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*microscope (from the Greek: μικρός, mikrós, "small" and σκοπεῖν, skopeîn, "to look" or "see")

is an instrument to see objects too small for the naked eye.

Dukhovny has been a performer and a Guest Artist resident at the International Festival of Paper Toy Theater in Germany, France, Mexico and Russia, "Great Small Works" International Toy Theater Festival in New York, "On Edge" Festival of Contemporary Performance Arts in Santa Barbara, Detroit and Santa Monica Museums of Arts, Japanese American National Museum, the Automata Arts in Los Angeles, National Puppetry Festival at the University of Connecticut.

Residences as a Visual Artist/Stage Director/Educator include: Meyerhold Theater Center in Moscow, Theater of Generations in ST. Petersburg, Young Arts LA UCLA, and Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA.

Dukhovny is a recipient of Long Beach Arts Council Professional Artist Fellowship.

Constantly evolving, Yulya Dukhovny expands her aspiration to combine means and forms of artistic expression. She recalls with gratitude her artist grandfather, in whose studio she spent countless hours and days, and his role in her formation as a free-thinking artist, from the very early age.

images below:

toy theater installation "The Fisherman's Dream".

Inside the wooden proscenium box: paper diorama, video fragments from the show. This miniature installation discovers the interplay of the still object and the moving image..

Yulya Dukhovny started her career as a classic pianist and studied at Mussorgsky State Academy in Ekaterinburg, Soviet Union's Russia. In 1990 she moved to Tel-Aviv, Israel, where she completed her MA in music and composed original scores for theater and animation. In 1999 she received the "Best Theater Composer of the Year" award at the 20th Fringe Theater Festival in Israel.

Dukhovny, as stage director, has worked extensively in opera, including work on more than 30 European and US opera productions at the New Israeli Opera, Opera Pacific, the Atlanta Opera, Los Angeles Master Chorale, IU Jacobs School of Music. She was Assistant and Stage Director for Franco Zeffirelli, David Pountney, Jean Claude Auvrey, Giancarlo Del Monaco, Christopher Alden, Manfred Belharz, and Michaell Hampe among others.

Her opera stage work includes:

Stage Director for Opera Studio programs and Summer Workshops at the New Israeli Opera, Tel Aviv (2002-2005)

Revival director and performance manager for "The Tristan Project" (Peter Sellars and Bill Viola collaboration) at the "White Nights Music Festival" in St. Petersburg, Russia 2009,

Associate Stage Director for the new production of "Faust" at Indiana University Opera Theater in 2011.

She designed and staged number of miniature Paper Theater shows as a resident artist at the Meyerhold Cultural Center in Moscow, at "Theatre of Generations" in St. Petersburg, in collaboration with "Lit Moon World" Theater (Santa Barbara, USA) and at Westmont College, Montecito, California.

Microscope Toy Theater is a touring company founded in 2010 by Yulya Dukhovny,  

an American-Israeli visual artist, musician and theater director living in Long Beach, California.  

Dukhovny’s experimental work of collage, miniature paper puppetry and film inspired by a model-size scenography and its multiple stage process of design. 

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