Phantom Limb Company (PLC), New York City-based, creates iconic stories that are built on an intersection of innovation, social change and visual art, with a particular focus on the climate emergency and environmental injustice.  Collaging puppetry, movement, multi-media storytelling and design, this unique integration of social impact and aesthetic is essential to their work. 

They are truth seekers, storytellers and deep believers in the power of collaboration to inspire engagement and action.

Best known for The Environmental Trilogy, over the course of the past decade, PLC developed  three works for Brooklyn Academy of Music that grappled with human relationship to nature and climate change through several different lenses.  The first, 69˚S. (2011) was inspired by Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition.  The second, entitled Memory Rings (2016) focused on the world’s oldest living tree, the Methuselah and the stories that have emerged over the course of its lifetime (almost 5000 years).   The final piece, Falling Out (2019) is a cross-cultural collaboration with butoh dancer Dai Matsuoka that listens to and learns from the residents of the Fukushima region of Japan from their stories of loss and hope.

In 2019, in collaboration with the students of NYU Tisch, PLC created an epilogue to the Environmental Trilogy, an adaptation of Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men.  This work is a dark comedy entitled 12 Angry Animals wherein masked performers representing 12 endangered species debate the innocence or guilt of the last surviving human in a future dystopia using language and dream movements.

Phantom Limb currently has several projects at varying stages of development. Next up is The Puppet Cycle: Small World Stories commissioned by Brookfield Place. Be on the lookout for a roving solar powered stage mobilized by bicycle that can be seen on the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn this August 2022.

The company is most often comprised of a large rotating cast of friends, collaborators, artists, dancers actors and puppeteers.   They have collaborated with Tony Taccone, Lemony Snicket, Danny Elfman, Jim Jarmusch, The Kronos Quartet, Gavin Friday, Ryan Heffington, Jeffery Zeigler, Dai Matsuoka, Henrik Vibskov, Sophie Hunter, Jen Silverman, and Dipika Guha among other luminaries.

PLC could not exist with out the generous support and grants from the Jim Henson Foundation, The Rubin Foundation, New England Foundation for Art (NEFA), Foundation for Contemporary Art, The Jerome Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the National Science Foundation Artist and Writers Program, The New York State Composer’s Grant, the MAP Fund, Edith Luytens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund, New Music USA,  the Asian Cultural Council and the Japan Foundation as well as being Hermitage Artist Residency Fellows, Robert Rauschenberg Residency Fellows and Recipients of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award.

ARTISTS & CLIMATE CHANGE FEATURE INTERVIEW 

COMPANY AND COLLABORATORS

JESSICA GRINDSTAFF

Founder, Director, Playwright & Set Designer

Jessica Grindstaff is a New York City-based visual artist, playwright and director. She has been committed to making a concrete difference in all aspects of her artistic career from visual to collaborative.

For the past decade, Jessica has committed herself almost exclusively to the work of creating a trilogy that explores human relationship to nature or the environment, through several different lenses with her creative partner Erik Sanko.  This work has taken her to Antarctica, on an expedition to discover the oldest living tree in the world and finally to Fukushima, where the tsunami and subsequent nuclear meltdown of 2011 have devastated a tremendous area of Northern Japan to this day.

Her writing process has been image and collage based until 2019 when she created her first text based play, an adaptation of Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men.   She is currently at work on a new commercial piece of theatre centered on climate injustice and live action philanthropy as well as the 2022 release of Th Puppet Cycle for Brookfield place and a move towards film/television directing.

Jessica is co-founder and artistic director of Phantom Limb Company.

ERIK SANKO

Founder, Puppet Designer and Composer

Erik Sanko is best known as a fixture of the NYC downtown music scene, having recorded and toured with John Cale, Yoko Ono, Gavin Friday, Jim Carroll, James Chance and the Contortions among others as well as being a 16-year veteran of The Lounge Lizards and his own band, Skeleton Key. In 2006, his first complete puppet play, The Fortune Teller, debuted at HERE Arts Center in New York City. The Kronos Quartet commissioned Erik to co-create “Dear Mme.,” an original music composition and marionette play for the 25th Anniversary of the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In 2007 Erik formed Phantom Limb Company with Jessica Grindstaff, under which all of their subsequent projects have been created, with Erik serving as composer and puppet designer/builder.

