Animal Cracker Conspiracy Puppet Company

Animal Cracker Conspiracy Puppet Company, or Animal Cracker Conspiracy (ACC), is a contemporary hybrid puppet company co-founded by Iain Gunn and Bridget Rountree that is invested in peering under the surface of things and pushing the boundaries of kinetic performance. They create performances that decenter expectations, open new avenues of thought, and invoke the uncanny. Their ongoing practice is based on a shared interest and exploration of where fine art, puppetry, performance art, circus, dance, film, and mixed media intersect. They perform nationally and internationally out of a multiplicity of venues such as La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, California, where the company resides. ACC specializes in inclusive multimedia performances that encourage difficult discussions and foster community through local theater, street parades, and national tours.

File:Bridget-and-Iain-Headshot.jpg

Bridget Rountree and Iain Gunn for Times of San Diego

Gunn and Rountree have served as directors, designers, developers, producers, and puppeteers in the company’s productions since its founding in 2006.

History

Early Life

In 1993 Iain Gunn received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia. Bridget Rountree received a B.A. in Literature studying domestically at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara in 2005 as well as one in Fine Arts internationally at La Scuola Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence, Italy. They joined forces in 2004 after they met at the San Diego Children’s Museum where Gunn was an artist in residence while working with Fern Street Circus, a community circus for underserved youth. They collaborated in San Diego’s underground performance scene with Technomania Circus, which gave rise to the creation of their own collective circus, Zirk Ubu. They created Animal Cracker Conspiracy in order to focus on puppetry and integrating it into both fine art, circus, and performance.

2003: Iain Gunn received a B.A. in Literature with a Minor in Fine Arts from UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara.

2006–Present: Professional Experience

2006-Present: Animal Cracker Conspiracy; Co-Founder, Director, Puppeteer, Designer                            

2005-2006: San Diego Art Department; Art Instructor teaching foundation painting, drawing, sculpture

2005-2011: San Diego Guild of Puppetry; Puppetry Instructor, Puppeteer

2007-2011: Zirk Ubu; Co-Founder, Director, Puppeteer Designer, Performer

2007-2013: Dragon Knights; Stilt Walker, Character Actor, CA

2013: Bedlam Theater, Workshop utilizing puppetry and storytelling

MiraCosta College Actors Academy, Puppetry Workshop, Co-Teacher, Guest Lecturer

2014: Eurydice, Theater Class USD, Puppetry Manipulation, Shadow Intensive, Guest Lecturer

Puppetry Development Intensive USD; Co-Teacher, Movement, Director

2015: When It Comes, Old Globe, Puppet Development, Manipulation, Designer

Work

Animal Cracker Conspiracy produces puppet shows, cabarets, and multidisciplinary exhibitions, many of which they have toured and performed for local, national, and international audiences. Gunn and Rountree call their work hybrid due to the diverse artistic interests of both artists. They continuously cross disciplines producing puppet shows, cabarets, performative installations, live action puppet films and multidisciplinary exhibitions, many of which they have toured and performed for local, national, and international audiences.

Society of Wonder

Commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse Without Walls (WOW) in 2020 is a series of six short live action puppet films. The story is set in a not-too-distant world in impending collapse, partly due to the global disappearance of chickens and partly due to a monopolistic technocracy which has innocuously taken over the world. The protagonists, five seemingly unrelated characters, receive mysterious signs and some coercion from a mysterious 6th character (the Cyborg) that eventually leads them all to one another and to the unearthing of magic. The use of puppets in Society of Wonder supports both the concept and content of the production. They serve as a bridge between the human and the spirit realm, which are invoked throughout the story in the search for magic, knowledge and the responsibility of humans to reconnect both to nature and culture.

Paper Cities

Paper Cities or, Strategies to Avert the Coming Megalopolis is an ongoing experiment in devised puppet performance. They use puppets, animated objects, dance/anti-dance(movement), original film and live music as routes to create and question meaning in an increasingly uncertain time environmentally, socially, politically and spiritually. The inquiry: what epistemologies have led to this precariousness? How have textual information and images, sense and law, architecture and habit, played a part? Drawing from Gunn and Rountree’s personal histories as art makers, lovers, and great-granddaughters and great-grandsons of colonial settlers, they implicate themselves with the “other”. They interrogate historical narratives, settler/ expansionist movements that have led to an epistemology of  “progress” that occludes the realities of war, genocide, imperialism, and environmental degradation.

