On 4 July 2010 twenty puppeteers from the UK journeyed out to Chicago to attend ‘I-Fest’ (International Festival of Christian Puppetry and Ventriloquism) an annual festival hosted by ‘One Way Street Inc’. Representatives from UK groups: SMILE, St Peter’s Puppets, Upbeat Puppets, The Puppet Factory and Hellyer’s Puppet Workshop made the 4,000 mile journey. I-Fest attracted almost 800 puppeteers from around the globe with the British making up the largest group from outside the USA.. Other countries represented included: Canada, Puerto Rico, Holland, Australia, Japan and Nigeria.
The week-long puppet festival was packed full of workshops, competitions and feature performances. St Peter’s Puppets started the week on a high as they managed to get one of their team members, Jessica Mansfield, into the 2010 I-Fest Dream Team (only the third ever English member of the Dream Team). St Peter’s Puppets also competed in both the skit and song competitions. It was the first ever visit to I-Fest for any of the team so it was a great week for all of them.
SMILE were chosen to perform as part of the International Showcase on the Wednesday evening. They entered two team members into the’Lip Sync Challenge’ and did brilliantly – coming second and third out of a field of 16 and rounded their week off nicely with a second place trophy in the song competition, an excellent achievement. Some of the team had made the journey out to I-Fest before, but this time they brought 11 team members which is the most that they had ever taken out.
Upbeat Puppets made the Journey to I-Fest for the first time ever. Only two team members went this time so they didn’t enter any of the competitions -- but they did get involved with the various workshops and made a puppet video diary of the week with one of their characters. See link in RH column --> .
David Hellyer was invited out to teach six workshops throughout the week as well as host some private coaching sessions, you can read his daily blog from the festival in the second link in RH column -->
David has a long history with I-Fest, his was his seventh visit, and was the first ever English member of the I-Fest Dream Team back in 1998.
SMILE puppet team
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