With Phantom Limb he has collaborated with Ping Chong, Lemony Snicket, and Danish  Theatre Director Rolf Heim though the majority of his work has been focused on  creating “The Environmental Trilogy”. “69 Degrees South”, “Memory Rings” and “Falling Out” were performed at BAM in 2011, 2016, 2019 with subsequent tours.

 Erik has also released two solo records under his own name titled “Past Imperfect,  Present Tense” and “Puppet Boy”.

He has taught Puppetry and Performance and Biomimicry and Puppetry at Rhode Island School of Design and Puppetry/Object Manipulation at NYU and The New School as well as workshops in lectures at NYU Abu Dhabi, CalArts and Dartmouth College. When not creating his own work, he is working  as “puppet doctor” for the “Lion King” on Broadway.  He holds a B.F.A. from Cooper Union and has been a closet puppet maker since childhood.

CURRENT COLLABORATORS

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION

JANICE PARAN (Dramaturg)

Janice is a New Jersey-based dramaturg and a Senior Program Associate for the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, which provides creative support for the development of new work for the stage. Prior to joining Sundance, she spent 14 seasons as the Director of Play Development at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ. She has worked closely with numerous writers and artists, including Annie Baker, Nilo Cruz, Christopher Durang, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Emily Mann, Dael Orlandersmith, Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson, Polly Pen, Stephen Wadsworth, Tracey Scott Wilson and Doug Wright. She is the recipient of a Bly Creative Capacity Fellowship for her work on Memory Rings. Recent projects include The Figaro Plays at McCarter Theatre and Bel Canto at Lyric Opera of Chicago. She is a Civilians Associate Artist, an artistic advisor to the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company in Weston, Vermont, and she was recently named to the roster of Fulbright specialists. She has taught at Princeton University, Drew University and NYU, and she holds M.F.A. degrees from Catholic University and the Yale School of Drama.

OCTOPUS THEATRICALS (Producer)

Octopus Theatricals was founded by creative producer Mara Isaacs and is dedicated to producing and consulting in the performing arts. From experimental to commercial, we collaborate with artists and organizations to foster an expansive range of compelling theatrical works for local, national and international audiences. We eschew boundaries —aesthetic, geopolitical, institutional —and thrive on a nimble and rigorous practice. Current projects include Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell (at London’s National Theatre); Iphigenia, a new opera by Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding; Theatre For One; Minefield by Lola Arias; An Iliad by Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson; Haruki Murakami’s Sleep by Ripe Time and Project Springboard: Developing Dance Musicals. We are also proud to work with The Civilians, Song of the Goat Theatre, Baryshnikov Arts Center, CalArts Center for New Performance, Princeton University and more. | www.octopustheatricals.com

MARA ISAACS (Producer)

 Mara Isaacs is a creative producer and founder of Octopus Theatricals.  She is director of Project Springboard: Developing Dance Musicals and is proud to collaborate with Phantom Limb Company, Song of the Goat Theatre, Lola Arias, Theatre for One and many other singular artists and companies. She has produced over one hundred fifty productions that have been seen on Broadway (Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Translations, Anna in the Tropics, Electra), off-Broadway (Hadestown, Fiasco Theater’s Into The Woods, The Brother/Sister Plays, Miss Witherspoon,Crowns, The Laramie Project), at theaters and performing arts centers around the US and the world (UK, Europe, Middle East, South America, South Africa, Canada). Plays she has developed and produced have gone on to receive assorted Tony, Pulitzer, Obie, Drama Desk, Drama League, Lucile Lortel, New York Drama Critics and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and have appeared a total of twelve times on American Theatre Magazine’s annual “Top 10 List of Most Frequently Produced Plays.” She was Producing Director at McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, NJ and previously produced new play development programs and productions for Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. She is currently visiting faculty for CalArts School of Theatre and for Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts.

