Inaugural Weekend: September 24-26th, 2021

Left to Right: Image by Katrina DeMarcus, Book by Deborah Bell, Digital Image by Kay Reese, Masks by Melody Anderson, and Performance by Joan Schirle

Click on the following tabs for information about the conference’s Inaugural Weekend events.

To register to attend these free events, please sign up for the mailing list.

Friday September 24th, 2021

Time	Event	Presenter(s)	Additional Details & Brief Bio
5:00-6:00 PM*	Looking Out and Seeing In: A Journey Through the Body	Jennifer Tantia	Every day we communicate with others through our bodies, and mostly outside of our knowledge. Embodiment is a practice that increases self-awareness by attending to and through the body with kindness and self-compassion. In this workshop, participants will learn creative embodiment experientials that will support well-being from the “inside out,” and have the opportunity to use them independently throughout the conference. As a handout, please download a chapter of Tantia’s latest book here.
6:00 – 6:30PM	Official Welcome	Felice Amato	Conference Chair, Felice Amato, launches the Women & Masks conference with a welcome talk.
6:30 – 7:30PM	A Mask as a Portal: Materiality, Transformation, and Influence The Ascendency of Masquerade in Our Digital Age Paper Faces: a brief moment to move with Alexandra Simpson	Manduhai Buyandelger Deborah Bell Alexandra Simpson	Women and Masks. Buyandelger is an anthropology professor at MIT and the author of Tragic Spirits: Shamanism, Memory, and Gender in Contemporary Mongolia. Deborah Bell is a costume designer, author and recently retired Professor of Costume Design at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Bell has written two important books on masks – Mask Makers and Their Craft and Masquerade. Please find handouts for Bell’s talk here. Get ready to move! 15 sweet minutes to move our bodies and wiggle our minds in preparation for the Women and Mask conference. Paper, pen, and little space is all you need. Alexandra Simpson, a theatre artist, community organizer, PhD candidate at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies and co-artistic leader of Animacy Theatre Collective.
7:30 – 9PM	Keynote: The Mask of the Universe	Joan Schirle	Joan Schirle is an actor/ playwright/ director/teacher. She has performed in mask and created mask performances, as well as teaching mask performance for many years at international festivals and schools, including Dell’Arte International in Blue Lake, California, where she is Founding Artistic Director. Having led 20 study trips to Bali, she learned to carve masks as well as well as dance them. Her solo mask show, “Second Skin,” toured widely for seven years. Her most recent mask piece for video is called “June 1, 2020”. She has written over fifteen plays and musical theatre pieces, and is currently collaborating as librettist with composer Gina Leishman on a chamber opera, “Bird of the Inner Eye,” based on the letters and archives of American painter, Morris Graves (1910-2001). First workshop performances were August, 2021 at the Arcata Playhouse.
9:00 – 9:15PM	Closing Thoughts
			*= all times are EST

