{"id":121305,"date":"2019-01-10T15:54:17","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T20:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=121305"},"modified":"2021-02-10T09:04:32","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T14:04:32","slug":"sandglass_theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2019\/01\/10\/sandglass_theater\/","title":{"rendered":"Refugees’ stories come to life in puppetry of Ching ’19, Sandglass Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bedraggled refugee tries to rouse a child after a boat has deposited them on some barren shore. The child is limp and unresponsive at first. Still alive? you wonder.<\/p>\n

But suddenly the child awakens, looks around, and reaches for the grateful parent.<\/p>\n

You believe this dramatic awakening \u2014 and that’s a testament to the power of puppetry, for the parent and child are puppet characters in this weekend’s performances at Bates by Sandglass Theater.<\/p>\n

“We’re not manipulating the puppets to have them do what we want them to do,” explains Keila Ching \u201919, one of five players in the original Sandglass play Babylon, Journeys of Refugees<\/em>. Ching, who initiated the troupe’s visit to Bates, was one of the puppeteers performing the parent-child scene. “We’re animating these characters and breathing life into them \u2014 it’s very much a breath-based approach.”<\/p>\n

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Sandglass Theater performers Keila K. Ching ’19, Shoshana Bass, and Alan R. White animate a puppet during a Gannett Theater dress rehearsal of Babylon, Journeys of Refugees<\/em>. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Based in Putney, Vt., Sandglass offers two performances Jan. 11<\/a> and 12<\/a> in Gannett Theater. Combining acting and singing with the puppetry, Babylon<\/em> is an original work based on interviews with refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, El Salvador, and Burundi.<\/p>\n

The piece explores the relationships between refugees, their homelands both lost and new, and the conflicts that arise in the communities \u2014 such as Lewiston \u2014 to which they flee.<\/p>\n

The piece was developed collaboratively by members of the company, including Ching, who first encountered Sandglass through an intensive summer puppetry program in 2016.<\/p>\n

“Kei\u2019s been one of the core members of the ensemble for this production since we started work on it,” says Eric Bass, Sandglass co-artistic director and co-founder of the company with his wife, Ines Zeller Bass.<\/p>\n

“Part of our work is how we actually have grown together over a couple of years to become an ensemble for this piece,” says Eric Bass. “That entails the practice of the art forms, a discussion of the issues, and a personal and a working relationship to each other. Kei has brought a great humanity and a wonderful perspective to that.”<\/p>\n

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Video scenes from “Babylon, Journeys of Refugees,” featuring Keila Ching \u201919. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/em>
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