Kuumba-Nia Productions Arts and Entertainment Puppet Blog

Since 1999 as previously stated in my very first post, I began my journey into the puppetry world. Sparked by the effect it had on altering my children's behaviors, I knew this was a golden nugget. If you will, just take a moment and shout out the word IMPACT! Life took on a new meaning. It made me ask this question. "What value do we add if we don't make an impact?"

 I came to a concluding statement that something you do should benefit others, be shared with others, and produced with others and that it should be genuinely pure and innate. We don't always take a direct path to our destiny. In fact, much resistance often plays a major role.

When I attended SUNY New Paltz, I didn't have a set major in mind. I was contemplating the thought of becoming a music teacher so I began taking music classes as electives. However

I had a difficult time with music history, memorizing all the well known classical composers and their bios. I enjoyed music theory and piano, but if you were going to be a music major, you had to be a scholar in the foundation of classical musical geniuses and that section just did not interest me, although I appreciate it now as a seasoned adult. So I decided to major in communications, in particular, media production.

Well one day while I was walking to class, some gentlemen were passing out flyers about a play production audition for "For Colored Girls…". It did not interest me. I have never acted in a play before other than kindergarten perhaps. But they were very convincing and kind of cute. So I went, not expecting to get a role. But low and behold I landed the part of the lady in brown. It may have been because of my fair skin. None the less, I was going to be a part of a live stage performance. There weren't many opportunities for actors of my type back in the '80s, on a college campus so I was told. However "New Day Ensemble Theatre Co." opened the doors to a new dimension for me. This is where and why I fell in love with performing.  I then proceeded to add on Theatre, as a second major.  I was bitten by the theatre bug and still wear the scar today.

Why did I tell you this story? Theatre was the foundational springboard that helped me dive into my passion for puppetry. Theatre and puppetry go hand in hand, pun intended. 

Anyway, I felt I had to stay connected to the theatre after I graduated. I found a local theatre co. that was offering acting workshops. This is where I met and later married my late husband whom I had two children by. They had some unsociable habits. MY husband made up a puppet show about it. They reformed. The rest was history. I carried on the legacy and Kuumba-Nia Productions was born. Creativity now had a purpose, an outlet to spread impact where ever it goes. Say impact!

I had puppet fever. Many years I have spent in libraries, on Google, YouTube, Amazon, in Home Depot, book stores, and in my studio learning all I could while building, practicing, experimenting, and exploring puppetry. I have tapped into various types of puppets such as hand and rod, black-light, rod, hand, shadow, toy theatre, crankies, and marionettes. I'm presently in the midst of learning stop-motion and animation but those areas are going to take a while. 

So that is why I invite you into this world of puppetry, a story that never ends. Enjoy the rest of the site and maybe even buy a puppet or two or attend a workshop. The world can never have enough puppeteers!