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Basil Twist is a New York City based puppeteer. Best known for his innovative underwater puppet show, "Symphonie Fantastique", Twist creates original adult puppet works.

Life and Work
Originally from San Francisco, Basil Twist is a third generation puppeteer. He graduated from the École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres, France. He is founder and director of the Dream Music Puppetry Program at Here Arts Center in NY, which supports and produces new puppet artists.

Twist has significantly contributed to the art of puppetry since 1998. He creates puppet works focused on their integration with music. His puppet show, Symphonie Fantastique is performed to the symphony of the same name. Twist's version of "Master Peter's Puppet Show" was created with the Eos Orchestra and later performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Twist's "Doguageshi" features original shamisen compositions created and performed live by authorized master musician Yumiko Tanaka. He also directed and designed Humperdinck's opera "Hansel and Gretel" for the Houston Grand Opera and the Atlanta Opera.

Twist is well-known for his unusual puppet mediums and use of abstraction in puppetry. His best-known puppet show, "Symphonie Fantastique" takes place in a tank of water. In "Red Beads", his collaboration with Lee Breuer and Mabou Mines, he created wind puppetry. In "Dogugaeshi" he uses a dying Japanese art form of sliding screens.

His works include Symphonie Fantastique, Dogugaeshi, La Bella Dormente nel Bosco, Petrushka, Hansel and Gretel, Master Peter's Puppet Show, the Araneidae Show, Behind the Lid, and Arias With a Twist, among others. He has collaborated with many well-known artists including: Joey Arias, Lee Breuer, Lee Nagrin, Theatre Couture, Pilobolus (dance company), Paula Vogel, and Joe Goode.

He is considered an important theater artist by critics of the New York Times, the New Yorker, and others. He has received national and regional recognition through numerous awards, including an Obie Award and a Guggenheim fellowship, and his work has been presented internationally.