Meet Wolfe Bowart | Visual Theater Creator/Performer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Wolfe Bowart and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Wolfe, how does your business help the community?
Being a visual storyteller allows me to perform in many countries around the world. (25 and counting). I’ve been able to use the platform of the theater to speak to global issues that feel important to me. LaLaLuna is about wonder and the power of imagination, when the caretaker of the light in the moon discovers the best way to change a lunar bulb is with a firefly in a soap bubble. Letter’s End is about memory and the wisdom our our elders played out in a dead letter cellar where our main character realizes that the packages his is burning are made up of his memories. The Man the Sea Saw follows a man on a drifting chunk of ice as he remembers his family and watches as his iceberg gets smaller and smaller. Could Soup is about immigration and people from “away.” Humor, stage illusion, shadow puppetry and circus skills are the building blocks of the productions that generate laughter and joy and wonder and that also leave audiences of all ages and backgrounds thinking about and discussing these deeper themes.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am a physical theatre creator and performer. I weave together circus, multimedia, comedy, audience interaction and stage illusion in theatrical productions that have been seen by people of all ages in more than 25 countries. A critic wrote that my work is “an enchantingly loony dreamscape” and that I specialize “in magic realism that evokes childlike wonder.”

I have built my career writing, designing and performing original works that are mostly or completely non-verbal. I am drawn to creating theatrical experiences that engage multi-cultural and multi-generational audiences. It’s a joy to be able to connect with audiences aged as young as 5 and as old as 95 and to generate laughter in audiences in countries as diverse as Bahrain, Japan, Brazil, Iceland and Australia.

I grew up in a family of artists and was encouraged to pursue my artistic passion. I started learning magic and circus arts from age eight and began performing as a teen. I was classically trained at Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts and was lucky to continue my studies with the performance artist Rachel Rosenthal and members of Cirque du Soleil, among others. I’ve worked professionally as a theatre creator since I was twenty. Repetition is the key to this work. The circus skills, juggling and sleight of hand, the timing, use of visual storytelling, editing of interactive film, prop building, lighting design, sound and choreography take years to hone, to refine. Each of my shows is made up of hundreds of moments and theatrical elements that are adjusted from performance to performance. In a way, the audience becomes a partner, helping to inform the production and helping it to mature. I am an established stage artist but the work, this puzzle that I’ve been working on for decades, is perhaps just reaching its adulthood.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Mount Lemon in the summer, Tanque Verde falls in the spring, the Coronet Cafe for breakfast and Bookmans anytime.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Bryan Falcon of The Scoundrel and Scamp Theatre. Bryan is tirelessly dedicated to creating a home for visual theater in the southern Arizona.

Website: https://www.spoontree.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spoontreeproductions/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpoonTreeProductions/

Image Credits
Tim Fuller, Rom Hope, David Wyatt and Jon Thor Eythorsson