Vanessa Valliere

Vanessa Valliere creates original solo shows using elements of clown and puppetry.

 

Vanessa tours nationally with her own work as a solo artist and in 2024 she was invited by Heather Henson’s Green Feather Foundation and the Puppet Slam Network to bring one of her slam pieces to Skupova Plzen, a puppet festival in the Czech Republic. She has performed in three National Puppet Slams and her work has also been selected for every Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival’s Nasty, Brutish and Short slam since the Festival’s inception in 2015. Vanessa teaches for the Festival and her devised solo puppetry/clown shows have toured with their Neighborhood and Living Room tours. Her production of LOOK! LOOK! is the result of her 2024/25 residency with The Festival.  LOOK! LOOK! was also made possible by an Independent Artist grant from DCASE.

In 2020, Vanessa was awarded a commission by Heather Henson's Handmade Puppet Dreams to create Gut Feelings, a short puppet film that she co-starred, devised, directed and edited at the height of the pandemic. The film screened at several film festivals, where it received awards in categories like "Best Comedy Short." It also appeared in the London Mime Festival and the Festival of Animated Objects in Calgary, Canada.

Manual Cinema is an Emmy Award winning performance collective and Vanessa has toured both nationally and internationally as Ada in their production of Ada/Ava. She is also one of the original cast members of Manual Cinema's The End of TV.

In 2022 & 2023 She completed two residencies at Nordland Visual Theater in Stamsund, Norway as the Assistant Director to Neville Tranter on Yael Rasooli's solo puppet show, Edith and Me. Vanessa will return to Nordland Visual Theater for research and development of a new work of her own in 2026. 

From 2011 to 2016, Vanessa was a member of an ensemble of clowns/performers for Tour De Fat, a touring festival sponsored by New Belgium Brewery. The ensemble was responsible for the creation and performance of the festival’s creative content. She has also performed with Big Nazo out of Providence, RI and The Neo-Futurist and the New Colony in Chicago. She was a co-deviser and nationally touring performer, with Theater Unspeakable’s The American Revolution, a production that was presented by Lincoln Center Education in New York.

Vanessa received an Individual Artist Support grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency (IACA) in 2019 and a Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) grant in 2020 and 2024. She was the recipient of a 3Arts Make A Wave Grant in 2017, a DCASE grant in 2012, and residencies with The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, Links Hall and High Concept Labs in Chicago.

For sixteen years, Vanessa has been a proud nerd-cheerleader for Chicago's own thirty-piece circus punk marching band, Mucca Pazza. Mucca Pazza is a national touring band that has been featured on the Conan O'Brien show and Tiny Desk Concerts.