Photo credit: Paul Irmiter
BIO
Karly Bergmann conducts experiments in the science of enchantment—often through puppetry, but always through handmade, object-based work. After studying Dramaturgy and Theatre Criticism at The Theatre School at DePaul University, she went on to be fostered in Chicago’s vibrant DIY scene, receive The Edes Prize for Emerging Artists, and moved to Rome, Italy. There, she studied shadow puppetry with masters at Teatro Gioco Vita. Her versatile shadow puppet designs have been seen on stage at Nashville Childrens’ Theatre (A Snowy Day), The Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles (The Mountain Digby, a world premiere), and The English Theatre of Rome (The Belle of Amherst). Karly was recently a 2019-2020 Puppet Lab fellow and is an alumna of The National Puppetry Conference at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. She is now based in Minneapolis for the foreseeable future.
Her shadow puppet GIF project Falena Balena has over 23.5 million views on GIPHY. You can look at them on her website here. She has a shadow puppet reel you can watch here.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work often centers around endings, death, and what we choose to preserve. Also, camel toes.
I believe it is possible to embrace hopelessness without despair. I believe silliness is sacred.
The onslaught of global events have taught us that we cannot go back to the logic of before and are instead called to build a brave, new world. Puppetry uniquely understands the art of imagining and building entire worlds, and the magic of breathing life into them. I want to experiment with using puppetry to model alternate worlds and potential futures that are not defined by how things have always been, but instead serve as something to point to when people are asked how else it could be.
Currently composting animism into my puppetry work.