EDwin Salas
Puppetry
About the Artist
Edwin Salas has been an artist of puppetry for 20 years, performing in Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Belize, Guatemala, the U.S., and Taiwan. He has many award winning works including Witchcraft of Paper: Ecce Uovo, Stories of the color of the earth, Cocorí, Nightmare of Obraztov, Moving Museum of the living beings. He has also written and published his book Mechanisms of Puppets of Direct Action that has been sold in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
In Asheville, he has collaborated with the Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre in the performance of The Nutcracker with the solo, "To the Dragon with Love.” He created puppets and performed in the Asheville Creative Arts’ 2018 performance of Bugs and the 2019 puppet production of Charlotte’s Web. He participated in the prestigious 2019 National Puppetry Festival hosted by the Puppeteers of America. In 2020, Salas Acosta created the workshop Making Political Puppet Art: “From Isolation to the World: We are not alone or are we?” during the 30th Annual National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. The workshop was funded by the Jane Henson Foundation and O'Neill donors.
RESIDENCY OFFERING: Short movie with paper puppets
Each student will create a puppet show with paper puppets. Students will use these puppets to create individual short movies of 2 or 3 minutes at the end of the week to express their feelings in this special historic period.
Grade Levels: PreK-12th grade (the artist will adapt the project for the grade level and curriculum the teacher needs to cover)
Artist Contact Hours: 5 hours, approx. 1 hour per day
Timeline
Day 1: Introduction to Puppetry
The artist will explain the basics of puppetry and techniques. Students will begin designing characters for the performance at the end of the week. Students will discuss the script and performance in groups.
Day 2 & Day 3: Puppet Construction
With the support of the artist and teacher, students will build their paper puppets with provided and found materials at home. Students will continue to brainstorm scripts with the artist.
Day 4: Rehearsal
Students will utilize props and puppets in rehearsal to prepare for performance and record the performance. Students will send their video to the teacher and artist who will compile student short videos into a film for the entire class to watch.
Day 5: Performance/ Viewing
Students will watch each classmate’s video. Teacher, artist and students will engage in discussion about their videos and the process of creating their puppet show.
Learning Targets:
Students will use their creativity to develop their own puppets.
Students will help the artist to develop a script in order to put on a short movie at the end of the week with their puppets.