RONEE ALEXANDRA PENOI (Associate Producer)

Ronee is Associate Producer for Octopus Theatricals. Founded by Mara Isaacs in 2013, Octopus Theatricals is dedicated to producing and consulting in the performing arts. Ronee is a 2019 ISPA Global Fellow, 2016 Theater Communications Group (TCG) Rising Leader of Color and is part of the third cohort for The Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Arts Leadership Program and the Leadership Fellows Program (LFP).
Previously, Ronee was Creative Producer for the Welders Playwrights' Collective (winner of Washington DC’s John Aniello Award for Best Emerging Theatre Company) and founded Theatre from the District, an effort to support, advance and tour the work of interdisciplinary artists in Washington, DC. She was the National New Play Network (NNPN) Producer-in-Residence at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, where she authored A Producing Theatre’s Guide to Presenting, and was part of the inaugural class of New Play Producing Fellows at the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage. She was Assistant Stage Manager for Anna Deavere Smith’s national tour of Let Me Down Easy, and as Directing Fellow at Arena Stage, assisted Director Michael Greif during the pre-Broadway production of Next to Normal. Ronee was also Artistic Fellow for The Shakespeare Theatre’s 07-08 season. Ronee has been at work on a new musical about Carlisle Indian School titled The Carlisle Project, supported by the Creative Communities Fund at Cultural DC’s Mead Theater Lab. She has been a Commons Producer and contributing writer for Howlround.com, and has also worked with the Consensus Building Institute to embed theater practices in their conflict resolution practice in the U.S. and internationally. Ronee has a BA in Music with Certificates in Theater and Vocal Performance from Princeton University and is Laguna Pueblo and Cherokee.

DARRON WEST (Sound Designer)

Darron L West (Sound Design) Is a TONY and OBIE award winning sound designer whose work for dance and theater has been heard in over 600 productions all over the United States and internationally in 14 countries. His additional accolades include the Drama Desk, Lortel, Audelco and Princess Grace Foundation Statue Awards.

KEITH SKRETCH (Video Designer) 

is an award-winning video designer with a knack for collaborative development and a yen for conceptual rigor. He’s worked with performing artists including Mallory Catlett, Big Dance Theater, Palissimo, LA Contemporary Dance Company, Noveller, Jay Scheib, Travis Preston, Zoe Moore, Son of Semele Ensemble, Tal Yarden, and Daniel Fish, and for such institutions as Center Theatre Group, La Jolla Playhouse, Automata LA, The Old Globe, Yale Rep, Boston Court, Monkey Town LA, Royal & Derngate, and the CalArts Center for New Performance. He recently designed large-scale multichannel visuals and interactives for the public art installation “Union Station 360” with The Hettema Group, and crafted a monitor and VHS-based installation and rehearsal methodology for Grand Lady Dance House’s “House Music” residency at The Mistake Room in downtown Los Angeles. He’s been a recurring collaborator of WNYC’s Radiolab and art funk collective Mothership LA. Since 2014 he’s served as resident video designer to the Live Arts Exchange/LAX festival. Skretch’s video installations have been exhibited in New York and Los Angeles, and his experimental short Waves of Grain, a strata-cut animation created by planing through a block of lumber and photographing it after each pass, screened at festivals internationally before going viral online, being featured on sites including Huffington Post, Creators Project, Gizmodo, and Colossal. Skretch holds a BA from the University of Chicago and an MFA from CalArts, where he was an inaugural graduate from the School of Theater’s Video for Performance specialization. He’s been nominated for LA Weekly, Craig Noel, and Stage Raw design awards, and his work on the Obie-winning This Was The End (Chocolate Factory Theater) earned a 2014 Bessie Award and Henry Hewes Design Award. He is based in Los Angeles.

