A 501(c)(3) nonprofit · founded 2014
Somebody has to keep the record
In 1959 there were four ventriloquists in India. One man built 462 figures and trained three hundred more performers, and until this year almost none of that was written down anywhere you could find it.
That is the whole problem, in one example. This art has four hundred years of history, a living profession, and no institution whose job is to hold on to either.
The mouth string of a dummy is what allows it to speak.
We are the string that allows ventriloquism to have a voice.
The past
Figures rot in basements. Scrapbooks go in skips. The people who remember are dying, and most of what they know has never been written down. We are its storyteller.
The present
Hundreds of people make a living at this and have no professional body, no journal of record, and nowhere to send a young performer who asks how it works. We are their advocate.
The future
A child who never sees it done cannot want to do it. And a child who does want to has almost nowhere to learn. We are its teacher.
The Institute is not three programs sharing a name. It is one thread connecting a past nobody can reach, a present nobody speaks for, and a future nobody is teaching.
The Archive
A free public reference to the art and the people who made it — over half a million sourced facts, every one carrying where it came from.
The Living Collection
Figures held so they can still work. A ventriloquial figure kept permanently still has been preserved as a sculpture, not as a figure.
Children’s Literacy
Books, storytelling, music and live ventriloquism — and every child goes home holding a book of their own.
Youth Grants
Direct support for young people with unusual talent. We have been doing this since 2014, and the people we funded have names.