Photo by Dawoud Bey
Alva Rogers is a dramatist, lyricist, puppeteer, and multidisciplinary artist whose work utilizes magic realism to explore themes of American identity, gender, and “the uses of enchantment.”
Alva is the founder and artistic director of ALVA PUPPET THEATER.
She is the recipient of grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, Jim Henson Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer and a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award, NYSCA, among others. The Joseph Papp Public Theater, Dixon Place, Heather Henson’s Handmade Puppet Films, The Kitchen and the Spoleto Festival, USA have commissioned works. Readings and productions have been presented by HERE, Actor’s Express Theater, New Georges, The Women’s Project, Trinity Repertory Theater, Seattle Repertory Theater, The Walker Art Center, P.S. 122, The New Museum, Pillsbury House Theater, The O’Neill Puppetry Conference and the American Museum of Natural History. She was a co-founder, lead performer and muse in Rodeo Caldonia, a performance collective/art lab/theater troupe that worked together in New York City from 1985–1989.
In an effort to share her experience inspiring wonderings and explorations of the natural world in young minds during the COVID-19 pandemic, Alva launched an educational YouTube Channel, Miss Rogers’ Wonderful School to support families while home schooling their children.
New York University’s Fales Special Collections Library acquired her personal papers for its Downtown Art Collection.
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