IGNITE!

About IGNITE!

An annual springtime program of Wise Fool, IGNITE provides an opportunity for individuals, families, and organizations to create artwork that responds to our world. Wise Fool utilizes giant puppetry and street art for this project because they draw people in, disarm audiences, and anyone can create them!

Wise Fool offers four weeks of free IGNITE workshops, guiding community members in the creation of giant puppets and street art that reflect both struggles and visions around a social issue chosen in a public forum. Dialogue is sparked between strangers over wheat paste and newspaper, and diverse community members of all ages and backgrounds - families, adults, teens, indivduals, organizations - work as a team to create something larger than themselves. The resulting creations, from whimsical to thought-provoking, are carried by their makers in an outdoor community celebration. Spectators are treated to a colorful menagerie reflecting dozens of diverse artistic reactions to the chosen issue! An annual program since 2010.

2012 IGNITE in Review: "Occupy Possibility!"

Ignite! 2012 worked to help support the Occupy Movement in envisioning "the world we want".  The procession and pageant took place on a lovely day, April 28th, at the Santa Fe Railyard Park.

To help prepare for this, Wise Fool hosted two community brainstorms a month of community puppet builds to prepare for the event itself.  People of all ages and backgrounds came together to design, build, and paint puppets of all shapes and sizes, banners, signs, and all manner of marvelous curiosities were constructed around the theme of 'occupying possibility'.  This community worked together to visualize and create an overall theme, which the program directors fashioned into a loose script.

Led by Bobbe Besold and Amy Christian, an open rehearsal was held the night before the event itself.  On April 28th, a group of over 40 volunteers came together to heft giant puppets, don their costumes, and strap on their stilts for this amazing event.  The parade departed amid great fanafare and wild music from Samba Fe, worked it's way through the Santa Fe Farmer's Market, and arrived at the Santa fe Railyard Park.  

 
Here, the performers met with organziers and set up for an audience of roughly 200.  Amy Christian narrated a wonderfully recieved performance about overcoming the memes of Scarcity, Consumption, and Apathy.  The main characters were lured in by a slick Salesman and a giant media puppet, and were covered in material goods, even while they were being herded by monsters in the shape of fear and security.  A water dragon led a 'die in' of all of nature's creations, helping to 'wake up' our main cahracters, who began to question what was going on.  The act of questioning immediately drove away the media and Salemen and their pets.  One by one, Scarcity, Consuption, and Apathy were debunked and the characters were liberated.  The performance culminated in giving deposits to the Bank of the People, which gave out Seeds of Possibility seed packets to audience members.  With the help of the Railyard Stewards, we encourages the audience to venture out on their own and create new gardens and new connections.  Afterward, Wise Fool offered a free buffet of food and a puppet making workshop to the elated crowd.   Special thanks to the organizers and voluneteers who made the event possible: Bobbe Besold, Grietje Laga, Lisa Smith, Amy Bertucci, and Deidre Morris.  Ignite is made possible in part by New mexico Arts, a division of the Deparment of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment of the Arts, as well as the support of the Santa Fe Arts Commission, and The McCune Foundation.
To see all the fantastic photos, visit the gallery!

2011 IGNITE in Review: "Ignite the iMATTER March!"

In spring 2011, Wise Fool’s annual IGNITE program was dedicated to support Santa Fe’s iMatter March led locally by Earth Care’s Youth Allies. The iMatter March, a global youth march on climate change, took place on Sunday, May 8.

In preparation for this event Wise Fool met with Youth Allies leaders to help create a unifying visual theme for the parade and to help them transform their voices into larger-than life puppets, stenciled tshirts, and colorful signs and banners. Wise Fool artists led free drop-in “builds” where families, teens, adults, and elders worked together to create art that “pumped up the visual volume” on the youth voice of our community. The builds offered an open space to learn, make, share, and take part in creating giant puppets, props, stencils, banners, and street theatre. Wise Fool provided materials, tools, skills, and support. And in the end, the parade was a blast, as the powerful and colorful cohort of youth and their allies marched down the sidewalks of two of Santa Fe's largest roads, Cerrillos and St. Michael's, garnering honks and yells from the hundreds of passing cars. Wise Fool was thrilled to be able to use our annual IGNITE event to support such an amazing undertaking by powerful Santa Fe youth!

2010 IGNITE in Review: "Raising Truth in the Streets!"
 

IGNITE: Raising Truth in the Streets was a huge success! In April and May 2010 we came together to celebrate International Workers Day and Wise Fool's 10th anniversary... and what an incredible and inspiring outpouring of community spirit, passion and art it was! Over 70 adults, families, and teens came to the free workshops, building giant puppets, masks, and visuals that reflected personal, political and social struggles and visions. In addition, Wise Fool artists and community volunteers worked with local environmental and social justice organizations to create puppets and visuals that honored their work (full list below).

The collaborative creative energy of these workshops culminated in a public procession and pageant on May Day 2010. Over 60 giant puppets were brought to life by 250 adults, teens, and kids, dancing along the procession route through the crowded Farmer’s Market to the music of Samba Fe. Hundreds of spectators then filled the Railyard Park to watch the giant puppet pageant, performed by 50 community members. The pageant featured an "awesome world" full of youth and environmental creations; a 6-foot corporate person head with live-action eating mouth, and arms bearing the words “borders” “greed” “apathy” and “war”; a contingent of giant puppet activists and leaders such as Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Emma Goldman, Aung San Suu Kyi, Amy Goodman, and the Dalai Lama; and finally a 20-foot tall "All of Us" puppet raised triumphantly as a finale, where audience members pinned paper hearts and hands on which they’d written their vision for a better world.A community-based project consisting of free community workshops culminating in a public procession and pageant, IGNITE was administered and led by Wise Fool and run by volunteers. Thank you to the tireless and mostly-volunteer organizers: Carolyn Cooley, Amy Christian, Sarah-Jane Moody, Kathy Ni Keefe, Jessica Nappa-Siegel, and Amy Bertucci.