Monkeybear 2024 programming!

Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop supports Native, Black, IPOC in developing creative/technical skills in contemporary puppetry. Artists get to create their first works of puppetry and develop further in the form. Your support during Give the the Max will help us carry out our programming for 2024! 

Since being in our programming: 12 alumni have received the Puppet Lab (at HOBT and now at Open Eye) grant since 2017. Two of our alumni, Oanh Vu and Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra, in addition to continuing to create their own puppet work, 2 years ago became the Co-Artistic Directors of the Puppet Lab program at Open Eye! Four have gotten the national Henson Foundation grant. Without our program, they wouldn’t have the experience or work samples to compete for those grants, as none of them had done puppetry before Monkeybear! 

They’ve gotten job opportunities in puppetry (such as full-time artistic staff for Mayday and Barebones, work at Z Puppets Rosenshnoz), created new work for Full Moon Puppet Show at Open Eye, Puppet Cabaret, Underbelly, Northern Sparks, Greenway Glow, Open Streets and Our Space is Spoken For, Minnesota Opera, Pillsbury House Theatre, performed in Chicago (Links Hall), NYC (created work for LaMama Experimental Theater programming), residencies at the Landmark Center and Pillsbury House Theatre; these are just the highlights! We’re excited that our programming has been an integral step to further opportunities in this art form and to the economic vitality of our community of artists!

Three of our main programs include:

Puppet Performance Intensive: (prerequisite for New Puppetworks) 7-day long (4 hours each evening) workshop teaching the fundamentals of puppet performance led by master puppet artist Andrew Kim. Practice puppets are used to learn how to bring puppets to life.

New Puppetworks: Eight month mentorship program for Intensive alumni to create 5-8 minute puppet theater pieces. Participants receive $4,000, over 30 hours of mentorship from the Executive + Artistic Director and alumni, group feedback sessions, access to our studio, workshops to build technical skills in puppetmaking, and culminating show at Pillsbury House Theatre.

Puppet Cinema: Eight month mentorship program to create 5-7 minute long puppet films, for our New Puppetworks alumni. Participants get a $4,000 stipend, $800 for a sound designer, filmmaking workshops, group feedback sessions, access to Monkeybear studio and filmmaking equipment, mentorship and a culminating film screening. 

Monkeybear alumni experience in our programing:

“It is not an understatement to say that Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop saved my life. After the loss of my young son I struggled to care, and to find connection. In the summer of 2017, I  saw an announcement for a free week-long puppetry intensive.  It was a chance to learn a new skill so I went for it.

I discovered a passion for shadow puppetry, for masked performance, and story. I found a new community of friends, and an amazingly kind and compassionate mentor in Chamindika Wanduragala.

On this Give to the Max day, I hope you will support this amazing organization that brings together artists of color to create new and beautiful things, including friendships with each other and a beautiful arts community. As you put together your GTTM list, consider Monkeybear. They are so deserving of your support!” -Hawona Sullivan Janzen 

“Monkeybear will forever hold a piece of my heart as one of the first artistic spaces that helped me feel safe and nurtured to play and learn without hierarchy, judgment, or gatekeeping. Creating a space like this is easier said than done; the more I expand into my artistic practice, the more blessed I know I am to have had the space to grow with a place like Monkeybear. 

They do deeply radical work with art. They do the serious work of healing through the informality of play and building community. They listen to the people they serve, and most importantly, they do this work with love.They are, in my experience, the best nonprofit I have ever had the opportunity to be a part of in my decades of working with nonprofits, and I could not be more grateful for the nurturing I received”-Denise Hanh Huynh