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.