Join us on Sunday, 3rd February 2019 to celebrate Chinese New Year in Lancaster!
Find streets full of tasty international food, exciting funfair rides for the family and entertainment throughout the day with artists, musicians and martial arts taking the stage in Market Square.
Sarah trained in Theatre Design at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff and then attended the prestigious Curious School of Puppetry in London.
She is a highly skilled maker working as a puppet and prop maker for PuppetCraft and a range of other theatre companies, including Theatre Alibi.
Sarah has toured with PuppetCraft for over two years as a puppeteer performing in ‘Monkey’ and ‘The Tin Forest’.
Sarah recently formed her own puppet company ‘Wild Toy Theatre’ travelling to libraries and festivals.
Sarah works extensively in the South West as a theatre designer, design assistant and workshop facilitator.
Marisa showed a talent for the stage from an early age developing skills in elocution, acting, circus and song.
Marisa worked as a clown for community festivals across Scotland. She studied acting, mask and puppet theatre before joining “Puppet Lab” as a narrator/puppeteer for a UK tour. She travelled to U.S.A. to work with mask and puppet theatre “Bread and Puppet Theatre” one of the world’s great theatre groups.
Marisa moved to Devon to study for a BA in Devised Drama and an MA in Dramatherapy. She now uses her love for creative arts to promote social, psychological health and well-being for children.
Marisa experiments with musical instruments for song and traditional folk tales.
Marisa has performed with ‘PuppetCraft’ in over 150 performances of ‘Monkey’ on tour throughout the U.K.
PuppetCraft presents MONKEY! A fantastic production following the adventures of a comical, fantastical superhero, inspired by ‘Journey to the West’ a classic of Chinese literature.
The Lancaster Chinese Arts Festival will host two versions, a full theatrical performance of Monkey! for anyone from 4+ years in Preston and SuperMonkey a fun singalong experience for children
from 3-6 years in Lancaster.
Also try your hand at making and performing with the artist behind the production with our Shadow Puppet Making Workshops exclusive to Lancaster only.
Brought to exuberant life by seldom seen exquisitely crafted marionettes, leaping and swinging, acrobatically, authentic, old Chinese shadow puppets.
Features enchanting live music and snappy raps and witty words written for PuppetCraft by the brilliant, award winning poet Michael Rosen, Children’s Laureate 2007–2009, famed for “Going
on a Bear Hunt”.
For 25 years PuppetCraft has been touring far and wide, becoming one of Britain’s top puppet companies.
Book tickets for Preston – click here
Book tickets for Lancaster – click here
PuppetCraft presents MONKEY! A fantastic production following the adventures of a comical, fantastical superhero, inspired by ‘Journey to the West’ a classic of Chinese literature.
The Lancaster Chinese Arts Festival will host two versions, a full theatrical performance of Monkey! for anyone from 4+ years in Preston and SuperMonkey a fun singalong experience for children
from 3-6 years in Lancaster.
Also try your hand at making and performing with the artist behind the production with our Shadow Puppet Making Workshops exclusive to Lancaster only.
Brought to exuberant life by seldom seen exquisitely crafted marionettes, leaping and swinging, acrobatically, authentic, old Chinese shadow puppets.
Features enchanting live music and snappy raps and witty words written for PuppetCraft by the brilliant, award winning poet Michael Rosen, Children’s Laureate 2007–2009, famed for “Going
on a Bear Hunt”.
For 25 years PuppetCraft has been touring far and wide, becoming one of Britain’s top puppet companies.
Book tickets for Preston – click here
Book tickets for Lancaster – click here
PuppetCraft presents MONKEY! A fantastic production following the adventures of a comical, fantastical superhero, inspired by ‘Journey to the West’ a classic of Chinese literature.
The Lancaster Chinese Arts Festival will host two versions, a full theatrical performance of Monkey! for anyone from 4+ years in Preston and SuperMonkey a fun singalong experience for children
from 3-6 years in Lancaster.
Also try your hand at making and performing with the artist behind the production with our Shadow Puppet Making Workshops exclusive to Lancaster only.
Brought to exuberant life by seldom seen exquisitely crafted marionettes, leaping and swinging, acrobatically, authentic, old Chinese shadow puppets.
Features enchanting live music and snappy raps and witty words written for PuppetCraft by the brilliant, award winning poet Michael Rosen, Children’s Laureate 2007–2009, famed for “Going
on a Bear Hunt”.
For 25 years PuppetCraft has been touring far and wide, becoming one of Britain’s top puppet companies.
Book tickets for Preston – click here
Book tickets for Lancaster – click here
Information from PagodaArts.org.uk
Zi Lan Liao is one of the leading exponents of Chinese music. Her busy career on the international concert circuit has resulted in her being the most widely heard and best appreciated performer on the Ku-Cheng worldwide.
Zi Lan began to learn the Ku-Cheng at the age of three when she lived in Guangzhou. By the age of nine she was winning major prizes in China, including the prestigious National Youth Music Competition. By the time she left China for the UK at the age of fifteen her reputation as a virtuoso performer was already established. She made an immediate impact on her arrival in the UK by winning at the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen.
She continued her music studies at Chetham’s School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, now specialising in the western concert harp besides Chinese traditional dance and the Ku-Cheng, a fantastic twenty-one harp-like instrument in thousands of years of Chinese Dynastic tradition.
Zi Lan has captivated audiences around the world as a soloist with leading orchestras, as a recitalist and through the bubbling enthusiasm of her workshops.
She recorded music for the Oscar winning film “The Last Emperor”; she has collaborated with Peter Gabriel, Nigel Kennedy, Jah Wobble and other internationally known artists, and has appeared at most of the major UK concert venues, including the Edinburgh, Aldeburgh and World Harp Festivals. In 1996, she featured as soloist in the World Premier of ‘The River’ Ku-Cheng Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Her collaboration with Jah Wobble – ‘Chinese Dub’ has won the best ‘Cross-Cultural Collaboration 2009’. In 2010, Zi Lan performed with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra again on the new composition ‘Oxbow’ written by Ian Stephens in Liverpool and Shanghai World Expo.
Zi Lan is deeply committed to making the music of her native country known in the West and has a rare talent for sharing her insight into its cultural setting and spirit. Despite her busy performance schedule Zi Lan still finds time to assist the Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra and Dance Group in Liverpool, both as musician and choreographer and, as visiting teacher, Chethams Music School and King’s College, besides giving workshops ‘nationwide’.
Excerpt from website:
Red Dragonfly Theatre Productions strives to bring stories from the East and Far East to the British and European stage. Working in collaboration with Grist to the Mill Productions we have now started on a three year programme to bring three classic Chinese stories to the West –
The Autumn of Han, DiaoChan and Monkey: The Journey to the West.
We believe it is important that our plays are accessible and entertaining to British, European and Chinese audiences. The plays are specifically adapted into English for the stage by English Playwright Ross Ericson:
“Us Europeans often find classical Chinese drama quite impenetrable, so I put the story into a structure and language that would be familiar to European audiences whilst retaining the authenticity and spirit of the original text.”
Our productions are visually stunning, sharply written and, above all, great stories. They are entertaining introductions to Chinese culture and literature for the British and European audience; students of Chinese and East-Asian Studies; second generations of Chinese who are born in the UK; and students of Drama studies. The familiarity of these classic stories will also appeal to the Chinese community and students who are learning English in the UK.
As a fully contained touring company we offer a hassle free service and the audiences a great opportunity to experience the culture and history of China in a truly entertaining event.
