First Workshop Performance | June 19 – 21, 2014 | Created by Iain Gunn and Animal Cracker Conspiracy
COMPANY BIOS Iain Gunn, Designer, Creator, Puppeteer Iain Gunn has a degree in Literature and minor in Fine Art from the University of British Columbia. He is currently directing, designing, building and performing as co-artistic director and co-founder of Animal Cracker Conspiracy Puppet Company. Past projects in San Diego include performing with groups such as Zirk Ubu as creator and co-founder, collaborating with dance artist Liam Clancy and Patricia Rincon Dance Collective, and co-creating puppet performance with the San Diego Guild of Puppetry and Spinning Wheel Players. He has performed and taught with the San Diego Guild of Puppetry, Center Artes, Young Audiences and (the former) Fern St. Circus. Iain has also created large scale art installations for Xara and The Ancient Gallery, he is continually inspired by stretching the boundaries between a number of different art forms; combining puppetry, toy and object theatre, dance, stiltwalking, video work, painting, and circus arts. He is dedicated to the discovery and support of new ideas by encouraging visionary thought and non-traditional approaches to both art and performance. He has performed in the Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbra, at the Loft for Art Power UCSD, and HERE NY, NY. Animal Cracker Conspiracy has participated in both national and international artist residencies and workshops with Bread and Puppet, North American Creative Laboratories, La Pocha Nostra, RosenClaire and the Old Trouts Puppet Workshop. He has received support from the Jim Henson Foundation, Puffin Foundation, San Diego Foundation, Sator Arts Foundation, Synergy Arts Foundation, The Puppet Slam Network ad the Creative Catalyst Fellowship.
Bridget Rountree, Collaborator & Puppeteer Bridget Rountree has a degree in Literature and has a background in Fine Art. Bridget is a native of San Diego, CA. She has been collaborating under the name Animal Cracker Conspiracy with Iain Gunn since 2006. Their shared interest and investigation of where fine art, puppetry, performance art, physical theater, and mixed media intersect is a continued source of inspiration for their work. They revel in diversity and artistic inquiry, providing fluctuating frameworks for the creation of community, by facilitating collaboration, investigation, and questioning the status quo. A movement defined abstraction of the material to immaterial, folklore to contemporary, and intellectual to intuitive. They have performed and exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbra, Art Power UCSD, and HERE NY, NY. Animal Cracker Conspiracy has participated in both national and international artist residencies and workshops with Bread and Puppet, North American Creative Laboratories, La Pocha Nostra, RosenClaire, and the Old Trouts Puppet Workshop. They have received support from the Jim Henson Foundation, Puffin Foundation, San Diego Foundation, Sator Arts Foundation, Synergy Arts Foundation, and The Puppet Slam Network. Bridget is also a 2014 Creative Catalyst Fellow for her work in Visual Arts and Mixed Media.