Since my storytelling performance with 2D papercuts for Kleist’s "The Earthquake in Chile" in 2016, my work has increasingly moved in the direction of creating live, highly gestural storytelling where voice, body and text interact  with a sequence of changing images ( the papercuts) illuminated from behind. The work thus brings together elements of oral storytelling, graphic novels /comics, and full-scene shadow puppetry. I am currently performing "The Vulture", based on Kafka’s Der Geier, and developing two further pieces to create an evening of three stories: another text by Kafka and one by Jorge Luis Borges.

 

Alongside my performance work, I am awaiting the Kleist Museum’s response to my submitted article on Kleist’s "On the Marionette Theatre". The article offers an original investigation of the work’s relationship to science and puppetry. I am also writing for journals specializing in Puppet Theater and in the intersection of art and science.

 

I continue to research what neurobiology and cognitive science can teach us about the generation and use of co-speech gestures. This research informs the development of a training workshop for actors, puppeteers, and storytellers, exploring gesture as an embodied and expressive component of performance.