Animal Cracker Conspiracy produces
puppet shows,
cabarets, and multidisciplinary exhibitions, many of which they have toured and
performed for local, national, and international audiences.
Paper Cities Paper Cities, or Strategies to Avert the Coming Megalopolis is an ongoing experiment in devised puppet performance. They use
puppets, animated objects, dance/anti-dance(movement), original film and
live music as routes to create and question meaning in an increasingly uncertain time environmentally, socially, politically and spiritually. The inquiry: what
epistemologies have led to this precariousness? How have textual information and
images, sense and law, architecture and habit, played a part? Drawing from Gunn and Rountree's personal histories as art makers, lovers, and great-granddaughters and great-grandsons of
colonial settlers, they implicate themselves with the 'other.' They interrogate historical narratives,
settler/
expansionist movements that have led to an epistemology of '
progress' that occludes the realities of war,
genocide,
imperialism, and
environmental degradation. The story follows a lowly debt collector who, under the management of a mechanical, tyrannical overseer, undergoes a radical transformation of spirit in the process of collecting outstanding debts. As he travels through an
urban landscape, the boundaries between object and self collide, and a multidimensional,
mixed media performance through
Orwellian,
Neo-Victorian lenses unfolds.
Gnomesense Gnomesense! A Happening in the Garden! is a parade performed with
giant puppets,
stilt walkers, dancers, and musicians, offering
dreamlike, meta-
impromptu dance parties and
singalongs for audiences to engage with and enjoy. Led by a group of benevolent, "mystical garden beings",
Gnomesense serves to invoke "spirits of nonsense, serious play, and make believe to come out and bask in the sunshine," drawing inspiration from carnival processions across the globe, including giant puppetry used in
Indonesian,
Italian, and
Japanese cultures. Created out of a desire to foster new works of puppetry, Animal Cracker Conspiracy presents a diverse group of puppet artists, partially supported by the Puppet Slam Network spearheaded by
Heather Henson and
IBEX Puppetry.
The Myth Project Directed by Liam Clancy and Patricia Rincon with artistic collaboration from Rebecca Bryant and composer Don Nichols,
The Myth Project explores myths of
warrior and
military training. A collaborative, site-specific effort, it was performed at the NTC Promenade, formerly the
Naval Training Center, in
Point Loma, California. It aims to examine the essence of storytelling as a means to create
social change through a blend of dance, theater, puppetry, and circus as a way to re-embody
contemporary and
ancient myths.
Adrift Performed with
Zirk Ubu and directed by Liam Clancy,
Adrift is a moving
meditation on the themes of
Zen, vagabond, and welcoming the precarious into everyday life. Through the use of
play, the idea of being unmoored, of letting go, and of allowing oneself to be swept away by forces outside of one's control are explored. As transient as it sounds,
Adrift encourages the audience to leave behind familiar formulae and the safety of the known and realize the inevitable truth, continually found: there is nothing lacking.
Stilt Walking With over a decade of experience performing on traditional 'echasse'
peg stilts, teaching workshops, and constructing wooden stilts for performers, ACC continues to inspire with their audacious designs and inimitable presence, their stilt characters leaving beautiful and joyful impressions in the minds of their audience with every performance. == Inspirations ==