Tania L. Yager is a visual/performance artist in California. Founder, Creative Director, and Lead Fabricator of Twisted Heart Puppetworks, her recent successes include winning the 2020 New York Catapult Opera Innovation Award for the collaborative short film project “HANJO”. In 2021 she founded the international shadow puppetry festival Shadows Across the Globe, bringing together artists from 13 countries.  Tania has worked to educate both children and adults in puppetry arts and has performed in slams across the US. A 2022 resident Fellow at Virginia Center of Creative Arts, she created the miniature shadow puppetry exhibition Tales of Min’Umbra, which consists of three separate dark-winter narratives based on her cultural heritage. This touring show was debuted at The Mini Time Machine Museum in Tucson Arizona in October 2022. It is Tania’s pleasure to be showcasing this exhibit back in Virginia, the state of its physical birthplace.

Tania is educated in dance, performance art, paper craft, traditional shadow puppetry, cinematic shadow theater, tabletop and toy theater, traditional Czech marionettes, and the art of cranky theatre. Over the last 10 years she has written and performed over 20 original puppet plays. Tania is inspired and heavily influenced by fantasy, folklore, and her study of earth-based religions and Shamanism.