Artists as Action Researchers

Active 2014-2022

Donna Maria deCreeft (she/her) is an artist whose teaching reflects her experimental and open-ended studio process. In Bridges, she was deeply involved in researching play and empowering children through creating authentic spaces for social emotional learning. Donna Maria originated the Torn Paper Collage Lesson. In her words, “Bridges’ holistic, age-appropriate approach gave me new tools to integrate play as a primary learning experience into my teaching practice. The process of exploring materials, discovering how things worked and making their own connections fostered students’ curiosity and informed their academic learning. Creative activities that were structured to incorporate play sparked their imaginations, regardless of age, learning style, ability, or cultural background.”

Active 2014-2022

Rima Fand (she/her) is a theater composer and musician and has composed music professionally for puppet shows for many years. She loves how puppetry directly accesses the world of the imagination and provides so many entry points for students. Rima was critical in helping adapt Bridges activities and resources to music based artforms. In her own words, “‘Play How You Feel’, which you can see on the Notice, Describe & Ask page for music, has become a beloved warm up in my classes. I feel like it really allows students to bring their authentic selves into the room, and also to learn about the power of music to express emotions and tell stories. It also gives me, the teacher, an opportunity to deeply notice my students’ musical choices as they are inventing.”

Active 2014-2022

Kari Morris (they/she) is a writer and multi-hyphenate performer. Kari was instrumental in revising the 5 Senses Journey Map and other graphic organizers based on feedback from classroom teachers. They also coined “The Secret Set Up”: the practice of affirming the range of available choices to students when setting up an activity to make space for expedited, revealed, and deepened expression. In Kari’s words,“The creative flow of Bridges activities would deepen a classroom community. Students would open up, let go and feel connected to themselves, each other and their teacher in a new, empowering, and joyous way. Teachers would often experience the same within themselves. They would build language together, but ultimately build each other up.”

Active 2014-2022

Sarah Provost (she/her) is a puppetry artist, creator, producer and educator, passionate about collaborating and bringing stories to life for stage, screen, and audio. Sarah brought her multimedia artistry to Bridges in the 5 Senses Journey, a foundational activity in Bridge 2: Multi-sensory Literate Expression.

Sarah saw the opportunity to use the magical experience of the Journey to not only help students imagine a setting and add detail to their artwork, but also as a springboard for enhancing and enriching their writing. In her own words, “Bridges allowed me to go deep and build a teaching practice that felt truly authentic to my own creative process as a writer and performer.”

Active 2018-2023

SJ Munford (she/they) is a puppeteer and interdisciplinary artist. As an Action Researcher, SJ focused on disrupting traditional classroom power dynamics and creating a process based space for students to drive their own exploration of who they are as artists.  SJ was particularly influential in developing lessons where students become the experts and teachers. For an example see Explore & Describe: Drawing with Pencil. In their own words, “Bridges was a special kind of collaboration to get to be a part of. The work not only impacted my teaching, but also offered tremendous growth for me as an artist and human.”

Active 2018-2022

Susanna Brock (she/her) is a theater maker, performer, director and educator. Her passion for shifting power dynamics in the classroom and focus on following the students and their ideas impacted the Bridges research around play and process. Bridges helped Susanna develop a foundation for teaching puppetry and visual art: Emotion Statues and Notice, Describe & Ask are cornerstones in her teaching. In her words,“The torn paper collage protocol had a strong impact on me and my artistry. It helped me understand that I am an artist who gets very inspired by materials and the process itself.”

Active 2018-2022

Ronald Sopyla (he, him) is a storyteller, actor and  puppeteer who is in love with imagination and returns to the question, “What if?” to guide his projects. As an educator with Bridges, Ron brought his passion for storytelling and drama to activities like the 5 Senses Journey and Grow to the Beat, turning them into mini-dramas with dialogue and plot. In his own words, “ The Notice Describe Ask Descriptive Language Process was vital: it  is something I have taken with me and try to impart to the teachers I work with. It’s a respectful way to acknowledge the work of all the children. It frees us from saying vague, often dishonest statements that do not build capacity in children.”

