The New School Presents Warhorse: The Puppeteers - Basil Jones, Opens 4/13

On April 13, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at The New School present an evening conversation with Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler, founders of the Capetown-based Handspring Theater Company, in conjunction with the current Lincoln Center Theater presentation of the multi-award winning Warhorse. Jones and Kohler will be joined by South African-born poet, novelist and scholar Yvette Christiansë and puppeteer Dan Hurlin, whose theater and puppet-theater works have been presented at Dance Theatre Workshop, PS 122, St. Ann's Warehouse, and the Kitchen. These artists will discuss puppetry as a contemporary medium of communication and advocacy.

From South Africa via London, Warhorse is the extraordinarily successful collaboration between Cape Town's Handspring Puppet Company and the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain. Based on the celebrated novel by British writer Michael Morpurgo, Warhorse is set during World War I as the immense slaughter of soldiers on all sides is told from the perspective of an English farm horse. The London production is the recipient of Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards. It will be presented at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center through June 2011.

The extraordinary success of Warhorse has drawn attention to Handspring's decades-long experiments and innovations in the art of puppetry and their remarkable contribution to theater in South Africa. Basil Jones, Adrian Kohler, Jill Joubert and Jon Weinberg founded Handspring Puppet Company in 1981. The company has produced 11 plays and two operas directly addressing pressing political concerns such as the proceedings of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They have collaborated with artists including Mali's Sogolon Puppet Troupe and South African artist William Kentridge, and have appeared in more than 200 venues in South Africa and abroad.

For more information, visit the Vera List Center website.

Founded in 1992 and named in honor of the late philanthropist, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School is dedicated to serving as a catalyst for the discourse on the role of the arts in society and their relationship to the sociopolitical climate in which they are created. It seeks to achieve this goal by organizing public programs that respond to the pressing social and political issues of our time as they are articulated by the academic community and by visual and performing artists. The center strives to further the university's educational mission by bringing together scholars and students, the people of New York, and national and international audiences in an exploration of new possibilities for civic engagement.

The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center is an award-winning campus center for Parsons The New School for Design that combines learning and public spaces with exhibition galleries to provide an important new downtown destination for art and design programming. The mission of the Center is to generate an active dialogue on the role of innovative art and design in responding to the contemporary world. Its programming encourages an interdisciplinary examination of possibility and process, linking the university to local and global debates. The center is named in honor of its primary benefactor, New School Trustee and Parsons Board Chair Sheila C. Johnson. The design by Lyn Rice Architects is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects.