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Caroline Borderies, Maud Aptekar & MirnaLekic

New York NY

Caroline Borderies

Two Persian TalesTwo Persian Tales is an original shadow play and live piano production of Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi’s “TheStory of the Parrot and the Merchant” and “The Ant Who Saw a Pen”. This production intertwines themediums of sharp-silhouette puppetry, music, and English and Persian spoken word. The stories are drawn fromRumi’s The Masnavi, an epic poem in six books, which in beautiful verse presents weighty philosophical,spiritual and moral arguments.

$10,300

$7,000

Two Persian Tales (The Merchant and the Parrot) filmed on September 8, 2016

Scene 1-Jungle scene: Caroline Borderies, Director Set Design by Caroline Borderies Wild Animals:design by Caroline Borderies, manipulation by Caroline Borderies and Maud Aptekar Scene 2- BirdsScene: Birds and Tree: design and manipulation by Maud Aptekar Merchant: design and manipulationby Caroline Borderies

The video contains 2 short excerpts from “The Merchant and the Parrot” (1 of theTwo Persian Tales).The merchant travels to India to meet his parrot’s kinsmen. Scene 1: wild animals in the Indian jungle.Scene 2: the merchant meets the wild parrots.

917-517-1242

16 Grove Street Apt #210014

cborderies@icloud.comfacebook.com/chiaroscuropuppets

VIDEO SAMPLE

CONTACT

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Fractured Atlas501 (c)(3):

NA

PAST GRANTS AWARDED

PRODUCTION

Two Persian Tales Caroline Borderies and Maud Aptekar, shadow puppeteers / Mirna Lekic, pianist

 Project description

Two Persian Tales is an original shadow play and live piano production of Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi’s “The Story of the Parrot and the Merchant” and “The Ant Who Saw a Pen”. This production intertwines the mediums of sharp-silhouette puppetry, music, and spoken word. The stories are drawn from Rumi’s The Masnavi, an epic poem in six books, which in beautiful verse presents weighty philosophical, spiritual and moral arguments. The texts are read in English with some parts recited in Original Persian. Live performance of solo piano works by Middle-Eastern composers accompanies the show, tying all the elements, and creating a conversation between the puppetry, music, and the sounds of the English and Persian verses. Although Rumi’s writings have been widely read in the U.S., there have been very few puppetry performances of the stories from The Masnavi, and to our knowledge, none using shadow puppetry. By its universality and geographic origin, shadow puppetry is particularly well suited for illustrating Rumi’s poetry. In depicting only the silhouette and by suggesting the character, the shadow puppet fosters spectators’ imagination and invites the audience to participate in the making of the story. This is particularly appropriate for Rumi’s texts, which can be interpreted on many different levels.

Puppets The puppets are silhouette cut in black poster board. The characters, humans or animals, are usually articulated (they include moving parts such as heads, limbs). They are held and moved by bamboo rods, and they vary in size (2 to 16 inches) depending of the lighting techniques used to cast their shadow. The elements of decors are mostly built in poster board and foam core but can include colored acetate gel paper, feathers, fabrics etc… They can also be articulated (door opening, branches moving) or they can slide on a background layer as a moving landscape. Lighting Techniques The performance takes place in a dark room. The focus is drawn to the screen, which is the only light source (the readers and the pianist have small individual reading lamps).

• Overhead projection The puppets are smaller in size, and they are manipulated directly on the device, which projects the image on the screen.

• Fresnel lamp The puppets are larger in size and manipulated at different distances from the screen in order for their shadow to be cast on the screen. • Foreground, the puppets are manipulated just behind the screen and appear at their full scale. • Back ground, the puppets are placed half way between the lamp and the screen and appear

blown up in scale and less sharp.

Two Persian Tales is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Fractured Atlas will receive grants for the purposes of 2 Persian Tales, provide oversight to ensure that grant funds are used in accordance with grant agreements, and provide reports as required by the grantor. Contributions for the purposes of 2 Persian Tales must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

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Two Persian Tales Caroline Borderies and Maud Aptekar, shadow puppeteers / Mirna Lekic, pianist

 Project budget

INCOME Contributed Revenue Individual Contributions from platform Indiegogo https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/two-persian-tales-music#/

1,295.00

Foundation Grants 7,000.00 Earned Revenue 1 2,000.00 TOTAL REVENUE 10,345.00 EXPENSES Artist Fees2 6,000.00 Performance right fees for the music 150.00 Marketing 200.00 Piano Rental 2,400.00 Travel and Transportation 250.00 Administration and Overhead 50.00 Material for theater and puppet creation 1,200.00 TOTAL EXPENSES 10,300.00 SURPLUS 45.00

1 - The budget is based on one paid performance at the The Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook and one pro bono performance at the Waterfront Barge Museum, whose mission is to provide the public with free and low-cost educational and arts programs.

