Hello Everybody!

We will be building a shadow puppet show together in the month of June in upstate new york, and then touring our show by bike in the small communities and rural townships of New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont, performing and holding puppet-making workshops along the way. Our mission is to bring theater and performance out of inaccessible high-brow performance spaces and into the streets, public squares, and community spaces where it belongs.

We will spend the month of June at a farm in Krumville, NY. There we will be doing a work trade with the farmers by helping out in the garden, with the grounds, and animals. While living on the farm we will be putting together a shadow puppet show that fits onto our bikes. Days will be spent work shopping the story, building puppets, getting our bikes in touring shape, cooking, and farming.

After a month on the farm we will have the show loaded and road-ready. On July 7th we will begin peddling our way up to the Pioneer Valley, MA and from there make our way up to the Northeast Kingdom and then head back down to NYC.

Along the way we will be stopping in towns, farms, houses, community centers, green-spaces and anywhere else we are invited to perform. We are excited about bringing free art to places and people that wouldn’t otherwise experience it. From start to finish we will be powering this show ourselves. From growing our own food to building our puppets. This is why we chose to make this show bike pulled! In a fast paced technological world it is important to show off the beauty that comes from knowing your sources and using what you can build to get you from place to place.

After performing we will stay in the towns and communities and offer help with anything they need. We can hold workshops on mask making, bike repair, yoga, permaculture, and other skills we can share. By doing this we will not just be touring our show and leaving, but be able to collaborate with the people we meet as well.

Now! The fun part..you get to know us!First, we’ve got…..

This nimble, and lightfooted tightrope walker walks over pools filled with sharks, get ready to meet

Antonia Perez

Antonia Perez has flowers and herbs growing out of her finger tips. She is an artist, environmentalist, yogi, permaculturist and much more! Antonia is currently at student at Bard College studying Environmental and Urban Studies with a concentration in art. She plans to do her senior project on how ovens have encouraged the formation of community. She will be looking at how communal ovens have been used around the world and then focusing in on how cob ovens are being used now in the North East. She hopes to visit cob ovens along the bike trip. She is really excited about the cob oven at Bread and Puppet and breaking bread with that community. Antonia loves to cook and making fermentation potions. She is really interested in learning about plants and their medicines and making medicines from them which she uses and shares with the people that surround her. Antonia is looking forward to sharing what she knows while on the farm and on the road with new friends she meets.

and who is this???

Take your hats off, get ready for the brave, and ferocious lion tamer of your dreams

Rae Anna Hample

Rae Anna Hample is an artist, puppeteer, yoga teacher, beekeeper, and cyclist. She just completed her senior thesis at Bard college and will graduate in May. In 2012 she rode her bike over 7,000 miles while teaching yoga and learning about community farming projects in the US and Canada. She has performed shadow puppet shows in New York and New Mexico. Rae will use her bike touring experience to make sure that our bikes run smoothly and that our traveling equipment is in order. She will also be part of the puppet making process on the farm, and a puppeteer on the road. Rae will also use her knowledge of anatomy and five years of yoga teaching experience to stretch out sore legs and soothe stiff joints. zip zap zoop!

Still more people??? YES

The incredible, flying, soaring, trapeze artist that learned everything she knew from the spider monkeys who found her at birth, can you believe it, it’s

Cyrina King

Cyrina King has many hats, and usually wears many at once. She graduated from Bard College in 2012, and has spent the last two years growing food and working with youth inside and outside the classroom creating alternative curriculum that uses science as a tool for self and community advocacy. Cyrina is joining the project after a few months on the road doing emergency medical aid along the US-Mexico border. She will be bringing her accordion to act as accompaniment to the bike-powered show, will be building puppets in Krumville, and is using her experience organizing political and community-based events in Oakland to reach out to social justice projects, community spaces, and local theaters to book shows along our tour!

And who is that?

Is that a poodle walking on two legs? Did it just jump through a flaming hoop? No! It’s

Ana Ratner

Writing a bio is hard because I want to think of the most important things that stand out as the things that make me who I am. Where I grew up, stories I was told, what I do, and moments that shape who I am. When I start to think about all these things none of them seem more important than any others. Maybe that’s because I grew up in New York City where, within one minute you can see the most upsetting things then walk a couple feet and see the most inspiring things. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a house where on one wall there is a painting of a man being shot and next to it a rainbow dragon my brother made when he was five. These extremes and everything in between shape who I am. They inspired me to plant seeds and take home hurt pigeons. Now they inspire me to create and teach art. I weave because I can collect trash, gifts, wool and other materials and make them into one cohesive piece. One weaving will have a piece of dirty plastic woven next to fabric from my great-grandmother. I work with children helping them take what’s intangible and turn it into art for others to see. Through Petal Puppets I will continue to bring what’s inside to the outside and share it with as many people as possible.

Yahoo! Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch.