Hobey Ford's Golden Rod Puppets
BIOGRAPHY
Performance Formats:
The Magic of Peepers Puppets: Exploring Scriptwriting Through Puppetry, For Teachers of Grades 2-5
Puppetry is a magical teaching tool that activates students' creative thinking through play. In this workshop, Hobey Ford, puppeteer and teaching artist from North Carolina, introduces you to his patented Peepers Puppet, a set of eyes worn on the hand in several ways to turn the bare hand into an innovative and inexpensive puppet. Discover how to help students learn the basics of creating numerous characters using the Peepers Puppet and learn how to write and perform simple scripts that teach story structure and sequence while creating theater with their hands.
Winner of puppetry's highest honor, the UNIMA Citation of Excellence, and recipient of three Jim Henson Foundation grants, Hobey Ford is known for excellence in puppetry performance and craft.
Hobey's intricate shadow puppetry work and creation of the original rod puppets, the "Foamies", have earned him a place on stages across the world. Hobey's performances incorporate a variety of puppetry styles including Bunraku, rod, marionettes, "Foamies", and shadow puppetry. Hobey adapts folk tales from various cultures for many of his performances, always adding a special "Golden Rod" twist. He uses his own voice to create characters and sound effects, tell stories, and sing.
Hobey utilizes his artistic study at The State University of New York at Purchase and the University of North Carolina at Asheville to design and construct all of his Golden Rod Puppets and the beautiful sets that surround them. Hobey also draws on his early experiences growing up in coastal Connecticut or living in a Nevada Native American community in writing the scripts for some of his performances such as "Whale Walker" and "Turtle Island Tales".
Hobey is considered both an innovator in puppetry craft and a master storyteller. He has created both the "Foamies" and the clever hand puppet known as "Peepers". The "Foamies" are large animal puppets carved from blocks of foam. After studying each animal's characteristic movements, Hobey designs various control mechanisms to make the puppets themselves move in a life-like manner. The "Foamies" are presented using both stage and house performance space.
In conjunction with The Kennedy Center's Partnership In Education program, Hobey provides teacher workshops in puppetry: "Telling Folktales With Shadow Puppetry" and "Metamorphosis".
Hobey Ford's Shadow Puppetry Workshop
Students - Combining storytelling with shadow puppetry brings a variety of cultures to life in the classroom through folktales. During this workshop, students become familiar with folktales from many cultures. Participants will learn shadow puppetry performance techniques and how to construct their own shadow puppets. Each student will construct a puppet.
Hobey Ford has a study guide to accompany each performance as well as his teacher workshops. Study guides can be downloaded below or sent to you via e-mail by contacting Loyd Artists.
