Cattywampus Puppet Council creates tools for resilience through play, celebration arts, and storytelling to transform individuals and communities.
WHO WE ARE
We are a 501c3 community-based arts organization and an intergenerational collective of artists, performers, teachers, musicians, and community organizers.
Over the past nine years, we’ve been bringing innovative theater, youth programming, people-powered parades, and giant puppet magic to communities across East Tennessee and the South. Whether workshopping with youth or taking the stage with Yo-Yo Ma, we are committed to creating containers for exploration, belonging, collaboration, imagination, and joymaking for everyone.
Our 2025 programming includes our 8th annual Parade & Block Party, a University of Tennessee School of Art course, Knox Honkers & Bangers community marching band, myriad workshops, and a number of festival partnerships and theater performances.
2025 Cattywampus Parade & Block Party: Sunday, May 18th!!
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Our Joy is Powerful
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2025 Cattywampus Parade & Block Party: Sunday, May 18th!! ✴︎ Our Joy is Powerful ✴︎
SAVE-THE-DATE
Our 8th annual Cattywampus Parade & Block Party is happening Sunday May 18th, 2025 at Suttree Landing Park!! This year’s theme is Our Joy is Powerful. Community members of all ages are invited to make giant puppets, masks, costumes, and other art and come together to parade as one. This people-powered parade is free and open to all!
PARADE & BLOCK PARTY
2025 Parade Theme: Our Joy is Powerful
At Cattywampus, we believe joymaking, play and celebration are tools for cultivating resilience in these increasingly challenging times we’re moving into and through. When we tap into what brings us joy, it reminds us of what we love about being alive. It connects us to one another and reminds us of our power. This parade season, we invite you to join us in conjuring our collective joy as a community and using it as fuel to practice audacious acts of imagination as we move into the future together. Let delight, play, and celebration inspire you as you make your giant puppets, costumes, and other people-powered creations and then come together with us to parade as one on Sunday, May 18th.
Solastalgia
Solastalgia (noun): A state of homesickness we feel when the places that matter most to us--our homes, our lands, and our communities--are disrupted, changed, or threatened.
In October 2024 at the World’s Fair Park in Knoxville, Cattywampus Puppet Council and One World Circus debuted this multidisciplinary spectacle of giant puppets, circus, theater, marching bands, and dancing on the side of buildings. Solastalgia tells a story of what’s happening in our lives, right here, right now.
The journey moved from the World’s Fair Park Amphitheater, to the Festival Lawn, to the walls of The Tennessean Hotel in an exploration of grief, hope and connection in these times. Solastalgia ignites our collective imagination as we find ourselves and our communities at vital decision-making points that will impact generations to come.
Interested in bringing Solastalgia to your community? We’d love to connect with you!
We are excited to customize a unique residency for your community. In addition to presenting the 2 hour site-specific journey of this show, we can offer workshops on building large puppets or circus apparatuses, incorporate local community members into the performance cast, and more. For booking inquiries, please email Rachel at cattywampuspuppetcouncil@gmail.com.
FIND US IN CLASS
Cattywampus is collaborating again this Spring 2025 with the UT School of Art to offer an innovative 499: Community Art course for undergrad and grad students.
Launched last year in Spring 2024, this unique educational opportunity is partially funded by the Community University Research Collaboration Initiative (CURCI), a forward-thinking grant program offered through the UTK Sociology Department.
The course revolves around Cattywampus’s annual Parade & Block Party, providing UT students with an immersive experience in community-based art through working alongside youth at one of 10 afterschool partner sites Cattywampus hosts through its Youth Art Residency program. Participants study other community art case studies and engage with additional local art organizations, deepening their understanding of how art can be a powerful tool for change.
ART FOR ALL
OF US
Cattywampus hosts a variety of community-based art programming year-round.
From the Knox Honkers & Bangers to our free after-school art residencies, youth intern program, and original theater pieces—there’s something for everyone.
✴︎ Parade Youth Art Residencies
Ten free afterschool programs wherein students—guided by Cattywampus teaching artists—craft unique parade art for display at the Parade & Block Party.
✴︎ Youth Intern Squad
An initiative each winter/spring offering local high school students valuable paid experiences and leadership skills in the realm of art education.
✴︎ Knox Honkers & Bangers
Celebrating the ethos that everyone is an artist, this vibrant 50+ member community brass band is open to all!
UPCOMING EVENTS