Past Events
2025
3/25/25 Making Masks with Melody Anderson
For artists and teachers! The Women & Masks Project hosted a special Zoom event to launch new pedagogical resources for teachers and artists featuring Melody Anderson. An award-winning Canadian mask artist and playwright, Melody has been making beautiful masks for theatrical productions for decades using a classroom-friendly technique. While researching non-toxic approaches, she developed a versatile papier-mâché method to make refined masks quickly and with simple materials. Melody was a featured presenter in our 2021-22 Women and Masks Conference, and we were thrilled to host her again and to be able to share resources that make a wonderful companion to Melody’s book: Making Masks. During the event, Melody introduced and screened two short videos that she created: an artist talk and a demo of her technique. After the screening, there was a Q&A and a special mini-demo of tips for teachers and teaching artists!
This event was recorded and the videos and supporting materials will be available here.
2/16/2025 TransAtlantic Puppet Masters, Alison Duddle and Sandy Spieler: A Conversation Between Friends
Puppetry and mask artists Sandy Spieler (Founder of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, USA) and Alison Duddle (A Bird in the Hand Theatre and Quiddlestick, UK), have nurtured a trans-Atlantic bond for the past 30 years, after working together on In the Heart of the Beast’s May Day Parade in 1995. Spieler became a mentor for Duddle, as she has been for many in the puppetry community. Out of this connection, came a deep and enduring friendship–– even as the two have worked thousands of miles apart. Join us for a conversation between these two influential and innovative puppet and mask artists, who exemplify the transformative power of puppetry at the community and international level. They discuss their friendship and their artistic practices, and how, in the words of Sandy, “Art wakens us to the wonder of our everyday lives.” Co-sponsored by UNIMA-USA and the Women and Masks Project.
The following are links and resources mentioned during the conversation:
You can find Alison Duddle’s company website here: www. abirdinthehandtheatre.co.uk and a longer bio for her at https://sites.bu.edu/womenandmasks/alison-duddle/. Alison mentioned an Instagram post that showed how to make her large snow leopard lantern puppets: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEdRJpQIIHS/?igsh=QkF1R3hlZHFMXw%3D%3D
Sandy Spieler’s webpage can be found here https://sandyspieler.com/ and a longer bio we created is here: https://sites.bu.edu/womenandmasks/sandy-spieler/. We have also compiled a page of pedagogical resources related to Sandy: https://sites.bu.edu/womenandmasks/making-masks-with-sandy-spieler/. This is part of the projects efforts to offer more pedagogical resources for teachers: https://sites.bu.edu/womenandmasks/research/pedagogical-resources/. The May Day Parade where Alison and Sandy first connected is no longer held but here is a wonderful video from 15 years ago with a great interview with Sandy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zQ1iQ7i5HY
2024
5/23/2024 Women and Autobiographical Identities within Puppet Theatre: International Symposium
American puppet artist Theodora Skipitares with one of her many puppets with a face cast from her own. Image by Cynthia Friedman.
Sala Muratori | Biblioteca Classense | Via Baccarini, Ravenna, IT
Curated by Cristina Grazioli, Cariad Astles, and Roberta Colombo with participation by Felice Amato and Yael Rasooly
Beyond the specific field of Gender Studies, over the last two decades multiple academic disciplines have launched projects dedicated to women, female and gender-related topics (ranging from monographs, conferences, special journal issues, etc). It seems remarkable, therefore, that within the wider field of performance and theatre studies, such projects are relatively new in puppet theatre research (in comparison to other disciplines). This symposium seeks to highlight the presence (or, alternatively, absence) of women in puppet theatre, both through history and in the present day. It aims to address questions related to the construction of gender and identity of puppets through the lens of autobiography. The presenters will approach questions such as the gender of the puppet itself (male, female, other?), its disruptive and subversive energy (also taking into consideration the powerful masculine domination in particular traditions) and a strong female presence within puppetry from at least the early 20th century. The theme of autobiography will be discussed through the voices of female artists in dialogue with reflections from puppetry researchers. The presenters, from a range of different countries, will show and discuss video extracts of their work. The previous evening the national premiere of Yael Rasooly’s latest show, Edith and me, will be presented within the festival, offering a link between contemporary work in the festival and the theme of the symposium.
