Michael Roy - Origami Artist

Description

Michelangelo Origami
Not your grade school teacher's origami! PAPER MAGIC is a mind-bending, paper-folding, your-world-ain’t-flat-no-more experience. Meandering event guests discover Folder Fantastique, Michael Roy Baldridge at his MicRo Gallery of Origami Art deftly displaying dazzling digital dexterity, morphing single flat squares of paper into 3D creatures by mere folding. No cuts. No tears. No glue. And no table! Without missing a crease, interactive performer, Michael Roy simultaneously (and at the same time!) keeps guests amused with a nonstop stream of offbeat witty repartee and u ... seless (yet strangely fascinating) information, revealing the secrets and history of folding art. Guests marvel as Michael Roy works magic, with amazing manipulations, quick wit, and cool “transformers”.
And his mesmerizing MicRo Gallery displays pretty paper party pet caricatures so cool everyone will just have to have one! The best part? Your guests are always part of the show and may go home with an oh-so-cool keepsake!
Whether hanging out with guests at his MicRo Gallery of Origami Art or mingling among event guests, Cirque du Papier performer, Michael Roy, Folder Fantastique is appropriate wherever fine and fun close-up entertainment is needed. No matter the direction of your event: up-scale, down-home, or out-back; Michael Roy, Origami Artist will be a guest favorite! Read More

