center for puppetry arts commercial 1997

I love to blend forms, so my cinema is very theatrical, my theater is very cinematic. A lot of it has to do with transformation and creating a new taste, a new feel, a new experience. It's really taking something that might be familiar and then transforming it. Innovation is using your imagination to go to places that people haven't visited before. We spoke with Taymor by phone to hear her views on artistic innovation, and how it has shaped her career. She has directed operas such as The Magic Flute and Grendel (which she created with the help of a 1988 National Endowment for the Arts grant), while her filmography includes Titus (1999), Frida (2002) - which won Oscars for Best Makeup and Best Original Score - Across the Universe (2007), based on music by the Beatles, and The Tempest (2010). Taymor has also brought her imaginative touch to other media. Her 1996 multimedia off-Broadway production, Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass, earned two Obie Awards, while early stage works such as The Tempest, Liberty's Taken, and Transposed Heads were recognized with a 1991 MacArthur Fellowship. Based on the Disney movie, the musical utilizes masks and puppetry, an art form Taymor studied while living in Indonesia and Japan as a young woman. She is perhaps best known for her 1997 Broadway hit The Lion King, which earned her Tony Awards for Direction and Costume Design. Whether directing for the stage or screen, Julie Taymor has consistently defied cultural expectations and tested technological limits, reinventing storytelling in the process. Photo by Marco Grob, courtesy of New York Magazine

Center for puppetry arts commercial 1997