The New Toy Theatre: #2 - Romantic

http://evolvepuppets.com/

In the dim light of the Toy Theater Museum as the hour approaches midnight, the peachy-toned drapes of the gazebo display the silhouettes of figures darting to and fro in the midst of performing their miniature shows, and the air is filled with the sounds of instruments being plucked, voices being raised, protagonists dying agonising deaths and jesters cackling. Beneath these sounds, and the regular rounds of applause as each little show reaches its conclusion, my ears pick out the soft, mournful tones of a falsetto singer that can surely only be that of melancholic musical outfit Anthony and the Johnsons. Following the melody I pass through the crowds and eventually find the toy theatre piece which I am placing under my second category of New Toy Theatre - Romantic Toy Theatre.



Here I find a truly shrine-like toy theatre, sumptuously furnished with gold ornamentation and based around an elegant proscenium arch frame. Tanya Khordoc and Barry Weil of puppetry company Evolve are dressed in vintage threads with faces encapsulating the sensitive melancholy of the song which plays around them as they manipulate two-dimensional panels of scenery and figures in silent communion with the music. Imagery is Victorian, figures are etched in black and white and scenery is lush and bedecked with satin and sequins. Two faces steal a mournful kiss before being separated. Two lovers dance around each other briefly, then part. Boxes, doors and chests close, sealing within them, we suspect, secrets and tears.

This, I call the New Romantic Toy Theatre. A new form of animation which is delicately manipulated by hand, in the present moment, as opposed to the refined programming of a computer. A simple moving-around of flat images to create metaphors which last for a few seconds but speak volumes. A softly-spoken, understated collection of visual messages which work with a piece of music to unravel stories buried within it, allowing the ear to work with the eye simultaneously to bring emotions alive.

There weren't many toy theatre pieces at the festival which completely lacked the spoken word, but often those which verbally said the least managed most effectively to harness the simple power of the visual.

The New Toy Theatre - #1: Oral Toy Theatre

Witnessing the works being showcased at the Great Small Works festival allows one to observe and reflect on the new directions these brave and reckless young creators of the future are marching in. How is the multi-disciplinary, fronteir-less attitude of today's artists integrating into this Victorian performance tradition? Several contributors to the festival program offer potential answers to my question, starting with..........

#1 Oral Toy Theatre (Puppetyranny)



I thought I had escaped from the excesses of toy theatre when I sneaked off to Brooklyn Bridge Park one balmy afternoon during the festival, but oh no, there on a park bench were Leslie Rogers and Zac Palladino of Philadelphia-based company Puppetyranny, using toy theatre techniques to promote the the inside of the mouth as a new performance environment. In the ancient Chinese visual storytelling tradition, after all, the term 'pien' is used, meaning "transformation", and how else could you describe what happens to the garlic clove which enters Puppetyranny's toy theatre as a pearly-white bulb and exits as a lumpy mush, to be spread onto an oatcake and offered out to the audience? This toy theatre is indeed a place of transformation in which ideas meet, sometimes fight against each other, but other times conjoin, undergoing a process which sends them out on their way as something altogether new.

Oral toy theatre. Anthropologists will one day manage to unearth the missing manuscript detailing this obscure aspect of the world's visual storytelling history. In the meantime, Puppetyranny are doing a good job of reviving the tradition.

A Night at the Museum

It is late evening. We stand in a dark, cavernous warehouse space smelling ever so faintly of the spices it once used to contain. Dissecting this black grotto tall, elegant triangular shapes like the peach-tinted sails of three dozen ships - made from muslin stretched over bamboo frame - hang motionlessly in the abyss. The central pagoda invites the eye like the sumptuous centre-piece of a tropical garden. And as far as the eye can see, on dainty plinths of various sizes and heights, stands the most bewildering assortment of what at first glance could be jewel-encrusted shrines, fantastical dolls' houses or perhaps the miniature scenes you find trapped inside clear plastic cases surrounded by water and fake miniature snowflakes. But actually what surround you are the creative responses of a new generation of people making toy theatre - some trained in fine art, theatre, puppetry, poetry or music, others trained in nothing at all. Standing alongside carefully preserved examples of original toy theatres, the total collection that presents itself to a visitor to the Great Small Works Toy Theatre Museum suggests the revival of an undeniably flexible medium offering unimaginable possibilities to the curious 21st century artist.

