Welcome, bienvenu:es, hereinspaziert!
I am Pia Banzhaf, a puppetry artist-researcher working across shadowlight theater, hand-carved puppets, and object-supported-storytelling.
My practice explores how performing objects create space for new perspectives. When we watch puppets, we know they are inanimate, yet we treat them as beings. This cognitive flexibility—seeing materials as both things and characters—opens possibilities for wonder, connection, and collective meaning-making.
Kaleidoscopia plays on my name Pia and the kaleidoscope. Through translucent fragments and motion, wonder emerges in ever-shifting perceptions. Turn the kaleidoscope once, you see one pattern; turn again, everything reorganizes. Like puppetry, like community—separate pieces becoming something beautiful and meaningful together.
Drawing on a PhD in cognitive poetics of puppetry, extensive training with master puppeteers internationally, and years of teaching from elementary schools to university classrooms, I am launching an independent puppetry practice through kaleidoscopia. I develop workshops and performances accessible to educators and the general public—telling stories with communities, not to them—strengthening puppetry arts in mid-Michigan and beyond.
kaleidoscopia offers puppetry education, therapeutic applications, community-engaged performances using hand-carved wooden puppets and contemporary shadow theater, as well as dramaturgy for puppet theater.
(a) Education and Professional Development
We will offer workshops for educators, community centers, senior centers, and memory care facilities. Workshops will include: collaborative skill-building through puppet theater, incorporating shadow theater into physics curriculum (optics and light), storytelling techniques, puppet construction, and facilitating meaningful moments for memory care patients using puppets.
(b) Therapeutic Applications
We will facilitate lifestory telling workshops for elders—a process also known as narrative identity development. Participants examine separate life experiences and weave them into a coherent narrative. By discovering temporal and causal connections and identifying patterns of values and ideals, participants observe the emergence of meaning in their life stories. This process builds resilience and empowerment.
(c) Community-Engaged Performances
We will create performances for families and communities who do not typically attend theater, culminating in shared meals that build connection. Our current project in development is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood using hand-carved marionettes, where baking a pie on stage becomes part of the performance and the audience shares the pie afterward. Our goal is to strengthen puppetry arts in mid-Michigan and beyond, developing stories with local input and community participation in both urban and rural settings.
(d) Dramaturgy for Puppet Theater (Creative Consultation)
Puppets are not simply smaller actors. They can accomplish things humans cannot—surrealist imagery, dream sequences, and shifts in scale—yet they struggle with simple actions like sitting down or standing up. Object and puppet manipulation follows distinct technical principles that theater makers often overlook. We will provide dramaturgical consultation to help theater makers identify the unique puppet moments in their scripts and develop staging that leverages what puppets do best rather than forcing them to imitate human actors.
Contact: pia.banzhaf@gmail.com
