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Featured Performers
Written by: Barth Anderson
Internationally acclaimed and locally adored, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater of Minneapolis has been cleansing the souls of its audiences for 30 years. Equal parts activist organization, avant–garde art troupe, and spiritual core of Minneapolis' far left, In the Heart of the Beast's productions feel more like shamanic messages from the Other Side than puppet shows. HOTB taps puppet and mask traditions from around the world while imitating none, and takes on very human stories with epic sweep, like the quincentennial drama The Reaper's Tale, told with 15–foot tall skeletal conquistadors morphing into Shopping Malls and Corporate Skyscrapers. For The Reaper's Tale, a midwife committee was formed with "many different cultural voices," according to Artistic Director Sandy Spieler, in order to draw out a unique tale of America's "discovery" (as told by HOTB, the salamander discovered this land long before the Europeans arrived).
Perhaps the hallmark of the theater, however, is the annual May Day Parade, where River spirits, Woodland animals, the Tree of Life, and 0caricatures of the day's political figures spill from the HOTB theater into Minneapolis' Powderhorn Park. The climactic moment of this puppet show slash spring ritual comes after red canoes row a giant golden Sun toward a waiting crowd of several thousand winter–beaten Minnesotans who chant "Sun! Sun! Sun!"
The Sun arrives, the fallen Tree of Life is resurrected, and a puppet troupe redeems a frozen city.
Click here to learn more about Heart of the Beast
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