About Dragon’s Egg
The Dragon’s Egg is a dream space for Marya Ursin and Dan Potter, one which they created and built, by great good fortune, in the late 1990s, and opened in 2000, and which they offer to benefit artists and community, in the hopes of supporting the creative exercise of the imagination, and of the muscle we call generosity of being.
The Egg is the unique rehearsal space for the Mystic Paper Beasts, a mask theatre troupe led by Marya Ursin and Dan Potter. The Egg is a freestanding hexagonal building at the end of a tree-encircled field in the countryside of Ledyard, CT. The studio space measures 2,200 square feet, and boasts a sprung floor, sub-floor heating, a minimal kitchen, a loft for sleeping, and a hexagonal cat’s walk in its high, circus tent-roofed ceiling. It is home to regular classes and workshops in yoga, dance, creative and healing arts. In this vaulting, inspiring space, the Mystic Paper Beasts have supported the development of perhaps thirty artists’ work each year, these artists hailing from New York and New England, Washington DC and California, through workshops and free rehearsal residencies. We welcome artist applications.
(See Guidelines for Use and Amenities for directions, cleaning guidelines, amenities)
Our Mission Statement appears elsewhere on the site, but we also include it here:
Mission of the Dragon’s Egg
The Dragon’s Egg and the Mystic Paper Beasts are committed to being inclusive, to encouraging environmental consciousness within the space, and, by extension, throughout the community.
The Dragon’s Egg and the Mystic Paper Beasts honor the history of the land upon which it stands, land that was home to the Mohegan and to the Mashantucket Pequot indigenous peoples.
The Dragon’s Egg and the Mystic Paper Beasts are committed to peace and justice, and to an exploration of how we may encourage and support these values at the Egg, and in the greater world.
The Dragon’s Egg and the Mystic Paper Beasts are committed to prioritizing communities which have been underserved, locally and distantly, including BIPOC and LGBTQIA communities and individuals.
The Dragon’s Egg is to be used to encourage the creative development of new work, and the rehearsal of old, in dance and theatre; to foster young and old practitioners of these arts; to provide the space and time so that these may more easily be accomplished.
The Dragon’s Egg/Mystic Paper Beasts will host workshops and events to reach out to the local and wider community on issues such as the arts, the environment, and peace and justice.
The Dragon’s Egg is also to serve as a rehearsal space for the Mystic Paper Beasts,
and as a rehearsal and teaching space for related arts: (dance, theatre, yoga, mask, puppetry).
It will also be available for various other workshops and performances of a theatrical and/or spiritual dimension (e.g. poetry readings and workshops, women’s groups, peace groups, anti-racism workshops, consciousness raising gatherings, storytelling workshops, etc.), at the discretion of the board.
The space is offered with the understanding that all who use the space will do so with a sense of reverence and responsibility to the earth upon which it stands, to the actual space itself, and to the communities of which we are all a part, human, animal, bird, fish, stars, all beings.
