Baba Yaga
Co-Director, Actor, Creator/Deviser, Writer
“A majestic, loving performance that is an invocation of an old spirit…Baba Yaga is the pure magic of stardust settling, and because of its very nature, it is prone to singe us here and there. It’s an archetype, resurrected: raw, age-old storytelling.” — Christa McIntyre, Oregon Arts Watch, January 2016
Baba Yaga was originally devised as a senior thesis project in Spring 2015 at Lewis & Clark College, and has since been performed at Fertile Ground Festival 2016 (Portland, OR), Windsor Fringe 2017 (Canada), Boulder Fringe 2017 (Boulder, CO), and Columbia Center for the Arts in 2019 (Hood River, OR).
Witches and maidens and shadow puppets!
This solo-ish show unravels the mystery surrounding the morally ambiguous Russian fairy tale witch, Baba Yaga. During the performance, she offers the audience a spiteful dose of romantic advice, told through three classic Russian fairy tales from her perspective. The show invites the audience to challenge their perception of Otherness, and empathize with the human being behind the intimidating archetype.
Baba Yaga was conceptualized in Moscow (MXAT Semester through the National Theatre Institute), and incorporates shadow puppets, expressive movement, Pushkin, sarcastic anecdotes, and audience interaction for a performance that is appropriate for children, but geared towards adults. The show is devised from various versions of three Russian fairy tales: Vasalisa the Brave, The Frog Princess, and The Maiden Tsar, featuring a blend of original and verbatim text.
Puppets are designed by Robert Amico and Sullivan Mackintosh.