Communion – A Puppet Film by Malia Araki Burkhart

This film describes a spiritual journey through symbols and sounds. What happens when we release rigid beliefs, and open to other truths? What traumas did my ancestors experience, in the expansion of Christianity? How can I hold and heal these ancestors’ stories? Copyright 2022-2023 by Malia Araki Burkhart Executive Producer: Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop Minneapolis, MN, USA

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Remembering Rachael Corrie

  This piece was created in 2006 for the “Revolutionary Women’s Cabaret” at the Center for Independent Artists. This is a 10-minute edited version of a 30-minute performance.  This piece was created in 2006 for the “Revolutionary Women’s Cabaret” at the Center for Independent Artists in Minneapolis, MN by artist Malia Araki Burkhart.  Malia combined…

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New Sounds

From 2014-2017, I’ve been hosting regular “jams” with musician-friends in the living room and front porch.  Some of the jam-recordings can be found on my Soundcloud account, along with a “Sister-Songwriter” series in 2016. I occasionally share my songs in public.  Please send a message if you’d like an invitation to my next performance.

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Sacred Garden 2016 – A Performance Art Project

SACRED GARDEN, AN OUTDOOR PERFORMANCE ART EXPERIENCE. Sacred Garden (2016) was an outdoor performance art experience centering stories of womanhood. This intergenerational and multicultural ensemble included Rachael Bird, Maryam Houshyar, Filsan Ibrahim, Zea Leguizamon, Lula Saleh, Simone Rendon, Vidhya Shanker, Sarojini Pokawa, and Star Williams. We shared our life-passages through improvised movement and storytelling, featuring…

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Osteogenesis ~ A work-in-progress

Images from August 2013 work-in-progress showing.  An in-home Performance Installation featuring live music, butoh dance, and masked characters.  With performers Malia Burkhart, Maggie Majewski, Stacy Lee King, and masked-musicians Rachael Sarto and Stephanie Watts.

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Giant Puppets

Giant Puppets are a great way for students to learn how to work together! This can be a 1 or 2 week project, depending on the materials, level of complexity, age and skill-level, and whether you’d like to include an element of performance. Usually, this type of puppet-making is done by a team of students…

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Mask Making and Performance

Mask Making and Performance is a great way to get everyone in the class on their feet and engaged! What’s unique about this project is that the masks require the student to use their entire body, movement, dance and gestures to express their creation. I’ve used this project to help students gain empathy through imagination,…

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Hand Puppets

Hand Puppetry is a great project for 1st grade and up! Even high school students get really into the process. This project has several great aspects. The creation of the head has just about infinite possibility for variations, and the puppets often reflect each student’s personality in quirky ways. There is less need for storage…

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Rod Puppets

Rod Puppets can be created as a 1-week or 2-week residency, with 2nd – 12th graders. This type of puppet is operated from below, using a dowel or stick (“rod”) around which the rest of the puppet is built. Materials are newspaper, tape, paper-mache, cloth, paint, cardboard, and imagination. In a one-week residency, each student…

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