Each artwork illuminated on its little plinth in the spice-scented darkness of the warehouse, it is evident that using this Victorian craft tradition as a basis has given a new generation of individuals the licence to create within a whole new disciplinary framework. In these 'theatres' references to the Victorian tradition are juxtaposed with experimental twists on scale, materials, design and use of imagery. In short, the toy theatres presented here still serve exactly the same purpose as they did over a century ago - to enable the maker to create their very own self-imagined, self-designed and self-made performance realm within which to play out their dreams and vent their frustrations - with the difference being that today's toy theatre makers benefit from an endless palette of new influences from the post-modern cultural cocktail that is the world today, which they are free to add into the mix.
Some speaking of the world today, others of a bygone time, but all relying on the same theatrical portal, each of the works in this space stands out as unique.

Great Small Works Miniature Procession

At Great Small Works it's all about the power of the miniature overcoming greater, more dominant forces - and as a fitting event to open a festival of miniature theatre performances, Sunday 30th May saw a procession of miniature floats weave their way through the streets of the DUMBO district of Brooklyn, accompanied by a New Orleans-style brass band. A myriad number of individuals ranging from children to the elderly, established artists to untrained creatives, arrived at Brooklyn Bridge Park under the Manhatten Bridge to unveil their shoebox-sized creations, and the artistry, individuality and beauty of these four-wheeled floats was staggering.
Great Small Works stress that an intrinsic aspect of the toy theatre medium as an empowering 'art form for the people' is the fact that anyone can make one. The miniature procession which led up to the ribbon-cutting ceremony at St Ann's Warehouse, then, was a celebration of the self-made movement.



Floats congregate in Brooklyn Bridge Park.



The procession weaves its way through the warehouses of DUMBO.



A newly married couple get caught up in the trumpeting frenzy outside St Ann's Warehouse.



The brass band, featuring navy blue-clad John Bell, leads the crowd into St Ann's Warehouse.




And now a selection of floats in close-up....

Stephen Kaplin

Of all the Great Small Works company members the one I have spent most quality time with is Stephen Kaplin, with whom I spent the better part of two weeks painting and stencilling hangings for the festival whilst listening to his excellent eclectic music collection.
Stephen has led an extremely rich life in the realm of puppetry - he started off by studying it as a degree subject at the University of Connecticut. Stephen credits the 1980 UNIMA Congress and World Puppetry Festival in Washington DC for setting his journey in motion - fresh out of his degree it brought him into contact with many puppeteers with whom he would later work, including Julie Taymor and the Bread and Puppet Theatre.
It was with the Bread and Puppet Theatre that Stephen established the artistic connections eventually leading to the creation of Great Small Works and his other company, Chinese Theatre Works, which he formed with his wife, Kuang-Yu Fong. Chinese Theatre Works attempts to 'preserve and promote traditional Chinese performing arts and create original works that bridge traditional and contemporary, Eastern and Western theatre aesthetics and practices.' I went to see one of Stephen and Juang-Yu's performances for Chinese visitors at PACE University, and was fascinated to watch a full length shadow puppetry performance using puppets manipulated horizontally on an illuminated projector screen. With aesthetically traditional puppets and quirky, contemporary narration provided by Stephen, this was definately Chinese shadow puppetry being injected with a fresh approach.

the Toy Theatre Arrivals Lounge

One of the most exciting periods of the festival so far was definately the day that several empty tables in St Ann's Warehouse began to be filled with mysterious packages to be opened by willing volunteers. Yes, we had been assigned the task of unpacking toy theatres that had been posted and delivered from all over the world, to go into the festival's Toy Theatre Museum.









I was given responsibility for a large, flat box from the Ballard Institute of Puppetry. Within it, wrapped in delicate protective paper sheets which certainly looked as old as the objects they contained, were the components of an original Dutch toy theatre, including endless varieties of rods, stands and clips, and a choice of two theatrical settings complete with different layers of scenery and characters. Hmm, New York cityscape in pastel shades or dark, broody Netherlandic winter scene complete with enigmatic cloaked gentlemen? I opted for the latter.

Erica Harris

As Great Small Works loads into St Anns' Warehouse for the festival, whose launch takes place tomorrow, it is worth mentioning someone who, although in many ways separate from the toy theatre field altogether, plays an absolutely intrinsic part in the visual aspect of the festival.
Erica Harris is the visual artist that Great Small Works has called on for several of its toy theatre festivals to create the unified visual outlook of the festival space by designing signs and hangings. After spending many hours in the studio with her, helping to paint and stencil endless reams of fabric, I learnt what it is about her practice and outlook that makes her such a valued and vital part of the Great Small Works festival operation.