BRIAN SCOTT (Lighting Designer) 

Brian H Scott (Lighting Design) Is a SITI Company member and has designed lighting for Café Variations, Trojan Women, and The Persians in association with the Getty Villa; American Document with the Martha Graham Dance Company; Under Construction, Who Do You Think You Are, Hotel Cassiopeia, Death and the Ploughman, bobrauschenbergamerica (Henry Hewes Design Award 2004), and War of the Worlds the Radio Play. With Rude Mechanicals: Stop Hitting Yourself; Now Now, Oh Now; Method Gun; I’ve Never Been So Happy, How Late It Was, How Late, and Matchplay. He designed light for Ann Hamilton’s the event of a thread and the theatre is a blank page. With Park Avenue Armory he has created lighting for tears become...streams become... with Douglas Gordon, The Let Go for Nick Cave.

Henrik Vibskov (Costume Design)

The Transparent Tongue, The Spaghetti Handjob and The Shrink Wrap Spectacular are just a few titles of shows Henrik Vibskov has produced lately, each title referring to a different but equally mesmerizing world and set of logic. As a fashion designer Henrik Vibskov has produced over 30 mens (and later also women’s) collections since he graduated from Central St. Martins in 2001, and as a member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Mode Masculine he is currently the only Scandinavian designer on the official show schedule of the Paris Mens Fashion Week, which he has been since January 2003. Henrik has frequently been invited to and participated in festivals, contests and talks and throughout his career his designs have won him prizes such as the Becks Student Future Prize 2000, New Name of the Year 2003, the Danish Design Council Award 2007, Brand of the Year DANSK Fashion Awards 2008, an award from the Danish Arts Foundation in 2009, the 2011 Söderberg prize, the highest value design prize in the world, as well as the Jury Prize at the Danish Fashion Awards in 2012. He has exhibited at PS1 – MoMA in New York, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, ICA and The V&A museum in London, The 21st century museum in Kanazawa, Japan, MAD museum in NYC, NAI Nederlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, Holland, The Textile Museum in Washington, USA, just to name a few. He is currently Professor at DSKD and has published four books, including a 2012 monograph of his work to date (published by Gestalten).

SIERRA URICH (Documentation)

Sierra Urich is a Brooklyn based art director for narrative and commercial film. She is also a filmmaker and artist. More of her work can be seen at sierraurich.com. Sierra grew up in small town Vermont, where she learned her deep appreciation for the natural world. Before moving to New York, she received her BFA in Illustration and Film from the Rhode Island School of Design, which fostered her passion for interdisciplinary work. Sierra first started collaborating with Phantom Limb in 2012. Since then she's documented the creation of Memory Rings at the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, OZ Arts Nashville, and the team's expedition through the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest to find the world's oldest living tree.

RANDI RIVERA (Stage Manager) 

Randi Rivera is a native New Yorker. She is the Stage Manager & Lighting Director for Half Straddle theater company, traveling both internationally and domestically with their work since 2012. She is also the Technical Director & Production Manager for Keigwin+Company. Rivera is proud to freelance for many performing arts organizations both in NYC and on the road - favorites include Faye Driscoll Group, Doug Elkins Choreography Etc, Sidra Bell Dance NY, The Chocolate Factory, Andrew Schneider, Ivy Baldwin, and Harlem Stage. Rivera has been on the Phantom Limb team since 2011, stage managing both 69°S & Memory Rings. All of her work is for her family.

Meg Kelly (Production Manager)

Meg Kelly credits include: Sleep with Ripe Time, Liz Lerman’s Healing Wars (touring) and Wicked Bodies (in development), Insignificance at Langham Place with U.K-based Defibrillator, Crane: on Earth, in Sky for Ibex Puppetry, numerous touring projects with Dance Exchange (Hammock, Blueprints of Relentless Nature, Drift, Language from the Land, The Matter of Origins), and various work with the Public Theater (Shakespeare in the Park, Mobile Unit, Under the Radar). She is also the Managing Director for the Brooklyn-based company Woodshed Collective and freelances as a stage manager. Meg is a graduate of the University of Arizona (BFA Theatre Design and Technology) and Columbia University (MFA Theatre Management and Producing).