2 – Puppeteer 1 $1,400

Puppeteer 2 $1,400

Pianist $1,400

Singer $600

Reader 1 $600

Reader 2 $600

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Two Persian Tales Caroline Borderies and Maud Aptekar, shadow puppeteers / Mirna Lekic, pianist

 Artists description  

Caroline Borderies is a French-born artist living in New York City since 1999. Since 2003, her work in shadow puppetry has developed from short plays to more complex stories specifically related to museum exhibitions. Her creations are constructed of three elements: original sharp-silhouette shadow puppetry, personally written text, and accompanying music/ sound effects. Most recently, Ms. Borderies has worked on commissions for The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, as a complement to their exhibition programs. She also created an historical fiction show for The Bartow Pell Mansion Museum in the Bronx. Between 2003 and 2011, she created specific annual performances for The Children’s Aid Society/Philip Coltoff Center-Harvest Festival. She has also conducted workshops in shadow puppetry for many public and private schools in New York City, and has been invited twice by The Brearley School to serve as the Artist in Residence for workshops. In 2014 Puppeteer Basil Twist invited her1 to perform in his Puppet parlor at HERE Theatre in New York City. Ms. Borderies’ recent work includes To Weave a Tale1, The Milliner’s Daughter and Perseus and Medusa(Metropolitan Museum of Art), Two Tales from South East Asia1 in 2014 and 2015 (Charles B.Wang Center at Stony Brooke) Aung’s voyage, Carnival of the Elephants, The Secret of Liu Tai - The Vase Maker, and The Lost Jewelry Box (Bard Graduate Center), A year with the Bartow Family (Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum), In The Deep Blue Sea, and Bugs and Planets (American Museum of Natural History).

Maud Aptekar is a French-born artist living in New York City since 2000. Trained as an architect, Maud graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville in 1999. From there she explored different paths parallel to doing architectural projects in France and later in New York City. More recently, she designed a mural for the Antoine de Saint-Exupery Foundation in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the publication of The Little Prince. Created and shown in both New York City (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and Montreal, the mural consisted of a chalk wall, including some original illustrations and lit up planets, on which children could draw their own planet. For the past ten years, Maud has worked with several consulting companies, delivering accelerated workshops in the United States, and cities around the world, including Paris, Shanghai, Dubai, and Mumbai, among others. This work has led her to develop a skill as a graphic recorder, capturing a discussion in form of an illustrated mind map.

Mirna Lekić is a Bosnian-American pianist active as a recitalist, chamber musician and educator. Praised for her “intelligent and sincere pianism” (Examiner), “natural inventiveness and emotion” (Žena 21), and for “eliciting [music’s] haunting poetry"(New York Concert Review), she has performed in the United States, Canada, and Europe, at venues including New York’s Carnegie-Weill Hall, Symphony Space, World Trade Center, Chicago Cultural Center, St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, and Théâtre de l'Ile Saint-Louis in Paris. Her solo performances have been broadcast on WQXR, WNYC, WFMT, WPRB, and Bosnian TV and radio stations, and her debut solo album, Masks, is scheduled for release in 2016. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Mannes College of Music, and City University of New York Graduate Center, Ms. Lekić is a recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Grant, Artists International Special Presentation Award, and City University of New York Music Fellowship. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Queensborough Community College, City University of New York. (www.mirnalekic.com)

Caroline Borderies has collaborated twice with pianist Mirna Lekic, to create La Boite a Joujoux (The Toy Box) a ballet for marionettes written by Claude Debussy and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and other legends, in collaboration also with Maud Aptekar. Both productions were presented in different venues in New York and Paris (France). Two Persian Tales will be their third collaboration.

Upcoming: Caroline Borderies and Maud Aptekar will perform Jataka: Four Fables of the Lives of the Buddha and lead a workshop on shadow puppetry at the The Charles B. Wang Center.

http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/wang/performances/upcoming_performances.html http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/wang/other_programs/workshop_programs.html#puppets                                                                                                                1  –  with Christian Barthod  

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Moving in its cage,

the parrot talks with

the merchant about

its desire to be free

and requests that

the merchant go to

India to visit its free

kinsmen. Great at-

tention will be given

to the set which

will evoke Persian

miniatures.

An ant, walking on a piece of paper, sees a pen writing and begins to praise the pen. Another ant, which is more keen-sighted, praises the finger, not

the pen. Another ant, more clear-sighted than either, praises the arm, for the fingers are a branch of the arm. Colorful puppets of plants and flowers

are introduced as the ant praises the beauty of the artwork created by the pen.

The merchant travels to India. During his

journey he crosses different sets, such as this

example of a city scene with puppets of people

passing by.

Before the merchant reaches the jungle, and

interacts with the parrots, we see other animals

bringing life to the set.

Rumi gradually appears as the writer. He is a life-size puppet with a “real” hand, as seen in this

example from the show “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (on the right).

The screen will be dressed with an illuminated frame to give the impression that the puppets are

moving inside a Persian manuscript. This example comes from “To Weave a Tale”, production done

for the Metropolitan Museum of Art (on the left).

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Two Persian Tales Caroline Borderies and Maud Aptekar, shadow puppeteers / Mirna Lekic, pianist

 

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