Venue: Bond Street Theatre
Town: Manhattan, US

Bond Street Theatre is an American theatre group founded in 1976 in New York City. The group's theatre projects aim to educate youth, address human rights issues, provide aid to conflict-stricken communities, and promote artistic values for peace and social development. Actor-educators work internationally in refugee camps, post-conflict zones, crisis areas, and with victims of natural disasters, using theatre to promote healing, empowerment, and social development. Bond Street Theatre is a non-governmental organization (NGO) in association with the United Nations Department of Global Communications. Founded in 1976 by a group of physical actors, in its early years the company used a physical, visual and musical vocabulary to create performances designed to explore social and environmental issues. In 1983, Bond Street Theatre established the Palenville Interarts Colony, an artists' retreat in Upstate New York designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and reach underserved rural audiences. The Colony also produced a community arts project and a Presenting Program, which presented artists such as Dave Brubeck and sons, Eiko & Koma, Bread & Puppet, Talking Band, and others. To bring the community and the Colony closer together, the group created a children's circus with a circus band that toured the county. The circus toured for five years in three counties of New York state. Dave Brubeck and his sons gave the Palenville Interarts Colony and the Palenville Children's Circus two benefit concerts inside the theatre on the Colony grounds. The Shinbone Alley Stilt Band accompanied the street theatre shows in the early 1980s and performed in New York City. Originally, the performers paraded and played music while characters on stilts paraded around before the show. Eventually, all the company members learned to walk on stilts for the show. The Shinbone Alley Stilt Band was named after the alley next to the theatre on Bond Street, and made its debut with its new nam