Ariel Goldberger is a theatre and performance artist interested in visual theater, experimental puppet and object theater, and in the interdisciplinary cross-pollination between experimental performance, puppetry, and new media. He is the founder and artistic director of NAKeD PUPPeTS, a company dedicated to experimental performance approaches using puppets, objects, and media.
Way back in the Middle Ages, in his native Argentina, Ariel apprenticed with Master Puppeteers Mane Bernardo, Sarah Bianchi and Bianca Colonna. He later joined the Shadow Theater Company Transparencias, directed by Beppy Newberry (at the Collegium Musicum in Buenos Aires), where the West German Television documented his work as part of a documentary on the Karl Orff method. He later studied with renowned Master Puppeteers Ariel Bufano and Adelaida Mangani, who later became the directors of the Elenco Estable de Titiriteros of the largest municipal theatre in Buenos Aires, Teatro General San Martín.
In the United States he has collaborated extensively with other artists creating inter-disciplinary collaborations in puppet theatre, nouveau cirque, dance, and avant-garde performance. Such collaborations include Romeo Sierra Tango with Rinde Eckert commissioned by the NYSF/Public Theatre, Cities with the Lecoq based UMO ensemble, and working as Assistant Director on Kwaidan by Ping Chong presented at The Jim Henson International Puppetry Festival in New York and the Barbican Centre in London, among others.
His interdisciplinary work The Master of Prayer, co-created with director Adam Melnick and developed with the performers from the Laboratory for International Theatre Exchange (LITE Inc), was awarded a grant from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. This work combined visual and physical theatre, plastic arts, and puppetry. Mr. Goldberger has also collaborated with LITE Inc. on the puppetry component of other productions including their critically acclaimed outdoor production of The King Stag.
His production of DaRK EaRTH received a prestigious Jim Henson Foundation grant and was the first production in the history of puppetry to use interactive technologies that allowed the audience to contribute to the soundscape of a puppet show. A smaller achievement, it was also the first puppet show ever to perform at the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle.
.jpg) Ariel's other honors include the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts/TCG Career Developmental Program for Designers, and a fellowship from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund's Asian Cultural Council to study sacred shadow puppet theatre (Wayang) in the island of Bali.
With the Asian Cultural Council grant, Ariel lived in a remote village and participated in the daily life of a family of Brahmana High Priests and Dhalangs (Priestly Puppeteers) studying how mystical practices intertwine with the performance of shadow puppetry in rituals used to propitiate magic, create balance between Gods and Demons, and restore aggrieved souls to their resting places. His current work combines the mystical awareness he honed in Bali with cutting-edge puppetry.
In addition to his career in performance, Ariel holds an MFA in Theatre from Brandeis University and is a professor at The Evergreen State College, where he uses alternative pedagogies to create groundbreaking academic programs using puppetry in interdisciplinary and experimental settings.
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