Peter Balkwill, Co-director

Pete is a co-artistic director, and director of workshops at the Old Trout Puppet Workshop in Calgary, Alberta. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in acting from the University of Washington in Seattle, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre from University of Victoria. While studying he focused almost exclusively on the physical application of theatre. He has had extensive exposure to the unique methods of Tadashi Suzuki’s performance and ensemble building exercises, Joan Skinner’s improvisational movement and releasing exploration, as well as a savage dose of Kaz Piesiwaski’s Eastern European approach to full character and neutral mask. All work ties to a series of ideas that move towards articulation within the silent narrative, clarity without text, and the physical unity of an ensemble. 

He has taught as Head of Movement at the University of Victoria and facilitated workshops with companies across Canada and the U.S. Other teaching modalities include 10 years as an outdoor experiential educator, building group strength through initiative challenges, at the Rocky Mountain YMCA Outdoor Center situated in the Canadian Rockies. 

Recently, Peter mentored and directed Clunk Puppet Lab's production How I Became Invisible. Clunk is a new collaborative company founded by two participants at the Banff Puppet Theatre Intensive, a yearly workshop which Peter runs at the Banff Arts Center every other January.

Nan Balkwill, Co-director

Nan Balkwill is a theatre artist, drama teacher and certified yoga instructor. She is an alumni of the professional training program at Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, CA and co-director of the New England Puppet Intensive and Berkshire Lantern Walk. Her passion for devised and ensemble based physical theatre (mask, puppetry and clown) has led her to collaborate with a variety of companies and projects; Iiniskimm, Long Grass Studio, Green Fools Theatre Society, Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theatre, Clunk Puppet Lab, Champagne Palace (alt-folk band), MoMo (a mix ability contact improv dance company), Vincent Massey School Theatre, Turtle Dog Film Productions and the Animated Objects Festival in Calgary.  She has taught Drama, Film and Yoga for the Calgary Board of Education for 12 years and currently works as a Learning Leader of Indigenous Education. Nan is excited to co-direct a lantern build, creation and performance workshop at the 2019 Prague Quadrennial in June. 

David Lane, Co-director

Dave is a painter, performer, and puppet & mask maker and one of the original members of the Old Trout Puppet Workshop, who more recently worked on their original television special From Naughty to Nice, co-produced with National Film Board of Canada. 

Dave has led workshops across New England and at Dell’Arte International in Blue Lake, California. His street performances of Punch and Judy toured coast to coast in the both the US and Canada including at New York City’s Lincoln Center’s Out-of-Doors Festival, the Calgary International Children’s Festival, and the Edmonton International Street Performing Festival. 

For many years he collaborated with the Green Fools Theatre Society in Calgary, Alberta, before moving to New York City to pursue an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. While in NYC, Dave worked as a fabricator for Emmy winning puppet designer Bob Flanagan, where he built puppets and props for commercials, stage plays, soap operas, PBS, SNL, and the Rockettes. 

Dave is a two-time, Jim Henson Foundation grant recipient for his original play The Chronicles of Rose, which tells the story of Rose Valland who helped save countless European paintings from being lost forever during WWII. The story was developed in collaboration with Toronto’s Clunk Puppet Lab.

Dave helped to found The Newfoundland Puppet Collective which brought the community together over the course of two summers, to create a puppet-adaptation of the traditional Newfoundland tale, Jack and the Bottle of World’s End Water using articulated lantern puppets. The script was written by Andy Jones and Mary Fearon. This work has led to the formation of the Berkshire Lantern Walk, and became the design aesthetic for the intercultural project, Iniskim, celebrating the return of Buffalo to Banff National Park.