As Phantom Limb tours, they seek out opportunity for educational outreach and community engagement whenever possible. On any given day on tour, you may find them teaching a workshop with 2nd graders about Ernest Shackleton, puppetry and climate change followed by a Master’s Class in puppetry, performance and wordless narrative story-telling.

Audience talk backs, process lectures, workshops and master’s classes are an essential part of the touring work. The company believes that it is through this engagement that they will be able to inspire communities to find their own story-telling and activist voices.

Masterclass at Brooklyn Academy of Music Photo | Paulsta Wong — Masterclass at Brooklyn Academy of Music
Photo | Paulsta Wong

Since 2015 Erik Sanko has been an adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). When Erik and Jessica were invited to RISD for a portfolio review after hosting students as interns for a decade, they noticed something lacking in the program. All of the illustration students that we worked with were expressing a desire to create characters and do something with them, in real space and time. They were looking for something beyond animation and something beyond still installation art.

Based on these conversations, Erik and Jessica developed the concept for a course called “Puppetry and Performance”. The course is now considered a permanent part of the curriculum for the Illustration Department at RISD each Spring semester.

Memory Rings Masterclass at BAM
Photo | Paulsta Wong

Memory Rings Masterclass at BAM
Photo | Paulsta Wong

Education