ADIN WALKER (Associate Director)

Adin Walker director/choreographer: Grace, or the Art of Climbing (Art House), Soft Butter (Ars Nova ANT Fest), The White Dress (Araca Project), One Arm (Chautauqua Theater), Pin* and the Blue Fairy (Drama League Residency & Dixon Place), Gruesome Playground Injuries (TheaterLab NYC), Rent, and Singin' in the Rain (Princeton/McCarter.) Walker choreographed the NYC premiere of Normativity (NYMF) and has previously collaborated with directors Alexandru Mihail, Tracy Bersley, Whitney Mosery, Dawn Monique Williams, and Louisa Thompson. Recently, Walker assisted choreographer Yehuda Hyman on Indecent (Guthrie Theatre), assisted director May Adrales on the world premiere of Idris Goodwin’s The Way the Mountain Moved (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), and has assisted directors Shana Cooper, Christopher Liam Moore, Andrew Borba, Dustin Wills, and Joel Sass. Walker is Artistic Associate at Art House Productions in Jersey City, NJ. B.A. Princeton University.

PERFORMERS

DAI MATSUOKA (Butoh Master/Performer)

Dai Matsuoka (Butoh Master/Performer) is a butoh dancer based in Tokyo. Matsuoka has been a dancer for SANKAIJUKU since 2005. He has appeared in eight SANKAIJUKU pieces including "Kinkan Shonen", "Tobari", "Meguri" and "Unetsu" in over 30 countries. He has also been directing the performance event "LAND FES" in Tokyo since 2011, where the audience is navigated to encounter live sessions by musicians and dancers taking place at different places in the town. As a member of Dance Archive Network, Matsuoka is also involved in research, development and utilization of Butoh legend Yoshito Ohno's 3D motion data for archival purposes. His solo activities include improvisational sessions with acknowledged musicians; Koichi Makigami, Peter Evans, Hugues Vincent, Masanori Oishi, Carl Stone and more.

TAKEMI KITAMURA (Performer)

 Takemi Kitamura is a native of Osaka, Japan and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in Dance-Education from Hunter College, where she received the Choreographic Award from the Dance Program. Her performance credits include The Oldest Boy (puppeteer/dancer) at Lincoln Center Theater, The Indian Queen (dancer), an opera directed by Peter Sellars, Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed (puppeteer) by Dan Hurling, Shank's Mare (puppeteer) by Tom Lee and Koryu Nishikawa V, and SLEEP (dancer/ensemble) by Ripe Time. She is honored to have appeared in all three productions of Phantom Limb Company's trilogy - 69°S, Memory Rings, and Falling Out.

EMERI FETZER (Performer) 

Emeri Fetzer is a Utah native turned New York based performer and writer. Emeri graduated magna cum laude with BA’s in Dance Choreography and English from Goucher College in Baltimore. While studying abroad at Accademia dell’Arte in Italy, Emeri cultivated a passion for narrative performance that led to 2 years of multiple roles in Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More NYC. While in New York, she has also performed in full-evening original work produced by GreenSpace in LIC and at WestFest at WestBeth, and in collaborative solos with choreographer Grace Courvoisier at CPR and as part of the CRAWL Series. As Managing Editor for DancePulp.com in collaboration with Drew Jacoby, Emeri stayed connected to the dance community through an editorial perspective, interviewing many artists on process and preference. Emeri joined Phantom Limb Company with Memory Rings and continues this valuable work in Falling Out.

CARLTON CYRUS WARD (Performer)

Carlton Cyrus Ward is a dancer, circus performer and actor from the woods of northern Vermont. He came to NYC to study theater at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Carlton has recently been very busy. He has worked with Third Rail Projects onLearning Curve, Sweet & Lucky, The Grand Paradise, and Then She Fell. He has also works with Phantom Limb Company. He played Shackleton in 69 S and is performing in their newest work, Memory Rings. He has also worked with Becky Radway Dance Projects, The Artigiani Troupe, and Circus Amok. He recently created and performed his first one-man show,Bomont: A Clown Story, a solo version of Footloose. Carlton, along with Becky Radway and Joel Marsh Garland, made a dance film, 219 Gates. You should look it up on youtube. Carlton teaches clowning and circus at NYU.

