The Art of Memory

Working on the outer islands

Teaching Artist and Director of Education for Figures of Speech Theatre Ian Bannon isn’t afraid to take on challenging ideas and make them into something lasting for learners.

Last year Figures of Speech Theatre and the Island Institute partnered to produce “The Art of Memory: Stories from Maine’s Outer Islands,” a shadow puppet film based on oral histories gathered on some of Maine’s most remote islands. He traveled from island to island during the spring of 2015 working with students to create the video. For details of the work please CLICK HERE.

You can view the 5-minute behind-the-scenes documentary by CLICKING HERE. And, the full 35-minute film at THIS LINK.

Ian is on the Maine Arts Commission Teaching Artist roster and this project was partially funded by the Maine Arts Commission.

Figures of Speech Theatre creates and tours visionary works of performance forged at the intersection of poetry, music, sculpture and dance.Whether the work is an adaptation of a simple Comanche Indian legend, the recitation of T.S. Eliot poetry, or a silent, visual tapestry surrounding a piece of contemporary classical music, our dream is to create theater in which the form of the work so intricately meshes with the content of the work that the two are as one, and each invisibly reinforces the other. As Doris Lessing has said, “The story dictates the means of telling it.”

Drawing on the artistic genius of many collaborators, the company guides adventurous audiences on journeys where, in the words of one reviewer, “layers of reality vs. abstraction, of reality vs. performance, of perception itself, are gently explored.”

The company has toured all over the world – from Sofia, Bulgaria to Tokyo, Japan, to Lima, Peru. Besides performing at venues such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and the New Victory Theatre on Broadway, the company retains a strong commitment to teaching and performing throughout its home state of Maine.