Saturday September 25th, 2021

Time	Event	Presenter(s)	Additional Details & Brief Bio
9:00 – 9:05AM*	Welcome	Felice Amato	A brief introduction to the day’s events.
9:05 – 9:20AM	Panelist Presentation: Art and Craft Considerations of the Mask and Masquerade	Deborah Bell	Bell is a costume designer, author and recently retired Professor of Costume Design at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Bell has written two important books on masks – Mask Makers and Their Craft and Masquerade.
9:20 – 9:35AM	Panelist Presentation: Decolonizing the Mask: Reflections on Appropriation in Fashion and Art	Laini Burton	Burton is an author and a senior lecturer at the Queensland College of Art. Her research interests center on body politics, bio-art and design, contemporary art practice and criticism, fashion theory, performance and body/spatial relations.
9:35 – 9:50AM	Panelist Presentation: A Prototype of Desiring Being	Dho Yee Chung	The artist discusses a series of her videos along with research about the transformation of humans in the digital era. While a mask functions as an apparatus that disguises appearance, the use of masks raises a question regarding authenticity of identity and how hyperreality can be easily fabricated. The artist discusses cryptocurrency, fake news, virtual identity and digital images of women as a surface to project social expectations.
9:50 – 10:20AM	Panel Q & A	Felice Amato, Moderator	Attendees can submit questions in the Q&A on the Zoom webinar for Bell, Chung, and Burton.
10:20 – 10:30AM	Break	same Zoom link	Remain on the webinar, join at any time, or log-off and come back with the same link for the morning presentations.
10:30 – 11:45AM	Artist and Curator Talk: Fashion for Bank Robbers	Carina Shoshtary	A jewelry artist, Shoshtary curates the Fashion for Bank Robbers Instagram page which showcases contemporary masks and headpieces at the intersection between art, masquerade, and fashion.
11:45 – 12:00	Break	NEW ZOOM LINK	Register separately to get a Zoom link for Ross, Martínez Álvarez, and Reese. Check your email for the link and reminders.
12:00 – 12:30PM	Talk Empathy Building with Masks in Academe and Beyond	Laurie Margot Ross	One reason masks are often an integral part of life-cycle events is their unique capacity to convey emotions. Beyond the expressiveness of the mask itself, when covering the face the mask wearer experiences psycho-physiological shifts. Ross will demonstrate how this works and how strengthening our empathy skills can deepen our understanding of racial, physical and social differences in the classroom and workplace.
12:30 – 1:15 PM	Documentary Screening with Q&A – Laboratorio de la Máscara	Alicia Martínez Álvarez	Martínez Álvarez is the founder of Laboratorio de la Máscara in Mexico City (1997), where she has been the director for more than 30 years. An English translation of Alicia’s narration created by Ruth Rosales can be found at here.
1:15-1:45 PM	Artist Talk: Mask Off	Kay Reese	Reese will give an artist’s talk while showing images from her ‘Mask Off’ series, and how the images were created by blurring the relationship between artist and model. See artist statement here.
1:45-2:00 PM	Break	NEW ZOOM LINK	Register separately to get a Zoom link for Melody Anderson and Alexandra Simpson. Check your email for the link and reminders.
2:00 – 3:50 PM	Workshop – Mask Making with Melody: Part Two	Melody Anderson	In the course of her career as a mask designer, Anderson has created more than three thousand masks for over fifty productions. A recording of Part One will be uploaded to the site for viewing. Handouts for Part 1
3:50 – 4:00PM	Break	same Zoom link	Remain on the webinar, join at any time, or log-off and come back with the same link for the morning presentations.
4:00 – 5:00PM	Workshop –Mask Character Development and Writing	Alexandra Simpson	BYOM (Bring Your Own Mask) to this introductory workshop that uses physical exploration and imagination the help participants develop a new mask character or explore an old one. Participants will also have a chance to write from the voice of that character and learn about various creative writing techniques that use masks as a starting point. This event can be a continuation of Melody Anderson’s workshops or a stand-alone event.
5:00 – 6:00PM	Break	NEW ZOOM LINK	Register separately to get a Zoom link for Masks on Film. Check your email for the link and reminders.
6:00 -8:00PM	Screenings: Masks on Film
	Rawness (trailer)	Orit Leibovitz Novitch	Performed by two performers and props, this work uses several theater mediums: Body Theater, movement, masks, puppetry and objects. The work creates a unique stage language, minimalistic nonetheless rich of visual images that drawn the audience into a powerful experience.
	First Date: An Emotional Mask Short Film	Alice Nelson	Nelson is a versatile theatre artist: actor, clown, improviser, playwright, mask maker, puppeteer, director, etc. Alice is currently an educator for the Drama in Education and Community program at the University of Windsor’s School of Dramatic Art in Ontario.
	Go!	Polina Borisova	This third creation from Russia-born French puppet artist and designer Polina Borisova tells with great sensibility the story of an old woman bringing back to life memories and fragments of her past existence. This is the art of the mask, puppetry and object theatre at its very best.
	Flora’s Dance (trailer)	Orit Leibovitz Novitch	Flora, an elderly widow, is visiting her husband’s grave. This annual ritual brings up memories of love that was gone, and a dance that has almost disappeared. A story about a woman with desire for life that has been through years of oppression until the awaited liberation that comes just with death. The story deals with social equality and the liberation status of women.
	The Marriage Masque	Abby Holgerson	This self directed short film used masking and veiling as a metaphor and allusion to gender and Jewish folklore. Using the grotesque and the sensual I confuse the gaze with alarming dissonance. in this particular piece: “The Marriage Masque”, there is much to be concealed. based loosely on yiddish theater (the dybbuk especially) and folktale, a surreal short shows the two faces of a newlywed couple. Director, music, costumes, makeup, concept: Abby Holgerson DP & Co-editor: Benett Holgerson

