Who are the Mystic Paper Beasts?

Who are the Mystic Paper Beasts?

The Dragon’s Egg is the Rehearsal Space Built for the Mystic Paper Beasts Theatre Company.
The Mystic Paper Beasts is a performance troupe currently under the direction of founder/mask maker Dan Potter, and dancer/director Marya Ursin.

The tales told by the Mystic Paper Beasts Theatre Company are original and re-told dreams and myths of transformation expressed through humor and dance, performed in the witty and whimsical masks for which the beasts have gained international renown. These performances have delighted audiences of all ages and many nationalities. The beasts invite viewers to join them on their magical journeys.

Since 1976, The Beasts have performed variously as a family circus, a duet, a solo with audience participation, a quartet, a quintet, a large group of roving friends. Now they perform their plays as the duo of Marya Ursin and Dan Potter, and rove for many events and celebrations with a collection of artist/beasts of all ages. Additionally, the Beasts offer workshops in mask building, and in mask/movement/mythmaking.

Daniel Potter
danpottervia@earthlink.net
google: dan’s sculpture

Daniel Potter began creating sculpture and puppeting at the tender age of eight, and continued with writing art and directing theatre while at the Putney School, Harvard College (AB, 1968), l’Ecole des Beaux Arts, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design (M. Architecture 1973).

In 1976, he co-founded the Mystic Paper Beasts Theatre Company. Since then, the Beasts, a masked theatre company, have been travelling internationally (US, U.K., Sweden, France, Italy) in various forms: as a family circus, a duet, solo with audience participation, and as a performance group of twenty or more friends. Currently, Dan is builds and paints masks, and performs in them for the company in the pieces written and directed by his partner, Marya Ursin.

In the 1980′s between tours, Daniel became a potter. His pottery, painted by Marya or by him, is shown and sold in Ct., RI, and New York. In the 90′s he began studying life drawing and sculpture at the Lyme Academy with Don Gale and Dean Keller and since then has created many large plasmacut sculptures in metal, bronze castings, and oil paintings which he has sold at several galleries on Long Island including the Elaine Benson Gallery, and in other galleries throughout the New England area, including the Hygienic in New London, Hera and the Hoxie in Rhode Island, and several shows curated by Marya at the Construction Company in New York City. Works of his, including films, can be seen on his website (google: dan’s sculpture).

For the past ten years he has been wintering in various warm exotic cultures such as San Miguel, Essaouira, Lisboa, Leonidio, Tepoztlan, Cairo, Oaxaca, Panajachel, Hanoi, Istanbul, Phnom Penh, and Chiang Mai, and sending back email stories and photographs to a long list of friends. To join them or reach him you can email danpottervia@earthlink.net

Dan and Marya enjoy three shared daughters, Giselle Potter (b.1970). Chloe Potter (b. 1973), and Ana Tiwathia (b.1980).

Marya Ursin
mybeasts@aol.com
www.mysticpaperbeasts.org

Marya began dancing at the age of 3. She continued dancing while pre-med and political at Swarthmore College (BA), and while in grad school at Columbia University (psychoneuroendocrinology). Following the stronger lure of the dancing arts, she finished her BA in art history at Swarthmore, hitchhiked thrice across the country, studying dance and theatre at UCLA, Long Beach, ACDFA, and then went to Paris to study at L’Ecole de Mime Marcel Marceau, and returned to NYC to train under Merce Cunningham, in whose studio she taught for eight years. Through the ‘70s and ‘80s, Marya performed as a dancer and mime in NYC at venues including DTW, BAM, Whitney Museum, LaMama, Cubiculo, Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis), danced in the companies of Laura Dean, Mitchell Rose, Sally Bowden, Brynar Mehl, Brian Hayes, Elaine Shipman, and others, mimed with Mimika mime company for two years, was in various alternative plays and films, ran a dance studio in New London, Ct., catered for famous artists, and taught (and continues to teach) yoga, dance, storymaking and telling, and “myth in mask” at the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Centre, dance/theatre/stress reduction and now yoga in Connecticut College’s Dance Department, Children’s School, Community Dance Program, and Continuing Ed Dept, and at the Dragon’s Egg, and mammothly out and about. She has taught yoga since 1982, and is an RYT 500, and has done extensive study in various alternative healing arts, resulting in a bevy of minor certifications.

In 1989, Marya joined the Mystic Paper Beasts, of which she is now the Artistic Director. She writes and directs the plays performed by the Beasts, and designs and paints some of the masks sculpted by Dan, and acts as producing director for the Company. She has performed from Colorado to Scotland, but mostly performs in the NE of this country. The Beasts currently perform perhaps 30 times a year. She is the managing director of the artistic retreat space: the Dragon’s Egg, and produces performances for artists of this entity in NYC, Ct, and RI. Marya is currently a member of Situ, a NYC based dance troupe of choreographer Elaine Shipman, with whom she performs in and out of NYC many times a year. She is, additionally, a licensed massage therapist, volunteers for Hospice, works for CHI, is a painter of pottery, a grateful and amazed student of various mentors and teachers, is in a graduate degree program as we speak, and is the proud mother of Ana , the fortunate partner to Dan, has four stepchildren, three step grands of bright glee, a garden, and three jellico cats. She is blessed in her circle of friends and family, past and present. She experiences much joy, often, and occasional deep sadness. She gets to have it all, and is immensely grateful in this. She credits her long practice of yoga, (not to mention meditation, breathing, dancing, performing, doing what she loves, serving others when she can, and- especially- the gift of mothering) – with this experience of life as such fullness of being.