Fundraising Video 2.0 | Spotlight on the BLOOM Team
BLOOM is thrilled to debut version 2.0 of our fundraising video, featuring a spotlight on the team of all-star designers, puppeteers, performers, musicians, builders and producers that Lindsay is working with to bring her vision for BLOOM. SHE IS DESCENDING to life.
Because Lindsay is no longer able to build or manipulate objects with her own hands, she has enlisted the help of the BLOOM team to create an immersive physical and sonic environment designed to support her as she explores her continually changing capacity for movement.
The BLOOM team brings decades of cumulative professional experience in the fields of puppetry, performance, music, film, management, and production to the project along with their dedication to helping Lindsay realize her vision. Highlights from the team's collective resume include performances seen on Broadway and Comedy Central, participation in the Park Avenue Armory Show and the Frieze Art Fair, and design work for clients ranging from Sesame Street to Bjork.
Get the scoop on the team below, and click through to our IndieGoGo page to become a part of the effort to bring this important art to the stage!
Creative Director | Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith
Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith defines herself as a story collector who practices storytelling primarily through puppetry and gesture. As a performer, puppeteer and bodyworker, Lindsay has spent her life investigating and celebrating what the human body is capable of, and telling stories about what binds us together as human beings. Over the course of her decade-long career she has worked as a puppeteer in productions with Basil Twist, Mabou Mines and Lee Breuer, as a performer alongside Joey Arias and Manfred Thierry Mugler in the film Z Chromosome, as an aerialist in the solo performance Domestic Snakes, and as a percussionist with experimental rock band The Clearing. She has created, directed and performed in many original productions including a puppetry adaptation of The Ballad of Cupid and Psyche and the experimental dance piece Finding a Way Back. She was a HERE Arts Center Resident Artist from 2009 to 2012 and a recipient of the Jim Henson Foundation Project Grant for her original piece of movement-based ritual theater, Epyllion, in 2012. She was diagnosed with ALS in August 2012 and has been working on BLOOM ever since.
Design Co-Director | Jessica Scott
Jessica Scott is a self-taught, New York City based visual artist, director, performer, and teacher. Ms. Scott has designed and performed for most of Basil Twist’s productions since 2003. In 2010 she made her Broadway debut puppeteering in Pee Wee’s Playhouse at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, and returned again to Broadway in 2012 as the Puppetry Associate for Big Fish the Musical. In 2013 she was the lead puppeteer and puppetry director of the Mabou Mines epic La Divina Caricatura. Recently, Ms. Scott collaborated with painter Bjarne Melgaard to create over forty custom dolls for the exhibit A New Novel at Luxembourg and Dayan Gallery, the Park Avenue Armory Show and the Lyon Biennale. Ms. Scott also recently designed her first live-action puppetry film, The Never Bell, which premiers at BAM’s Puppet’s on Film Festive October 26th. Other TV puppetry credits include Flight of the Conchord’s Demon Woman and Bjork’s Wanderlust. Ms. Scott is currently a HARP and Dream Music Puppetry resident artist at HERE Theater where she is developing her piece Ship of Fools.
Sound Designer + Producer | Caroline Yes
Caroline Yes is an artist and musician who has written, toured, and produced shows with New York City based bands The Clearing, Frankie Rose and the Outs, and most recently the psychedelic witch metal trio FLOWN, hailed by Pitchfork for their riot grrrl tendencies and occultish bent. She has been creating live soundscapes for ritual, meditation, and theater since 2006, and has curated, produced and performed in rock shows that approach performance as ritual all over Brooklyn and the East Coast, including performances at Secret Project Robot, Death by Audio, and most recently as a part of the Naama Tsabar's installation Without curated by Mindy Abovitz + Tom Tom Magazine at the Frieze Art Fair. She has toured the US and Europe as a bass player, and is currently creating soundscapes for meditation under the moniker Ankeresse, in which she uses the electronic manipulation of objects from nature to create immersive sonic environments.
Lead Puppeteer + Performer | Sarah Lafferty
Sarah Lafferty is a multifaceted performer and builder who has had the pleasure of performing with Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith in her productions of Cupid and Psyche (2005 & 2007, Dixon Place), Epyllion (2011 & 2012, HERE!), and Mental Hygiene (2012, St. Ann’s Warehouse). Her other favorite performances are: Bea Baxter in Senseless! A Brick Foley Adventure (2010, St. Ann’s Warehouse & tours including NOLA Fringe 2011) and Giant Stephen Colbert at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear (2010, Comedy Central). Sarah builds for puppet studios in New York City, including the Jim Henson Company, where her work will be seen on Sesame Street’s 45th Season. She’s a proud Pussyfooter since 2003.
Performer + Dancer | Misha Braun
Misha Braun is a graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse who was born in Amsterdam to Verdi’s Requiem above the famed Bulldog Coffee Shop. He was raised by his single mom in NYC, the hustle capital of the world, with hip hop and break beats in his headphones and spray cans in his backpack. A performer for as long as he can remember, Misha got his start as a 7 year old pipsqueak in tights dancing on full scholarship at the prestigious School of American Ballet. He has danced professionally with the San Francisco Ballet and the Pennsylvania Ballet. His theater credits include Bryan and Kim (NYC Fringe Festical, Barrow Group & Hudson Guild Theater), Abomination, Self Examination, Late Night Snack (HB Theater), The Old Man (The Gallery Players Theater), Henry IV Part I (American Theater of Actors). Film credits include Black Swan, Not Fade Away, Inside Llewyn Davis and the web series Caleb and Rene.
Production + General Manager | Neelam Vaswani
Neelam Vaswani, originally from Atlanta, GA, has lived and worked in NYC for the past 14 years as an AEA Stage Manager and Production Manager. Early in her career, she found herself surrounded by an array of puppets, and has built her reputation working alongside a wide range of creative spirits, including with Mabou Mines in their adaptation of Peter and Wendy and with the late Ruth Maleczech in Song for New York. She has stage managed the majority of Basil Twist’s repertoire including Arias With A Twist, Master Peter’s Puppet Show, Petrushka, Dogugaeshi and La Bella Dormente nel Bosco. Neelam worked closely with Lindsay on the many phases of Epyllion. She’s thrilled to be part of BLOOM, which is a magical journey that proves when we use our creative energy anything is possible!
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