Michaela Bartoňová

Michaela majored from advertisement at the Journalism Faculty of Charles University. She is the manager of Tineola Theatre, visual artist and puppeteer.  Since 1999 she has launched 8 puppet plays for Tineola and has been cooperating with numerous European puppet theatres.  She writes, stages, plays and directs performances of Tineola Theatre.

Michaela teaches puppet design focusing on the aesthetic properties of puppets.  She has initiated, arranged and lectured lessons and courses on Communication through Puppets and Puppet and Imagination.  To this end she cooperates with education and communication specialists, psychologists and therapists and has organized an international project on Křivoklát castle called Under the Wings.  The project continues depending on irregular financial support from various sources.

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Recent activities:  

2011 -  2012  Michaela Designs stage and 20 puppets for Sleeping Beuaty for Thetre Dorenerei in Germany. 

Photos

2010 -  2011 Michaela designed and creates 28 life- seze characters  from Old Testament to Aad Peter´s 

Noah ´s Ark 

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• In 1989 graduated at the Faculty of Journalism. She then worked in a foreign trade company in advertisement.
• Since 1989 freelance artist. She designs, paints, dresses and sometimes carves the puppets. Cooperates with various wood carvers. Her paintings are done in oil colours, as well as in acrylic,
• Since 1990 she has been an active artist doing freestyle graphics - generally dry point - and oil paintings, but primarily puppet designing for puppet theatres in Europe. 

§  In 1997 she founded Tineola Civic Association, The main goal of the Association is to initiate, support and develop projects in the following areas: theatre, art, film and new media related to puppetry.

§   Performances she set off, designed and performs in are for children and adults alike. As an author and designer she finished a project inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's paintings – The Haywain in 2000, Morgenstern and Vesper in 2004 and a multimedia project Etaín – from the Celtic Myths in 2006.

• In 2000 she finished her most demanding production inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's painting THE HAYWAIN.
• In  2004 she finished a children performance entitled Morgenstern and Vesper

• In 2006 she finished new performance  Étaín- from the Celtic Myth
• Every year since 1988 she has lectured on wooden puppet designing and done production workshops for puppeteers around Europe.  She also teaches puppet design aiming to elevate the position of the puppet to that of an artwork in its own right.
• She runs courses: Communication Through Puppets, and Puppets and Imagination. On that account she co-operates with various education, communication and therapy specialists, who now also lecture on the subject. ( 2004 – 2009)
• In 2008 she finished a children performance  Round the World in A Thea Kettle On the stage the audience can see actors – two painters, who create the puppets. First drawn on paper they become real then. Live-painting taken by camera and projected to the screen, gives a scenery backdrop and light for shadow plays at the same time.

„I think about myths and fairy-tales resonating while safely stored inside us doing their work without our deliberate attention. At certain points, however, when under pressure, feeling touchy-feely or simply just more responsive, they can help us, they can heal not only their creator but also those watching, encountering...

I believe this is why man “needs“ art – music, pictures, theatre, literature, puppets – because that is where our collective unconsciousness is meeting and we interpret the presented work our own way. And when the art resonates with our experience, it feels intimate or simply speaks to us.