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Local studio promotes puppet-making

PuppetStudio
Local puppeteer Juanita Dawn is passionate about puppet-making, and wants to promote the art in Rocky View County. Photo Submitted/For Rocky View Publishing

One of Rocky View County’s (RVC) hidden gems is a small studio nestled in Springbank where puppeteer Juanita Dawn spends her days.

“We do a number of things at the Long Grass Studio,” Dawn said. “I am a puppet artist [and] a bit of a sculptor, as well, and my husband [Pat] is a glass fusion artist.”

Long Grass Studio and Workshop was built four years ago, she said, to accommodate both her and Pat’s artistic endeavours.

“We built a freestanding building beside our house,” Dawn said. “Previous to that, I had a studio in my basement.”

On her side of the studio, Dawn said, craftwork like sculpting, mould-making, casting, sewing and woodworking occurs as she builds her puppets. She began dabbling in puppetry about 12 years ago while still working as a registered nurse, she added, after getting involved with the Old Trout Puppet Workshop.

“The Old Trout Puppet Workshop is a world-renowned puppet group,” she said. “It did start in Calgary. They were putting on shows that were super impressive to me.”

After taking courses on puppet building, Dawn said she was hooked, drawn in by the way various materials could be brought to life on stage.

“It’s the magic of this sculptural piece that comes to life,” she said. “The life that these puppeteers bring to these, whatever you want to call them – objects, dolls – it’s phenomenal how the magic of that takes place right in front of your eyes.”

Currently, Dawn and her puppetry partner Monica Ila are working on restaging their production The Bench, which will take place Nov. 1 and 2 at the C-Space Theatre in Calgary. The 20-minute play was performed in March as part of Calgary’s 2019 Festival of Animated Objects and tells the story of a homeless man sleeping on a bench, that becomes a focal point of the community.

“It’s kind of whimsical, but at the end it has kind of a sadness,” Dawn said.

Occasionally, the studio will build puppets for other companies. Earlier this year, Dawn said, the studio was hired to make all the working arms and legs for Calgary theatre company Ghost River Theatre’s production of GIANT – also part of the puppet festival.

Dawn also teaches classes and workshops on puppetry, and will rent the space out to those who want to construct their own puppets. She is passionate about her art form, and said she is eager to share it with others. Compared to Europe, puppetry is relatively new in North America, she said, and many people only conceive of the art as Muppets.

“Puppetry encompasses a tremendous amount of materials and skills, depending on what is needed for that puppet to do,” Dawn said. “Puppets can range from hand puppets to the Muppets everybody’s really familiar with – hand and rod puppets. Then, there’s puppets that are really large, puppets that are little balls. Puppets can come in any different shape and size, depending on what story they’re meant to tell.”

In the Calgary region, there aren’t many ways to be introduced to the art of puppetry and puppet making, Dawn said – outside of the Festival of Animated Objects, which takes place every two years.

“There’s no real formal education of puppetry construction or puppetry performance in Canada – except in Montreal, and it’s in French,” Dawn said. “There’s a real need for it, we feel, to get more education of puppetry out there.”

Dawn said anyone interested in experiencing puppetry can attend one of the four productions of The Bench – tickets are available through brownpapertickets.com – or contact Long Grass Studio and Workshop at 403-809-7464. More information about the studio can also be found online at longgrassstudio.ca

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