Active 2018-2022

Laine Barton (she/her) is a puppetry and circus artist. Her clown performance experiences in hospitals made her particularly aware of strategies that lead children into “play and engagement ”.  Laine collaborated deeply on our understanding that by having one’s emotions, movements, artwork, or reflections sensitively “Noticed and Described”, children feel acknowledged, are more focused and are able to go deeper into their thinking or artwork.  Her own work was likewise deepened from her Bridges experience. In her own words, “I feel like I have more options in my teaching, more resources if I need them, and I’m able to pay more attention to the students’ work.”

Active 2014-2018

Kirsten D. Kammermeyer (she/her) is a Theater artist who uses puppetry, humor, and the process of play to engage, delight, and encourage small humans to be curious, thoughtful, brave, and to HAVE FUN with their own creations. Kirsten’s Bridges research focused on connecting students and teachers by inventing tools to help them communicate with each other. She made the The Emotion Mapping Tool, to illustrate the wide range of emotions beyond happy, sad, and mad. This tool expanded students’ emotional vocabulary and helped everyone in the classroom better understand and empathize with their own feelings, and those of others. In her words, “Bridges enables participants to explore and make connections, using a creative and scenic route to knowledge.”

Active 2014-2018

Ed Woodham (he/him, they/them) is a  queer visual and performance artist, curator, and educator. In his Bridges research, Ed found the focus of abstraction in puppetry and set design gave everyone a level playing field offering a collective sense of accomplishment and success. Ed created strong relationiships with classroom teacher research partners and in his own words, “This mutual ease gave me clear information on how to: best serve their needs, intuit the situation(s) of the day, and integrate myself unobtrusively into the classroom dynamic – which allowed us to naturally develop a collaborative language necessary for the research. And made it fun.”

Active 2020-2021?3

Chris Ignacio (he/him) is a theater artist, puppeteer and Jack of all trades. As a Bridges researcher, Chris was interested in encouraging and uplifting the voices and stories of young people in the classroom and found a deep sense of fulfillment in that focus. In his own words, “Bridges is exciting to me because it invites teachers to explore Play as an opportunity for learning and engaging students. It relates to my work as a puppeteer and theater artist because this is how we devise work, through Play.”

Active 2020-2021?

Psacoya Guinn (she/her) is an actor and educator. Her Bridges research focused on literacy connections through theatrical storytelling and how we tell stories with our bodies and voices. In her own words, “I learned that this work is effective and needed in classrooms and serves as support for teachers.”

Active in 2018

Mackenzie McBride (she/her) is primarily a playwright and poet and occasionally an actor. Lately, she has also evolved into a social worker and therapist  incorporating art and theatre into social emotional support. Mackenzie was an excellent model for how to incorporate descriptive language from arts into classroom literacy programs and supported teachers finding ways to be playful and silly with their students. In her own words, “The work we did in Bridges engaged students at every level of their imagination. The spaces we created were never flat or two-dimensional, they were always robust and full. I learned to apply these complexities to all of my work with students and ultimately I became more skilled at marrying arts with academics.”

Active 2023

Jojo Gonzalez (He/Him) is a veteran Teaching Artist and Actor. As a TA, he has collaborated with studnets all over the city to create original theatrical presentations based on the childrens’ imagination. Through a combination of Rhythm, Rhyme, Vocal, Sound Patterns and Choral Speak, Jojo guides classes in an exploration of characters and environment which becomes the foundation of the script. The Torn Paper Collage activity compliments Jojo’s teaching practice and opened a door to another way students can explore and create characters and settings. It introduces the students to one of the pillars of Improvisation, YES AND, a vital step in creating an ensemble. In Jojo’s words, “Torn Paper Collage is simple, so participation and success is high for all participants.”

Active 2014-2018

Erin Orr (she/her) is a visual storyteller, professional puppeteer and teaching artist. As a TA, she’s worked in NYC Public Schools for over 20 years, specializing in early-elementary. She’s the Bridges Artist Mentor and Curriculum Specialist and also worked directly in Bridges classes as a Teaching Artist Mentor for two years. She and her classroom teacher partners focused on developing protocols and tools to notice and describe the choices kids make and supporting and observing kids engaged in puppet play. Erin created the ‘5-shapes Many Emotions‘ and ‘2-Face Puppet’ activities. In her words, “Bridges research allowed us to collaboratively develop better tools for creating child-driven, exploratory, and process-oriented art making spaces in schools.”

Meet the Bridges Design Team

Meet the Teacher Leaders, Administrators and School Partners