAM Festival in Potsdam (Germany), Internationales Figurentheaterfestival in Magdeburg (Germany), the Lutke Festival in Ljubljana (Slovenia), in New York, and the Casteliers festival in Montréal (Canada). www.lentrouvert.com
The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is the largest event dedicated to puppetry in North America, presenting over 100 events and performances in only 12 days each January in Chicago including performances, workshops, artist intensives, free neighborhood events and symposia to audiences over 19,000 and artists from around the globe. Having just completed it's 7th edition, the organization advances the art of puppetry by presenting sophisticated programs, engaging and inspiring the largest and most diverse audiences for puppetry possible. The organization is also home to other key initiatives, including the Chicago Puppet Studio and Chicago Puppet Lab, that nurture the development of puppeteers and deepen the field locally, nationally and internationally with the ultimate goal of promoting peace, equality, mutual understanding, and justice locally and globally. This is the Festival's first tour of work to NY and is the result of a multi-year collaboration between Théâtre de l'Entrouvert and the Festival to create a US-based ensemble that performs and tours ANYWHERE nationally. US Representation by Pemberley Productions. For more information about touring, please contact Doreen Sayegh at doreen@pemberleyproductions.com. The next Festival is January 21-February 2, 2026.
Since 1993, HERE Arts Center has been one of New York's most prolific arts organizations. Today, it stands at the forefront of the city's cultural scene, producing and presenting daring, new, multidisciplinary performance experiences. From our home in Lower Manhattan, HERE builds an inclusive community that nurtures artists of all backgrounds as they disrupt conventional expectations to create innovative performances in theatre, dance, music, puppetry, media, and visual art. By providing these genre-blending artists with an adaptive, flexible home for developing and producing their work, we share a range of perspectives reflective of the complexity of our city. HERE welcomes curious audiences to witness groundbreaking performances, responsive to the world in which we live, at free and affordable prices.
HERE strives to create an equitable, diverse, and inclusive home in which all people have fair access to the resources they need to realize their visions. We acknowledge structural inequities that exclude individuals and communities from opportunities based on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, class, age, and geography, and seek to counter those inequities in our work. Through mindful actions on sustainability and regenerative practices, we work toward climate justice, and a safe, livable planet for present and future artmakers and audiences. www.here.org
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