Much of Erica's time as an artist is spent on residencies working with children around the world, particularly in developing countries. She says working with children has taught her the most in terms of her own creative development and understanding, and by her own admittance she has sometimes got so carried away by childrens' ideas that she has finally had to enforce some order and restraint due to safety reasons alone! It seems like this passion for encouraging creativity in others rather than hogging the limelight with her own work is what makes Erica so valued within the Great Small Works process. Restricted time and finances mean that Erica can only come into the studio for limited periods, and she is therefore called upon to create simple stencils and colour palettes for other volunteers to use at a later stage when she is not there. So although Erica only spent about ten hours in the studio in total, she set simple guidelines so that countless volunteers with varying abilities were able to follow on from where she left off and continue to make striking, unified wall hangings and signs for the festival space.

At an exhibition of Erica's collages in the ISE Cultural Space on Broadway, in Manhatten, it was also evident that a cherishing and reclaiming of objects and 'debris' from other countries, cultures and lives brings a strong parallel between Erica's work and the mentality behind much toy theatre work, which is often so visually rich, intricate and almost 'shrine-like'.





ericaharris.org

The Crankie enters the Digital Age

The interdisciplinary nature of the NYC toy theatre community was clearly evident at the Great Small Works balkan party night at St Anns' Warehouse, which followed their cabaret fundraiser (see previous post). Visual artist Jennifer Harris was behind the scenes creating projections to accompany the series of balkan bands playing that evening, such as Slavic Soul Party and the Hungry March Band....



....but it got really interesting when energetic longterm Great Small Works collaborator Jenny Romaine joined forces at the projector, armed with a 'crankie' (another fascinating visual storytelling device, consisting of a scroll mounted within a box which can be rolled to reveal a handmade animation). I watched curiously as they fused the archaic art form of the crankie with digital technology, to delightful effect.







I'm not sure how many people on the dancefloor witnessed this fusing of traditional and contemporary technologies though, I think they were enjoying the balkan sounds a little too much.

Fundraising Cabaret

The Great Small Works Cabaret, to raise funds for the festival, was a cosy, intimate, candlelit fiesta tucked away on the 9th floor of an unassuming building in Dumbo, Brooklyn. The company's extended family of supporters were plied with wine and homemade oriental snacks as they watched a series of acts which made it clear to me what a diverse and multi-talented range of individuals are brought together by a fascination with archaic art forms such as toy theatre.

Margaret Leng Tan seated herself before two small toy pianos and, with the composure and focus of a evidently highly-trained classical musician, began to play the Beatles 'Eleanor Rigby', followed by a Philip Glass piece, and an interpretation of a classical piece in which she 'combined the pitches of The Pink Panther with the rhythm of Memories'. During the set Leng Tan incorporated other toy instruments into the pieces, including the use of a rubber car horn placed in her armpit and squeezed at intervals, causing eruptions of laughter in the audience but never disrupting the artist's acute focus. It was inspirational to watch a highly-skilled musician such as Leng Tan who has chosen to apply her talent to, and embark on a quest into, the realm of toy instruments which most of us remember hazily from the pages of fairytale books and dusty antique shops.





Clare Dolan was another artist whose attempt to express herself through an archaic art form proved inspirational for me. I came to know Clare Dolan last summer as an intern with the Bread and Puppet theatre in Vermont, where Clare was helping Peter Schumann to direct sketches for the weekly circus show. One lunchbreak, as forty hungry interns sat and ate their lunch in the barn theatre known as the 'Dirtfloor Catherdral', Clare introduced us to her passion - the art of the Cantastoria - storytelling performance using visual images and, often, music and song. She stepped onto the stage wearing a self-made dress covered with intricate paintings and maps, and featuring sections which could open up to reveal book-like pages, and proceeded to perform an animated, musical Cantastoria...of the history of the Cantastoria!...tracing its origins back to India and Asia. This unexpected and utterly unique lunchtime performance left a mark on me, as did the energy of Clare herself, who would often appear at the Bread and Puppet farm to direct a rehearsal after one of her overnight shifts as a nurse.


Clare's "The Real Life Adventures of Go-Go Girl Episode 24: Where's My Fucking Bail-Out?" seemed to combine the overriding themes of her work, career and interests - performing within the Cantastoria 'genre', of course, her sung storytelling piece dealt with the 'slightly autobiographical' tale of a nurse battling against the injustices of the US pharmaceutical giants and attempting stand for her principles. It was a long story, brought to life with hand-painted illustrations on a huge cloth 'booklet', (with pages flipped over at intervals by assistants John Bell and Trudy Cohen), particular images being prodded at passionately by the storyteller's cane in pivotal moments. Just as with Margaret Leng Tan's toy piano performance, I was gripped to watch someone commit themself wholeheartedly to expressing an idea in a simplistic but utterly unusual way, and to do it with skill, precision and focus.