About This Program
East Meets West
Artist
Hua Hua Zhang
Program Type
Assembly / Performance
Description
East Meets West is a collection of wonderful vignettes guaranteed to delight audiences. Presented with string puppets, hand puppets and rod puppets, the audience is sure to be enchanted and amazed. The short stories offer both Eastern and Western characters and ideas, blended together from puppet artist Hua Hua Zhang.
Testimonials
I can't tell you how exciting it was to have Hua Hua Zhang's luminous show East Meets West at our theatre. The puppets are beautiful, the individual pieces are engaging and beautifully performed, and Hua Hua herself is such a gracious and generous artist. All of us - our staff, the children, and their parents were completely mesmerized the entire time she was on stage. We cannot wait to have her back again!
Karen Larsen, Artistic Director, Puppet Showplace Theatre, Brookline, MA
Your skill in Chinese puppetry is evident: such precision, such synergy between puppeteer and puppet…You are bursting with a pixie-like, infectious joy in sharing this ancient art form to a new world…Most importantly, your touch with young audiences makes children from age two through twelve feel personal connection to you and your puppet creations.
Roberta Gasbarre, Director, Discovery Theater, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Hua Hua not only made her mark as a graduate student at the prestigious puppetry program at the University of Connecticut, but she became the puppet muse for Tan Dun, the influential and Oscar winning composer who chose her to create and perform the visual parts for his international tour of The Gate.
We at the Mum Puppettheatre had the honor of hosting Hua Hua’s East Meets West here in Philadelphia two years ago. The show, like Hua Hua herself, was captivating and poignant, a single person using herself as a bridge over the gap between one culture and another.
Robert Smythe, Artistic Director, Mum Puppettheatre, Philadelphia, PA
Your performance was extraordinary and the audience reacted appreciatively.I quote one grandmother who told me as she left, “This is such a luxury for us.” You have given us all, young and old, a desire for more.
Claire Bortis, Children’s Services, Bradford County Library, Towanda, PA