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Another Two Weeks with Bread & Puppet Theater: Part VI 1/3/2005 10:31:00 AM
A scene from "World on Fire" and a visit from a friend. The Feet of the World (and Two Chickens in Love)
The Feet of the World are particularly troubling in rehearsal as not only are the eight of us working in very cramped confines but our exit is played out as the curtain is open. We need to run off to stage left with large cardboard feet in hand, covering our bodies and not crashing into each other or the narrow doorway. It takes several evenings before that simple exit works smoothly.
My friend, Alice Hunter, a dancer and choreographer whose work has influenced me though not necessarily in ways she can recognize, comes one evening. During intermission, she tells me that she could tell which puppet I was manipulating. When I ask how, she explains:
"It was how you moved the foot: heel then toe, then heel-- and the way you gave other puppets circular motions."
It is amusing what it is in fellow performers, comrades in arts, so to speak, recognize each other's work. Alice sees my circular motions both as a mime and puppeteer, just as I see various sculptural elements of her dances that inspire my own work. Of course, she and I have similar interests and concerns that we both express in our artwork. Perhaps this is why we've become friends.
It is no surprise to me that she has come to see Bread & Puppet. The first time I had been to her house, I had seen walls decorated with Bread & Puppet posters and when we get to the book and poster table she picks up the small photo booklet, "Two Chickens in Love" and asks me if I had seen it. "I got a copy of my own last year." The photos are of two dancers dressed in cardboard chicken masks and wings in Glover, Vermont. Alice smiles and asks, "Did you recognize the chickens?" and when I look, I realize that she is one of the dancers. "I always buy a bundle when I see Bread & Puppet and send them to friends and family." She also picks out a number of posters that she intends for some of the people in their life who may need some of the possibilitarian messages on their walls. I have had much the same in mind for a friend of mine who is having a tough time and lives too far away for me to easily visit. I select a poster entitled "Courage."