Biography

Michael Roy Baldridge -- Interactive Origami Entertainer, Visual Artist, and Juggler -- started out life in the foothills of eastern KY at a very young age. He quickly grew out of that . . . well, actually not so much (being a creative type and all). According to family and friends, as a child it quickly became apparent that he was unusually gifted at drawing. At an early age he did a spot-on rendering (in crayon) of Fidel Castro. He also discovered the art of the magician and quickly gravitated toward all things novel in arts, crafts, performing, and the like. On a visit to his Uncle Roy and ... Aunt Virginia’s house in Lexington, KY at the age of 10 or 11, Michael Roy collaborated with his cousin Kelly Howard Baldridge to create coloring books and produced and “starred” in a magic show put on for all of the neighborhood kids. Kelly Howard promoted and took care of the financial. Michael Roy has never been gifted with financial negotiations (promoters and agents take note!). In Junior High he discovered the art of juggling and vaudeville. He began to obsessively work on his juggling skills (and bad puns!), developing a distinctive style due to his own predilections toward the unusual and the artistic, as well as living in a relatively culturally isolated region. Always being a “backward” boy (as they would say in East Kentucky when someone is naturally shy), he, none-the-less, began entering talent shows in high school. “I became weak in the knees when I performed my first juggling act of two stunts, probably lasting all of 60 seconds,” Baldridge recalls. Though getting up to do anything in front of people terrified him, he somehow persisted.
By 1975 at the age of 20, he left for San Diego, CA where he worked as a graphic artist, illustrator, and juggler for the acclaimed theatre company Lamb's Players. Also in the troupe were a couple of other visionary variety artists whom he developed stage productions with - Armando (Classic Enchantment) and Richard Turner (The Third Hand) - as well as street performing in Balboa Park. He also learned to speak fluent English. During those professional-formative years (and subsequently ever since) he was exposed to and began to incorporate artistic sensabilities blended with vaudeville styling into his performing work. His vision for blending contemporary music, visual art, circus and variety arts into themed theatrical productions was not disimilar to what Cirque du Soliel developed a few years later. Within three years he was doing solo stage and television work in the southern California region.
In 1980 he moved with his wife Diane to Aurora, Ohio and later to Kent, Ohio where they raised their sons Tyler and Dylan. With Kent as their home base, the whole family went on the road touring across the United States and Canada. Diane did tech and stage management. Dylan did a cameo, performing "acrobatics" with his dad (from the age of 7 months!) and Tyler wiled away the road hours reading everything (at least it sure seems that way!) By 1985 Michael Roy Baldridge was traveling the world with a 90 minute one-man theatre show featuring choreographed juggling, a silent movie with contemporary music, origami, visual art, and humor.
In 2016 Michael Roy's performance was requested in the "Mansion" (the most exclusive seating in Churchill Downs) for the 142nd Kentucky Derby. He created horse race themed paper figurines much to the delight of the attending celebrities and wealthy. Throughout the years Michael Roy has done appearances in a wide range of venues in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Taiwan. He has appeared on 92 Air Force bases in the United States, Creation Music Festival in Pennsylvania, school assembly programs and colleges from Massachusetts to San Diego. He has performed with a diversity of talent, sharing the stage with Dick Gregory, The Flying Karamazov Brothers, Avner the Eccentric, (Jewel of the Nile), Brush Arbor (Academy of Country Music Vocal Group of the Year), and Ricky Skaggs and Irish Folk Singer Robin Rich. He has shared the stage with "extraordinist" Craig Karges and “Mr. Sound Effects”, Wes Harrison. His opening act appearances also include Terry Talbot (of the Mason Proffit Band), Bob Carlisle ("Butterfly Kisses"), Randy Stonehill, and Bob Stromberg ("Triple Espresso - A Highly Caffeinated Comedy"). Baldridge has appeared at the Cleveland Indians Season Openers.
Of course, as a variety artist, Michael Roy is no stranger to playing in the typical venues of speciality acts. He has shared the stage with Taiwan's top TV and Pop Stars as well as Armando and Gold Finger & Dove at Woozland Amusement Park in Tainan, Taiwan. Michael Roy Baldridge has performed his choreographed juggling act in rotation with Illusionist Steve Wheeler at the Illusion Theatre at Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus World in Orlando, Florida. He was featured in the comedy drama The Ice Cream Frolics of ’29 at the Variety Arts Center, Los Angeles. The Variety Arts Center was a exclusive private club, run by "The Society for the Preservation of the Variety Arts", an organization founded by the Bill and Milt Larsen (Hollywood writers/producers and founders of the world famous Magic Castle). Michael Roy says it was fun and a valuable opportunity to work with up-and-coming talent (Magician & Mime, Peter DePaula, and actor, John Barrymore III) as well as with many veterans of the biz, such as actor/producer Jimmy Lydon (Life with Father, starring a young Elizebeth Taylor) and veteran juggler and comedy entertainer Whitey Roberts. Lydon directed the production.
But if you aked him about the most exciting or impressive artist he has ever appeared with, he will tell you it is when he opened for Victor The Wrestling Bear in Grand Rapids, Michigan (Baldridge considers that a highlight in his illustrious career . . . OK, at least memorable)! Michael Roy Baldridge also has taught object manipulation classes, workshops, and seminars throughout the United States including Richmond Shepard's Mime School in Hollywood, California.
Michael Roy Baldridge's own education has been varied: studying ballet, modern dance, mime, and acting with private teachers and in college in the San Diego area. He studied commercial art at Art Instruction Schools, Minneapolis, Minnesota and illustration, design, desktop publishing, and web design at the Cleveland Institute of Art where he earned a Desktop Publishing Certification. He has studied juggling through years of self training and informally with many jugglers including Peter Davison and Jon Held (of Air Jazz fame), and Kit Summers. Baldridge studied origami via books, self training, experimentation, and from a cute waitress at a chinese buffet.
In 1997 he dropped the road life and acquired a real job as a graphic artist and illustrator. After a few years sabbatical he returned with strolling and interactive origami entertainment. By the way, origami as entertainment, a very rare thing indeed! He is part of an elite group of international origami entertainers. And now his "repertoire" also includes maintaining his "real job" of graphic design and illustration; and creating the best popcorn treat and tastiest and healthiest burritos you’ll ever eat. Oh yes, and at the drop of a hat you can still get him to juggle (the hat). Read More

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Experience

Cirque du Soleil - Luzia: Chicago Premier
MGM Resorts International Client Party • Top of The Standard - The Standard Hotel • New York, New York
Kentucky Derby • Churchill Downs • Louisville, Kentucky
Lunar New Year • Woozland Amusement Park • Tainan, Taiwan
Family Showcase Series • United States Air Force • 92 Air Force Bases Continental USA

Previous Clients

Cirque du Soleil - Luzia
Kentucky Derby • Churchill Downs
MGM Resorts International
Toledo Zoo • Toledo, Ohio
JP Morgan Investment Bankers Conference • Hotel Nikko, San Francisco
Inspirational Team Meeting (audience of Artists & Writers) • American Greetings World Headquarters, Cleveland, Ohio

Suitable for

Bar / Bat Mitzvah Birthday Party (Adult) Casinos Christening Christmas Party Cocktail Party / Drinks Reception Corporate Event Dinner Party Festival / Outdoor Event Jewish Wedding Private Party Product Launch / Promotion Trade Show / Exhibitions

Additional Information

Insured for Public Liability