Ring in the Chinese Lunar New Year with Family Puppet Program!

Note time change for this event: performance begins at 6:30pm

 

In anticipation of the Chinese lunar new year,  Vineyard Haven Public Library will present an exciting free family event on Thursday, February 8th at 6:30 pm. Behind the Mask Studio will perform "Monkey King Makes Mischief in Heaven", the tale of a boisterous and unlikely hero in search of immortality, who causes havoc in Heaven and Hell. Boston-based puppeteers Eric Bornstein and Margaret Moody will use a combination of masks, music, storytelling, and dance to tell the story.

Bornstein received his MLA from Harvard, studied mask-making in Bali and Italy, and founded Behind the Mask Studio in 1990. Over the past thirty years, his masked characters have appeared in a variety of venues including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Ballet, the Peabody/Essex Museum, the Boston Lyric Opera, the Windsor School, and Young Audiences of Massachusetts, and, for fifteen years, were a highlight of Boston’s First Night celebrations. Bornstein explains that “mask-making is about rich storytelling and fascinating characters—human, animal, magical. When I create a mask, I celebrate the depth and diversity of the stories I love, the natural and the mystical worlds we inhabit, and my very own soul.”

Puppeteer and voice actress Margaret Moody will also be adding her talents to the program. Margaret loves old stories and the characters that inhabit them. She studied traditional puppetry in Taiwan, and often uses traditional Chinese choreography and small puppets in her work. Margaret’s multitude of characters, hand, rod and life-sized puppets, act as windows into folktales, fantasies, and historical stories and bring history and heritage to her performances.

This free family event is made possible by a grant from the New England Roundtable of Children’s Librarians and the Massachusetts Library Association. The Jordan Miller Storytelling Grant is awarded bi-annually to a New England library to bring storytelling to its patrons. The award is named for Alice M. Jordan (1870-1960) who was the first Supervisor of Work with Children at the Boston Public Library, serving from 1900 to 1940. In 1906, Jordan founded NERCTL to provide a meeting ground for the profession. Since 1960, NERTCL and the MLA have sponsored the Jordan-Miller Grant in recognition of her commitment to storytelling.

The hour-long program is suitable for ages 4-94 and begins at 6:30 pm. Seating is limited.