Puppets

Hey! Now that the rains have come, I am back inside, leaving my garden to its own devices. Between the end of last year's Q2 Habitat and now, it seems that it faded from memory. I forgot about the giant porcupine, the backhoe, the hut people, the gulls, and even us (or me and others), the birdwatchers. The winter was consumed with another kind of dancing--this time indoors, on small stages--jazz, modern and something like what used to be called modern ballet. Anyway, we performed in places people could see our faces, and in the Cherryfield Elementary School (eat your hearts out, Broadway dancers) people could count the hairs on our heads if we had stood still long enough. That's so different from performing in the quarry there should be another name for one of those.

Here Mai is working on the head of a "Primordial." She thought that the features were too defined. The easy way, adding something outside the original face, is full of difficulties. She pointed out that anything loose could snag (either coming up or going down...) and that the weight of a puppet 15 feet tall is something to consider. Someone has to hold it up.

Mark is getting into the puppet harness. The puppet is largely pvc pipe and screening, but is still pretty scary, even bent over.

It's easy to forget, over the winter, how huge the quarry is. How big the performance space is, and what it must take to make an impact.

Mia Kanazawa and her husband Mark Kimchi have had that space in their minds all year. When I visited them and watched them work on a prototype "primordial." the size of the whole project came to life for me. The puppet is ominously large, and with its ghost-like face, pretty creepy. It seems not to have the innate joie de vivre that Cableman had (unless you saw him as an animated Golem, but that's your problem).

The casting call/first rehearsal for this year's Q2; Habitat is Saturday, and I'm very curious about what the call will be like--what we will see and do--and what the whole thing will be. Mia says it's all about turf. "We all want our piece of turf. We do; the animals do. It's all of a single piece, so we must find a way to share it. "