KEVIN BOATENG (Performer)

Kevin Boateng began his dance training in Dallas, Texas. Kevin attended the University of North Texas at Denton’s Dance and Theatre program. Since 2014 he has been a member of Movers Unlimited Dance Company, under the direction of Dr. Kihyoung Choi. While still a student at UNT, Kevin taught hip hop and contemporary at Denton Dance Conservatory. In 2016, Kevin attended The American Dance Festival on a full scholarship where he met Beth Gill. Last year, Beth gave him the opportunity to be a part of her work Brand New Sidewalk. Now based in NYC, Kevin anticipates collaborating with other artists.

BANKS ARTISTE (Performer)

Always keeping in mind that Albert Einstein once said, "Dancers are the Athletes Of God'" Banks Artiste has prepared himself in true athletic and spiritual form for every great moment of his dance career. Growing up in Queens and Brooklyn, NY, Banks was surrounded by creativity, spirituality and discipline. It wasn't until his teens that he truly began to hone his craft. Meeting friends, mentors and peers in dance, Banks began to entertain people right in the streets of BK for fun. His love for entertaining others turned into a true passion and that led him to dance and travel with big time artists. From there Banks embraced and created friendships with other dancers but a Halloween night in 2009 would change his life forever. Being shot in the knee in a crowded NYC street pushed Banks Artiste to reach the plateau of his career today. As the question of whether he'd have a leg or not rang through the rainy night a pulse returned in is leg and his rehabilitation and recovery came from prayer, meditationand of course several hours of his specialty, krump. In the following years, Banks continued to train, audition and network in the dance world, even stealing the hearts of many on social media as a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance Season 11. Banks then travelled to England and was cast as the Angel Gabriel in the English National Opera's performance of"The Gospel According To Mary." Receiving several raves and kudos from major publications such as The Guardian, The NY Post & The daily Telegraph; Banks recently toured Europe with the Park Avenue Armory of New York City presenting a show called Flexn, centered around racial injustice and police brutality through the Creative expression of dance movement. Banks feels honored and blessed to continue entertaining people with his God given craft. Banks Artiste is looking forward to years of traveling, cultivating his art form and inspiring others.

ROWAN MAGEE (Performer) 

Rowan Magee is a puppeteer from Troy, NY, a member of Phantom Limb Company since 2011, and a curator for the Object Movement Festival, an UWS winter residency and spring showcase of experimental puppet artists in NYC. He has puppeteered on international tours with Phantom Limb Company, Robin Frohardt, and Dan Hurlin, and in New York City for American Opera Projects, Trusty Sidekick, Chris Green, Spencer Lott, Nick Lehane, and the National Theater in the 2018 broadway revival of Angels in America. He has designed puppets for The Dalton School and Lincoln Center Education, received a Jim Henson Grant for his marionette show No 1 Chinese, and teaches for CO/LAB, Marquis Studios, and Story Pirates. 

PAST COLLABORATORS

AARON MATTOCKS (Former Associate Director, Performer) 

