HERE Announces Full Details for 9000 PAPER BALLOONS

HERE has announced full details for 9000 Paper Balloons, created by Spencer Lott and Maiko Kikuchi and directed by Aya Ogawa. 9000 Paper Balloons will begin streaming on Tuesday November 2, 2021 and will remain available for viewing until Friday December 31, 2021.

Inspired by the stranger-than-fiction secret weapons that floated over America during World War II, 9000 Paper Balloons is a poetic and eerie performance that examines distance - the distance between two friends, between two enemies, two cultures and two generations. Japanese artist Maiko Kikuchi and American puppeteer Spencer Lott blend puppetry, animation and mask as they weave their own family histories into a surreal and visually stunning collage that speaks to the past and the future. 9000 Paper Balloons was filmed in a theatre with each sequence performed live without cuts to create as performative a piece of art as possible.

"We set out to make a sweeping show that might allow the audience to feel the giant scale of the balloon bombs, but ultimately, we found out that this story needed to be intimate to be the most impactful," said creators Spencer Lott and Maiko Kikuchi. "We hope to bring the remarkable true events to life through our personal conversations with our grandfathers, who were enemies. This show is just a moment where we can create a space between here and there, and we can collapse the distance between us."

9000 Paper Balloons is created, performed and co-directed by Spencer Lott and created, mask designed and performed by Maiko Kikuchi. Direction and dramaturgy are by Aya Ogawa.

9000 Paper Balloons will feature lighting design by Ayumu "Poe" Saegusa, sound design and engineering by Ashur Rayis, and video broadcast systems & projection design by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew. Puppets were constructed by Rachel Shapira. Broadcast operation is by Rafael Abdulmajid. The stage manager is Mariko Takizawa.

9000 Paper Balloons begins streaming via here.org/shows/9000-paper-balloons on Tuesday November 2 and will be available until Friday December 31, 2021. Tickets range from $10-50 and are available at www.here.org.