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Jan. 19-20: Spectacular Shadow-Puppet Play Comes to Weis Center

“Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic,” a shadow-puppet play, will be presented on Saturday, Jan. 20 at 2 p.m. at the Weis Center for the Performing Arts. The performance is suited for all ages and is 70 minutes in length without an intermission.

There will be a free pre-performance talk with the artists on Friday, Jan. 19 from noon-1 p.m. in the Weis Center Atrium Lobby.

The performance is a visually breathtaking cinematic shadow play, created by Hamid Rahmanian, a 2014 Guggenheim fellowship-winning filmmaker/visual artist born and educated in Tehran, Iran. The play is an action-packed magical tale of star-crossed lovers from the 10th-century Persian epic Shahnameh (The Book of Kings) who triumph at the end, against all odds.

Utilizing eight actors, 160 puppets and 15 masks and costumes, it also projects 158 animated backgrounds onto a vast 15 by 30-foot screen on the stage. Rahmanian’s graphics, derived from the visual tradition of the region, are rendered as puppets, costumes, masks, scenography and digital animation, all of which come to life in a “live animation” on a cinema-size screen.

The performance is sponsored, in part, by John and Julianna Cooper and family. This engagement is made possible through the ArtsCONNECT program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Tickets for the performance are $20 for adults, $16 for seniors 62+, $10 for youth 18 and under, $10 for Bucknell employees and retirees (limit 2), $10 for Bucknell students (limit 2), and $10 for non-Bucknell college students (limit 2). Tickets can be purchased online at Bucknell.edu/BoxOffice or by calling 570-577-1000.

Tickets are also available in person from several locations including the Weis Center lobby (weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and the CAP Center Box Office, located on the ground floor of the Elaine Langone Center (weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.).

For more information about this performance contact Lisa Leighton, marketing and outreach director, at 570-577-3727 or by e-mail at lisa.leighton@bucknell.edu.

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