The Collector

Performed with toy theatre, table-top puppets, object theatre, stop motion animation and film. A mysterious tale set in an alternate reality, about a lowly debt collector, who, under the management of a mechanical, tyrannical overseer, undergoes a radical transformation of spirit in the process of collecting outstanding debts. As he travels through the urban landscape the boundaries between object and self collide. The story unfolds into a multidimensional mixed media performance through Orwellian, neo-Victorian lenses.

Gnomesense

A parade performed with giant puppets, stilt walkers, dancers and musicians. An audience participatory happening, a meta-impromptu dance party and singalong led by a group of benevolent, albeit anarchic mystical garden beings. Inspired by carnival processions with giant puppets from many cultures such as Indonesian, Italian, and Japanese.

The Myth Project

A collaborative site-specific work that explored myths of the warrior and military training. It was performed at the (former) Naval Training Center in Point Loma, CA (now NTC Promenade). Part of its aim was to examine the essence of storytelling as a “charter for social action” through original site-specific works blending dance, theater, puppetry, and circus as a way to re-embody contemporary and ancient myths. Directed by Liam Clancy and Patricia Rincon with artistic collaboration from Rebecca Bryant and composer Don Nichols.

Adrift

A moving meditation on the themes of Zen, vagabond, and of welcoming the precarious into life. Through the use of play, the idea of being unmoored, of letting go, and allowing oneself to be swept away by forces outside of control are explored. Leaving behind familiar formulae and the safety of the known, a realization is continually found; there is nothing lacking. Performed with Zirk Ubu and directed by Liam Clancy.

Stilt Walking

Ancient art forms brought to life, timeless and otherworldly; ACC’s stilt characters leave beautiful and joyful impressions in the minds of their audience. With over a decade of experience performing on traditional “echasse” peg stilts, teaching workshops, and fabricating wooden stilts for performers, ACC continues to inspire with their audacious designs and inimitable presence.

Inspirations

Though neither puppeteer initially intended on pursuing the art as a profession, both were fascinated by the intricate, timeless performances within works such as The Dark Crystal and The Muppets by puppeteering legend Jim Henson, inspired as youths by his reification of puppeteering as an art as well as a practical, refined discipline in relation to a modern, mainstream audience. Gunn was especially moved by the themes of resistance, struggle, and perseverance as presented in The Dark Crystal from a very young age. Rountree was engaged by the storytelling quality of The Muppets and its ability to communicate difficult themes to young audiences.

Later on, Gunn was influenced by street performers such as stilt walkers while growing up in Vancouver, Canada while Rountree was introduced to the Handspring Puppet Company during an artist residency with teaching artists Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky in Cape Town, South Africa. This, along with charcoal artist-turned-puppeteer William Kentridge’s films, Ubu and the Truth Commission, served as major catalysts in their pursuing puppetry. As a pair, both also describe the anti-carceral, anti-imperialist, and anti-war sentiments and folksy yet larger-than-life productions of Bread & Puppet, created by German bakers-turned-puppeteers Elka and Peter Schumann, as transformative in how they viewed the boundaries of theater performance.

Animal Cracker Conspiracy is also heavily inspired by European styles of puppetry such as the use of more visible puppeteers in theater and street performance through giant puppets, marionettes, and stilt dancing.

Causes

Animal Cracker Conspiracy prioritizes social commentary through various shows and exhibitions, even developing the structure and form of various projects in response to multiple issues, such as the utilization of typically useless but recyclable materials and household objects, including cereal boxes, brass pins, and even toilet paper, and upcycling them in order to reimagine the boundaries of puppets. Other causes include:

• Inclusion
• Transformation
• Sustainability
• Equity
• Rebellion

ACC also hosts community workshops to engage with audiences and continue this ethos beyond the theater.

Awards and Grants

ACC has also received grant funding from the Jim Henson Foundation, Heather Beth Henson Fund, San Diego Foundation, and Puffin Foundation.