Claudia Chagoya is an interdisciplinary artist from Zacatecas, Mexico, currently based in Calgary. She holds an MFA degree from the University of Calgary, and a BFA from Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Claudia’s puppet journey started while working at the Calgary Animated Objects Society. After working mostly in administrative and communications related jobs at CAOS, she has finally made the jump into puppet creation. She has been fascinated by the process of creating them, their mechanisms, and the storytelling capabilities of these objects. Through her background in sculpture and 3D media, Claudia has found a way to apply her expertise to puppet making.    

We are Jocelyn Mah and James Watson, a collaborative duo who explore through dance, music, mask and more.

Jocelyn Mah is trained as a contemporary dancer (undergraduate diploma – The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, M.A. Contemporary Dance – The London Contemporary Dance School), who now works in interdisciplinary ways. She now works in mask, puppetry, dance and theatre improvisation and collaborates with musicians regularly.

James Watson (bachelors of music – minor of linguistics) is a violinist, composer, and collaborative artist specializing in Classical, Jazz, and Folk music. He regularly collaborates with dancers, filmmakers, storytellers, and more.

A Korean-American multidisciplinary and puppet artist based on Hawaii Island, received her MFA degree in Theatre from University of Hawaii at Manoa, focusing on arts education with puppetry, masks and movement. Her passion for puppetry has led her to travel to study and create various types of puppetry works, such as giant puppets, hand puppets, Czech marionettes, shadow puppets, rod puppets and teatro lambe lambe in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. Her puppet shows and works have been presented in Hawaii, Chicago, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Korea, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia and Chile. She has also done numerous collaborative multidisciplinary projects with other artists in different places around the world. She also works as a teaching artist with Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts for the Artists in the Schools Program. For this program, she provides puppetry and theater residencies to K-12 grade students in public schools in Hawaii.

Tia DeLauria is a multidisciplinary emerging artist based in Calgary, Alberta. She holds a degree in visual arts from the University of Ottawa as well as an education in digital design from Bow Valley College. Tia uses a variety of mediums to explore her relationships with the world around her as she navigates the world of disability, feminism, imagination and an odd sense of humour.

Miranda Martini is a musician, writer and composer based in Calgary. Her writing can routinely be found in publications like Alberta Views and The Sprawl, as well as in the anthologies The Black Prairie Archives (Wilfried Laurier University Press) and Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out (Inanna Publications). Theatre credits include co-writing music for “John Ware Reimagined,” a musical about the life and impact of Alberta cowboy John Ware, most recently produced at the Blyth Theatre Festival in Ontario in 2022; touring as a guest musician with queer sketch comedy “Gender? I Hardly Know Them” in 2022; and music directing the Betty Mitchell Award-winning show “We’re Gonna Die” with Verb Theatre in 2023.  Miranda harbours a longtime fascination with puppets and masks, even though both things routinely made her cry as a child. She is currently working on a sci-fi musical.

She is a Mexican artist based in Calgary with a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts. Her work addresses women, immigrant stereotypes, human rights, and identity, exploring the relationship between culture and her Mexican roots. She co-founded Mexican Women Artists The Collective in Calgary in 2020, supporting local Mexican artists.

As a passionate artist focusing on performing and visual arts, she has developed her career in painting, opera, theatre scenic design, and arts education. In Mexico, she contributed to productions such as Billy Elliot and operas like “The Trovadour” and “The Flying Dutchman,” creating makeup, prosthetics, sets, costumes, and props for theatre, dance, opera, videos, short films, and performances.

She was an artist in residence at Sparrow Art Space and Fuse33 makerspace in 2023, collaborating on projects like Chinook Blast 2023, where she designed selfie walls and created backdrops, paper puppets, and laser-cut props.

Since 2018, she has been a co-founder and creative stage producer of the artistic collective Mictlan “Arts and Research,” aiming to collaborate between Mexican, Latin American, and Canadian cultures through workshops, performances, and artistic activities. Recently, she participated in the play “The Rabbit and the Moon,” produced by Almendra and directed by Mictlan, Arts and Research, at the “Festival of Animated Objects, The Dolly Wiggler Cabaret, 2023.”