Artist Bio

Kimberly Van Aelst received a Masters in Dramatic Arts in Puppetry from the University of Connecticut in 2018. Her awards include the 2020 Connecticut Office of the Arts DECD Award, The 2020 New Haven Creative Sector Relief Award, a 2019 Kennedy Center VSA Award, the Connecticut Coalition on the Arts Award in 2012, the 2017 Emma Louise Warfield Grant in Puppetry and a Performance Award at the 2012 World Festival of Puppetry in Prague. Kimberly is on the Board of Directors and the Newsletter Editor for the Connecticut Guild of Puppetry and proudly serves on the Puppetry in Education and Therapy Committee for Puppeteers of America.

Kimberly has been performing her beloved children’s puppet shows for over a decade in libraries, schools, museums and at festivals throughout the tri-state area. She is also acclaimed for her adult puppet shows featured at La MaMa, Dixon Place, The Tank, Galapagos, The Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego and at the Museum of American Art in New Britain among others. Her puppet film, Lost & Found was screened at the International Festival of Puppetry in Prague and at 92Y-Tribeca. In 2019, Kimberly puppeteered in Brad Shur’s production of Error Code at the Jim Henson Carriage House in Manhattan. Her film, Curse of the Lemon was featured at the 48 hour Puppet Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2021 and at the renowned Puppet Showplace Theater. She is ecstatic to have been a puppeteer in Jim Kroupa’s Howdy Do: Part Duh at the Eugene O’Neill’s National Puppetry Conference in June of 2022.

Kimberly also has Masters in Public Health with a specialization in international health and a Bachelors of Science in Occupational Therapy.