The Research Commission of UNIMA (UNION INTERNATIONALE DE LA MARIONNETTE) is delighted to sponsor and participate in this round table on Women and Puppetry, hosted by the festival Arrivano del Mare. Despite new publications on women and puppetry over recent years, there is still great need for research into this field and recognition of the vast work done by women puppeteers. This round table will be focused on an emerging field, visible within women’s theatre for several decades but little discussed within puppetry scholarship: autobiography. Women’s bodies, women’s stories, personal lives, ecologies and encounters meet and tell stories of politics, personal identity and journey.
Cariad Astles, President of the Research Commission of UNIMA, UNIMA Vice-President
Part of the Arrivano dal Mare Festival and with patronage from the Department of Cultural Heritage, the University of Padova (DAMS-SPM), the Women and Masks Project at the University of Boston, the Boston University Center for the Humanities, and the Research Commission of UNIMA International.
2/14/2024 Les Masques: A Conversation with Three Francophone Mask Artists
On Sunday, January 14, Women and Masks collaborated with UNIMA-USA to host a Zoom-based conversation about masks with 3 French-speaking theater artists: Celine Pagniez from Belgium, Léa Ros from France, and Emilie Racine from Canada. Please view the recording here:
2023
5/20–5/29/2023 Sartori Residency
by Anna Paradise
From May 20, 2023, to May 29, 2023, the Women and Masks Project hosted a workshop at Boston University led by world-renowned Italian mask makers Paola Piizi and Sarah Sartori. The workshop assembled diverse participants, ranging from visual arts undergraduate and graduate students, professors, and mask enthusiasts, and facilitated an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment where participants and instructors could manifest their creative potential.
The Sartori family introduced themselves and their family legacy in mask making, starting with a conference held over Zoom. Paola and Sarah, as well as Women and Masks’s coordinator Dr. Felice Amato, constructed a baseline knowledge of mask-making techniques for the participants, such as the concept of physiognomy–a concept that involves artists enhancing certain physical attributes of their mask to convey a specific persona for the character–as well as a general assignment to create a short vignette for a character imbued with animalistic traits to help guide their physiognomic understanding. After presenting their ideas to the workshop group and receiving feedback from Paola and Sarah, participants sketched ideas to come prepared for the in-person section of the workshop.
On May 26, 2023, participants were asked to gather at 855 Commonwealth to meet the group and begin the foundational steps to begin crafting their masks. After a presentation hosted by Paola and Sarah on their family history, including Amleto Sartori’s wooden mold technique and passion for Commedia dell’Arte, the collaborations the family has made with other influential mask makers such as Jacques Lecoq, Giorgio Strehler, and Paolo Grassi, and Paola’s development of the “true” neutral mask, participants engaged in woodwork to construct the easels needed to execute the Sartori technique.
With easels in place, participants learned how to sculpt their clay molds, gaining hands-on experience with a variety of tools, such as calipers, wooden mallets, hammers, ribs, carvers, and wire cutters. With revisions made by experts Paola and Sarah, participants finished their clay renditions within two days and moved on to the next stage to create a cast and begin the paper mache. With the last day, participants mixed and cured plaster and watched a demonstration of how to execute the Sartori method for paper mache so that they had all the tools necessary to repeat the process and craft independently.
2021-22
9/21/2021–4/21/2022 Women and Masks: A Transdisciplinary Arts Research Conference
Mask Artist and Photographer Melissa Meier
Click here to view the conference archive.
You can also read about the conference in this report from Felice Amato: https://pirjournal.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2024/07/10/women-and-masks-reflections-on-a-conference-a-project-and-a-field/
Download the PDF version here: Women and Masks: Reflections on a Conference, a Project, and a Field