This workshop gets our blood flowing while introducing various body work techniques used to approach the creation of a character through the physical presence. The focus of the workshop holds the potential to increase individual strength, stamina and stage presence. Spoken words, emotions and body language become more powerful with the consideration of posture, breath and gesture in the development of techniques that internationally-acclaimed mask performer Adelka Polak has developed over the years, including from her late Masque Theatre mentor Larry Hunt.

Adelka Polak, founder of Sova Dance & Puppet Theater, based in CT & mainly serving schools, arts venues and community organizations in New England and NYC, including performances at Madison Square Park and Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. In 2023 we had our first tour that included Wolf Trap Children’s-Theatre-in-the-Woods, the Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry, and the Puppet Showplace Theater! Adelka is a dancer, puppeteer, mask-performer and movement director whose work has brought her to Denmark, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Taiwan, Scotland and Turkey.

In an original theatrical production of ""Ajijaak on Turtle Island” at the New Victory Theater she worked with puppets from the Henson Creature Shop in a show led by artists Heather Henson, Jim Henson’s youngest daughter, and Grammy-Award winner Ty Defoe. She also worked with Squonk Opera who went “from junkyards to Broadway” and performed at Lincoln Center Outdoors and LaMama, E.T.C. with the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater of NYC. Ms. Polak was featured on CPTV’s “Spotlight on the Arts” with Masque Theatre & Larry Hunt in a segment nominated for a cultural Emmy in 2010 and produced by Ed Wierzbiecki.

She shares her knowledge of dance, puppetry and crossing artistic disciplines with audiences across the U.S. and abroad. She has worked with children across CT & the east coast building over 5,000 puppets annually now. She also taught with Z. Briggs and the Jim Henson Foundation in order to train educators, therapists and special education professionals how to use puppetry effectively in the classroom. She has worked as a professional puppeteer now for two decades, since she graduated from Chatham University with honors with a B.A. in Theatre and Cultural Studies in 2002.