UConn Avery Point Celebrates the Opening of SAILORS, SEA, CREATURES, AND STRINGS

UConn Avery Point, in collaboration with UConn School of Fine Arts and the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will present the opening of a new exhibition--Sailors, Sea Creatures and Strings: Maritime Puppets from the Collections of the Ballard Institute--on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2017 from 6 to 8 p.m., with refreshments served at 6 p.m. and a free tour beginning at 6:30 p.m. All events will take place in the exhibition space located on the second floor of Branford House at UConn Avery Point. UConn Avery Point is located at 1084 Shennecossett Road, Groton, Connecticut 06340. The exhibition will be on display through Dec. 17, 2017.

In a special guest exhibition at UConn's Avery Point campus, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry presents Sailors, Sea Creatures, and Strings, an installation of puppets performed in popular maritime tales. The exhibit features marionettes, rod puppets, and set pieces from late UConn Puppet Arts Program founder Frank Ballard's productions of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore (1989) and Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung (1980). The exhibit also highlights marionettes created by famed Waterford, Connecticut puppeteers Rufus and Margo Rose from their celebrated 1937 production of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. The exhibition's curator, Matt Sorensen, a UConn Puppet Arts graduate student and the Ballard Institute's graduate assistant, will lead a tour of the exhibition at the opening reception.

Exhibition hours will be Thursday through Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. from Oct. 12 through Dec. 17, 2017. Admission to the exhibition is free.

This exhibit is also featured as part of UConn Avery Point's 50th Anniversary Festival, which will take place Sunday, Oct. 15 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at UConn Avery Point. The festival will include a special performance of Crabgrass Puppet Theatre's The Pirate, The Princess and the Pea at the Student Center Auditorium. For more information about 50th Anniversary events, visit 50years.averypoint.uconn.edu or contact Lisa Hastings at 860-405-9262 or lisa.hastings@uconn.edu.

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut is one of America's hidden treasures, with a superb collection of over 3,000 puppets from all over the world. The Ballard Institute curates and produces exhibitions of puppet and object performance, and offers workshops, museum tours, artists' forums, film showings, performances, and other events and programs that promote the art of puppetry as a twenty-first-century art form with deep historic and global roots. The Ballard Institute is located at 1 Royce Circle in Storrs, Connecticut and is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday. Admission to the museum is free; donations greatly appreciated. For more information about the Ballard Institute, visit bimp.uconn.edu or call 860-486-8580.

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