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Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith & Emma Jaster/ Aeolian Theatre

Carnal and spiritual collide and entwine through the dawning of the first day and the moonshine of the first night. Inspired by the fantastical imagery of Magical Realist painter Remedios Varo and the poetry of Rumi, Aeolian Theatre presents a new creation myth told through puppetry, dance, ritual and song. Born of a collective wrestling to find the story that belongs to all of us, we offer a world that seeps in through the senses, flooding our hearts, inviting performers and audience alike to peel back some of the many layers around our hopes, sorrows, fears, and secret delights to reawaken the purity of our primitive selves.

Artist Statement

Biography

 

Aeolian Theater: named after the process by which the winds shape the surface of the Earth, sweepingly, over time.  We aim to move like and by the likes of the wind.

In Sanskrit the word for performer is the same as vessel.  It is believed that the performer is made to carry the stories through his body to the audience. We come from a range of disciplines including dance, theater, costume design, puppetry and bodywork, and share a deep belief in the intelligence of our bodies.  We want to tap into that innate intelligence in ourselves such that we can reawaken it in our audience. Our bodies hold a wealth of physical knowledge too often held trapped inside. We want to give the audience the opportunity to peel back some of the many layers around their hearts, hopes, sorrows, fears, and secret delights to come closer to living these crucial elements of life more fully. The poetic nature of our aesthetic encourages the audience to bring their own life into play, making our stories their own.  Incorporating puppetry, ritual, gesture, and animated space we aim to create a world that seeps in through our senses, flooding our hearts, inviting performers and audience alike to fly.

Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith is a Brooklyn based artist and physical performer. She has been working predominantly with puppetry as a performer, choreographer, teacher and builder. She began her study of puppetry with Alain Recoing in Paris, France. Since moving to New York City she has participated in a wide range of projects, including working as a puppeteer in Basil Twist's Arias With a Twist, Mabou Mines' Peter and Wendy and David Michael Friend's Moonfishing, doing puppet design and choreography for Nu Dance Theater's Elle d'Elles and Montgomery College's Butoh Macbeth, and teaching both children and adults across the East Coast and Midwest.  When not puppeteering, Lindsay keeps her hands busy with massage therapy and playing in the dirt.  She is also an amazing kazoo player.

Emma Jaster works in theater as a performer, director, designer and collaborator.  She trained from childhood with her father, acclaimed mime Mark Jaster, then at the Lecoq school in Paris and has continued to gather lessons working with such institutions as Robert Wilson's Watermill Center, the Natanakairali Institute for Sanskrit Theater in India, LaMama's International Director's Symposium and U-Theatre, a Grotowski-based Zen-drumming troupe in Taiwan where she was honored to create a new work for the company students in Taipei last summer. She has choreographed and served as movement director for the Willing Suspension theater company in Paris, often collaborated and performed with Happenstance Theatre of Washington DC and lately served as assistant director to Kameron Steele of The South Wing company here in NY.  She recently built a dance and puppet piece with jazz/soul band The Mimetiks entitled Solo For Two, which they have performed now for delighted audiences in NY and DC.   She is thrilled and delighted to be a part of the HARP program this year.