			*= all times are EST

Sunday September 26th, 2021

Time	Event	Presenter(s)	Additional Details & Brief Bio
9:00 – 9:10AM*	Panel: Women, Masks, and Modernism in the Theater	Deborah Bell, Moderator
9:10-30	Panel Presentation: Lotte Goslar and Bari Rolfe: Finding a Voice in the Silence of the Mask	Annette Thornton	Lotte Goslar and Bari Rolfe: Finding a Voice in the Silence of the Mask, Lotte Goslar (1907-1997) and Bari Rolfe (1916-2002) were pioneers in the silent performing art of pantomime and mime. Their careers spanned, respectively, 67 and 55 years, during which time many male mime performers – the big four known as Jean-Louis Barrault, Etienne Decroux, Jacques Lecoq, and Marcel Marceau – dominated the mime landscape. In a recently published mime history book, the author places both Goslar and Rolfe in the 1970s, when many post-modern mimes began incorporating music, juggling, and clowning into their work. Read more here.
9:30-9:50	Panel Presentation: Tanya Moiseiwitsch: Innovating Stage Design in the 20th Century	Jennifer Sheshko Wood	Sheshko Wood, assistant professor of Costume Design at the University of Nebraska Omaha, will present on Tanya Mosieiwitsch, regarded as one of the foremost designers in twentieth-century theater. She was an innovative designer of costumes, sets, and stages, responsible for over two hundred productions in England, Canada, and the United States. She made an impact in the male-dominated world of stage design.
9:50-10:10	Panel Presentation: An Exploration of Joycelyn Herbert’s Use of Masks in the National Theatre Production of the Oresteia, 1981	Jenny West	Jocelyn Herbert’s daughter, Jenny West, discusses her mother’s career in theater design, specifically her work as mask designer. Herbert profoundly influenced British theatre design through her reduction to essence rather than naturalism in her design, both of set and costume and her lack of ego in approach to the needs of the text. She admired Bertolt Brecht’s minimal and evocative sets. Jenny West a daughter of Jocelyn Herbert, worked closely with her in the making of the Oresteia masks. Her own background is in the plastic arts.
10:10-10:45	Panel: Q&A	Deborah Bell, Moderator
10:45-11:00AM	Break	same Zoom link	Remain on the webinar, join at any time, or log-off and come back with the same link for the morning presentations.
11:00AM-12:00PM	Talkback with the Performers from Masks on Film	Alice Nelson Polina Borisova Abby Holgerson	Join the artists who screened work the evening before for a conversation about their process.
12:00-12:30	Break	NEW ZOOM LINK	Register separately to get a Zoom link for Joan Schirle 17 SOLID SOLUTIONS. Check your email for the link and reminders.
12:30 – 2:00PM	Workshop: Schirle’s 17 Solid Suggestions for Superb Mask Performance	Joan Schirle	Join our keynote presenter, Joan Schirle, for an amazing workshop. Schirle has been teaching mask performance for over 40 years. She eventually codified principles of mask play in an easy-to-remember format, in order to help performers decipher the mysteries of the mask in performance. The result is “Schirle’s 17 Solid Suggestions.” This workshop is for anyone who performs in mask, or who is interested in how the magic of masks on stage is transmitted. It is also for actors and directors who don’t perform in mask but wonder how the principles of mask play support an actor’s process. Puppeteers welcome also. Workshop participants should wear neutral, comfortable clothing, bring a theatre mask or two, either full or half-mask (or preferably both) and be prepared to work physically, though not strenuously. Please don’t bring decorative or wall masks, but something meant to be worn in front of an audience. However, Neutral Masks not meant for performing are OK.
2:00-2:30	Break	NEW ZOOM LINK	Register separately for final presentations.
2:30-2:35	Intro	TBA
2:35 -2:55PM	Presentation: Mammu the Chicken and Other Alter Egos	Mammu Rauhala	In her artist talk, Mammu Rauhala will talk about her journey with masks. Making masks really grabbed her attention when Covid-19 hit the globe. She made a chicken mask from paper mâché and started to play with it. That helped her through the first wave. In her presentation, she will show photos and videos of her work from past two years. All her masks, both characters and abstract ones, are a kind of self-portrait that has emerged from the subconscious.
2:55-3:15 PM	Presentation: Somewhere In-Between	Miya Turnbull	“Over and over, I create variations of my ‘self’ through new masks. My self-portraits are photo-realistic but often altered- I change the placement or even erase select facial features. I create other extreme manipulations resulting in distorted representations. I do this as a way to explore my identity, specifically being half-Japanese and examining my feelings of being ‘in-between’.” Read More here.
			*= all times are EST