About
Ariel is a puppeteer, director and performer.
His work often uses little text and a lot of playfulness in order to deal with personal, social and political subjects. Each project is created with the puppetry or artistic discipline that best suits it, with the hope to always expand and question the media in which it is created, and with a desire to inspire viewers to feel, think and react.
His solo shows 'Plastic Heroes', 'Boxed' & 'Pinhas' have won several international prizes and are regularly invited to festivals and theatres all over the world, and to this day have toured in circa 40 countries.
Shows he directed such as 'Visiting Hours is Over' and 'Alarm in the petting zoo' were invited to the prestigious program of the Augenblickmal Biennale for shows of children and youth in Berlin, and are exploring the theatrical space as an interactive performance bordering on social experiment: challenging the audience as their role as passive viewers, and leading to very different interactions with the audience each time.
In the book/audio installation 'Do Not Open', co-produced from Munich and Erlangen, he explores how an object can perform a show for the viewer by letting them animate each other, without the need for a performer.
Based in Berlin, Ariel has directed or collaborated with institutions such as Maxim Gorki Theater, TJG Dresden, Schauburg München, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Staatsschauspiel Dresden, FITZ! Stuttgart, Hanut 31 Gallery-Theater and many more.
As an outside eye and artistic consultant he has the pleasure of collaborating and working with many talented puppeteers such as Cie Bakelite,Tangram Collective, Cie Gudule and many more.
He often teaches masterclasses and leads different workshops in theaters, festivals and for students of institutes such as HMDK Stuttgart, UQAM Montreal, CSSD London, DAMU Prague, National Academy of Theater Bulgaria, Puppet Theater Academy Wroclaw, and more.
Ariel also animates and gives the voice to the beloved character “Elmo” in a local version of Sesame Street, alongside dozens of other characters in a variety of television productions.
He graduated Cinema studies (B.A), studied puppetry in the School of Visual Theatre, and participated in intensive masterclasses with teachers such as Frank Sohenle, Agnes Limbos & Stephen Mottram in the Institute International de la Marionnette, Charleville-Mezieres.