Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 10:44:52 -0700
From: Grego <grego-AT-gregoland.com>
Subject: Re: PUPT: voice and music




>   Dulcimer...  Anglo Concertina... psaltrey ...However with hands on puppets
> it's hard to do the two at the same time!?  so
> how do you intend to manage it...I'd love to know.

Heh heh heh.... you'd have to be nuts to even think of becoming a music
puppetician. Highly unlikely, unimaginable, almost impossible.
Almost.

The earliest examples I know of where solo performance matches puppets
with instrument playing  are the planchettes of medieval Europe. (as seen at
http://www.thepuppetstudio.com/W.Paddle.html
Similar but unique are limberjacks, the clog dancers from Appalachia.
(example:   http://www.riverlarkmusic.com/neat_stuff.asp   )
(Rumors persist that they originated in Europe. If anyone out there has evidence
of pre American limberjacks please speak up).
Bruno Descaves uses foot pedals to manipulate dancers while he plays the violin.
 Others have a system whereby strings attached to various parts of a fiddle
connect to a fiddling marionette below. This motiff of the puppet doing real
time mimicking of live concertising (music ventriloquism?) also lends itself
to the old four armed dummy routine. Fake arms in your jacket allow your
real arms to slide into those of the pupppet sitting on your lap, which then
plays the whatever.
 All of these are built around and focus on the mediums being employed,
rather than trying to impose gimmicky technique on a narrative format. One
beautiful advantage to this is that being liberated from the confines of words, a
spectacle based on the universal languages of image and music knows no
borders in this big, fascinating world.

Howzabout an eight armed dreambird mimicking harp, panpipes, violin, and
crash cymbal performance while the puppetician simultaneously produces all
the acoustic music live? That's the most exotic of my myriad original
variations on the traditional instrument/puppet theme.

 My show is a one man musical puppet performance, with zero percent
pre-recorded sounds. Gotta see it to really get a grip on it, but an introduction
awaits at   www.gregoland.com


-Grego





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