Livia Gazzolo - Multidisciplinary Artist
The Land of Roses
Nature Based Educational Art Residency Created by Gazzolo Productions & T.C.T.
Step into a Summer of Pure Imagination!
This summer, through The Land of Roses Artist Residency, young creators are invited to help bring The Spell of Wonder to life — an immersive silent film and live performance woven from music, movement, masks, puppetry, animation, and more.
With workshops lead by world-renowned artists, musicians, and performers, participants will explore the art of storytelling using various mediums of performance and visual art — all leading up to a spectacular final performance at The Vickers Theatre in Three Oaks, MI on August 1, 2025.
2025 Summer Day Camp:
Ages 8-12 and parents (if interested)
July 28 - August 1
10am - 3pm (including lunch by Ibrahim Parlak of Café Gulistan)
$250 per person for individual workshops, $1,000 for the week Monday-Friday.
Partnering with local businesses, Café Gulistan and The Vickers Theatre.
Featuring nature-based art workshops at Warren Dunes and Warren Woods State Parks.
July 28, 2025:
Building a World of Imagination - Puppetry and Animation Workshop
At The Vickers Theatre
July 29, 2025:
Symphony of The Forest - Nature Theatre and Music Workshop
At Warren Woods
July 30, 2025:
T.I.E. (Theatre in Education) Acting and Filmmaking Workshop
At Warren Dunes
July 31, 2025:
The Art of Storytelling - Silent Film Scoring and Music Improvisation
At Café Gulistan
August 1, 2025:
Rehearsal and Live Performance
At The Vickers Theatre
Contact gazzoloproductions@gmail.com with inquiries!
Sherry Shuo Wang 王意迦
Dr. Sherry Shuo Wang is a multi-faceted scholar-artist and theater innovator with transcultural experiences in China, Japan, and the United States. She consistently pushes boundaries. During her recent tenure as a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago, she co-founded the YUAN Asian Art Festival and T.C.T. (Transcultural Cymatics Theater). As an Associate Professor of transmedia arts at GAFA, a leading art academy in China, she fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and creativity. As a director and producer, she has successfully launched 15 "Museum Theatre" programs; she innovates "Ethos Theatre" as a space where “moral imagination” becomes a colorful pallete for the fascination of civic engagement
Livia Gazzolo
Livia Gazzolo is a Kurdish-American world music vocalist, composer, ethnomusicologist, and performance artist based in Chicago, IL. She received her BA in Professional Music from Berklee College of Music. Ms. Gazzolo has performed internationally at venues across Spain, China, and the US. Most recently, she established Gazzolo Productions, extending her artistic practice to include live performance in front of silent films from the early 1900's, using music as a modern lens by which to illuminate historical patterns in the films that are still relevant today.
Zachary Sun
Zachary Sun is a China-born, Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist working across performance, installation, film, animation, puppetry and writing. He began his career as the director of Mount Elephant Experimental Theater Troupe and received his BA in Intermedia Art from the China Academy of Art in 2016. He later earned his MFA in Performance Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019. Zachary's work has been presented internationally, including at the Chicago Bulls Halftime Shows, Flux Factory on Governors Island (New York), Zhou B Art Center, Links Hall, Power Station of Art (Shanghai),Shanghai Ming Contemporary Museum, the Wuzhen Theater Festival, the Hangzhou Drama Festival (Best in Show Award), and Roman Susan in Chicago for a recent solo exhibition. He has also designed puppets for a Disney's musical The Little Mermaid produced by Drury Lane Theatre and has also contributed to productions at the Metropolitan Opera (NYC), Lookingglass Theatre (Chicago), Whitesnake Productions (Boston), and Off-Broadway productions in New York. He is currently working at Chicago international puppet Theater Festival and a member of the Onion City Film Festival Screening Committee.
Ben Kinsinger
Ben Kinsinger delights in the ephemeral. He improvises original music at the IO Theater, Annoyance, and for magicians at the Chicago Magic Lounge. He performs on the Chicago River as Lawrence Tome and with the live-cinema performance Shapes of Emergence. Ben is the co-founder of T.C.T. (Transcultural Cymatics Theater).
F.A.Q.
What is The Land of Roses?
Established by Livia Gazzolo and Dr. Sherry Wang Summer 2025, The Land of Roses is an international art residency that fosters improvisation, inspiration and collaboration between artists and the surrounding community. Currently based in Southwest Michigan, The Land of Roses will exist as a traveling residency bringing artists to beautiful locations and communities around the world, and working with local children to create immersive performance pieces rooted in culture, tradition, connection.
How was The Spell of Wonder conceived?
Livia Gazzolo:
"I have always been inspired by children’s stories from Denmark to Sweden to Iran to Turkey etc. and had an idea to create a film that takes the form of visual poetry pulling inspiration from a myriad of stories to encapsulate the importance of maintaining child-like curiosity and ingenuity while stepping into the unknown, and establishing your own identity in the world. Furthermore, over the past two years I've developed an affinity for silent cinema, inspired by the sheer ingenuity they had to create incredibly imaginative pieces that were purely analog. I paired this fascination with a passion for film composition, and started creating immersive live performances of music from around the world in front of silent films. Aided by the vision and direction of Dr. Sherry Wang, all of my artistic endeavors converged, resulting in the conception of The Spell of Wonder, an experimental film paired with a live musical performance combining music, choreography, puppetry, analog visual technology, and projection mapping within an elaborate set.
We began filming Sumer 2024, and we wanted to offer workshops for children to bring their ingenuity and unbridled creativity into our collaborative creative process.
Last year, I relayed this vision to Dr. Sherry Wang, co-founder of T.C.T. Production Company, and an Associate Professor of transmedia arts at GAFA in Guangzhou, China. She helped me further develop my vision, thus was the inception of The Spell of Wonder. We began filming in Summer 2024, bringing artists from around the world to participate in the creation of an impromptu improvisational film and live performance at The Vickers Theatre. I will also add,
The Land of Roses, an artistic incubator wherein we could collaborate with children and artists alike to create The Spell of Wonder.
What inspired The Land of Roses art residency?
Livia Gazzolo:
"I love bringing people together to conceptualize and build worlds, bending our perception of time and reality while offering new perspectives on the present. This project does just that and more, exploring the connections between cultural traditions, stories, and artistic mediums. I have dreamt of creating an artist residency since I was in high school. Curating a creative oasis that fosters growth, inspiration and collaboration. It all began to come to fruition summer of 2024 when we brought artists from around the world to participate in the creation of an impromptu improvisational film and live performance at The Vickers Theatre. Thus began The Land of Roses art residency."