Aaron Mattocks, “one of the finest young actor-dancers in New York” (New York Times), is a Pennsylvania native, Sarah Lawrence College alumnus, and two time New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award nominee for Outstanding Performer (2016, 2013). He has worked with Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar/Big Dance Theater since 2009, appearing inGoats (OtherShore/Ringling Museum), Supernatural Wife (BAM Next Wave 2011), Comme Toujours Here I Stand (2012 NYLA revival), Man in a Case with Mikhail Baryshnikov (Hartford Stage/national tour), Alan Smithee...Triple Feature (BAM Next Wave 2014), and Short Form (The Kitchen/national tour); and with Phantom Limb Company since 2011, in 69°S. (BAM Next Wave 2011/national tour), and Memory Rings (world premiere, OZ Arts Nashville 2015/BAM Next Wave 2016). He has also created roles in premieres by Ursula Eagly, Doug Elkins, David Gordon, John Heginbotham, Jodi Melnick, Stephen Petronio, Steven Reker,  Christopher Williams, and Kathy Westwater. He has appeared as a guest artist with Yoshiko Chuma, Faye Driscoll, John Kelly, Dean Moss, David Parker, Karen Sherman, and the Bessie Award winning production Then She Fell, and has performed in projects by 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Joanna Furnans, Shaun Irons/Lauren Petty, Courtney Krantz, Abigail Levine, and Amanda Villalobos. He was the associate choreographer for Jonathan Demme’s feature film Ricki and the Flash, choreographed by Annie-B Parson and starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Audra McDonald (TriStar, summer 2015), and assisted Ms. Parson on a new solo for ballerina Wendy Whelan which premiered at the Royal Opera House/London in 2015. He produced projects for choreographers Beth Gill and Pam Tanowitz, and was formerly executive director of Big Dance Theater. Aaron is currently the Director of Programming at the Joyce Theater.

GIA WOLFF (Design Architect) 

Gia Wolff (Design Architect) is an architectural designer who is interested in architecture that embodies a reciprocal relationship between the user and the built environment and questions the performative aspects of the discipline. In 2013, Wolff was winner of the Wheelwright Prize (Harvard GSD) for her project,Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats. She is presently an Adjunct Assistant professor at the Pratt Institute, School of Architecture, New York and an Assistant Professor at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union, New York. Her work has been featured in recent exhibitions including Canopy, an installation in the Tate Modern's turbine hall for the show Up Hill Down Hall: An indoor carnival (London, England, 2014); Cataviary in collaboration with Freecell Architecture (Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut, 2014, & 356 Mission, Los Angeles, California, 2015), Tubes Over Tubes Under Tubes, in collaboration with Freecell Architecture (White Columns Gallery, New York, 2013), Jambalaya (Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, 2013), and What to Maintain (Peter Fingesten Gallery, Pace University, New York, 2014). Wolff is also a collaborator with the Phantom Limb Company on marionette set designs including The Devil You Know (La Mama Experimental Theater, New York, 2010), The Composer Is Dead (Berkeley Repertory Theater, Berkeley, 2010), and 69° South (BAM Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn, 2011).

TOBY BILLOWITZ (Performer)

Over the last 20 years, Toby Billowitz has danced with too many choreographers and companies to list comprehensively, but they include Jordan Fuchs, Artichoke Dance, Freefall, Jill Sigman/thinkdance, and Ben Munisteri. He has puppeteered at drag shows, NYC Halloween parades, and on Broadway in the National Theatre's production of War Horse at Lincoln Center. In addition to dance, he has taught gymnastics and trampoline to children and adults, social dance to teens, movement to senior citizens, and puppetry to children in an area of the Dominican Republic so rural neither the kids nor teachers were familiar with the Spanish word for puppet or the concept. He also works as a personal trainer. 

DANIEL SELON (Performer)

Daniel Selon is a Los Angeles based Costume Designer and occasional puppeteer.  His costume design and creature fabrication work for commercials, television and film is featured internationally.  See more at danielselon.com   Originally hailing from the Midwest, he discovered the joys of performance and puppetry at a young age while at the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, MN.  He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theater and Music from Occidental College where he fell in love with craft and design.

CORPS LIMINIS (Production Management)

Recent projects include: Broadway Asia’s China Goes Pop (Chinese Tour), Tony Oursler’s Imponderable (MoMA), Lisa Dwan’s Beckett Trilogy (2016 US Tour), Anri Sala’s Ravel Ravel (The New Museum), Sankai Juku’s Umusuna (2015 US Tour), Live Ideas 2015 Festival curated by Laurie Anderson (New York Live Arts, Michel Gondry’s Hyperballad Wall (part the Björk retrospective at MoMA), Bryce Dessner’s Black Mountain Songs (Barbican), Isaac Julien’s 10,000 Waves (MoMA), Robert Wilson’s Zinnias: The Life of Clementine Hunter (Montclair State University), and Karen O’s Stop The Virgens (Sydney Opera House).