Thursday, April 25, 2024
There comes the point in life when one embarks on a Hero’s Journey toward self-discovery and finding the meaning of life. In the case of SHEEP #1, now playing at Japan Society through November 7, that remarkable journey belongs to a tiny plastic sheep toy. NYC-based Japanese artist Sachiyo Takahashi creates a unique, imaginative world and theatrical experience through her “Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre,” a real-time manipulation of miniature objects projected on a screen with silent dialogue and live musical accompaniment. The result is a performance that is extraordinarily tender, whimsical, and perspective-shifting. Inanimate objects become sentient beings with complex desires, interactions and
Tag: puppetry
Theatre: HERE’s Dream Music Puppertry Program presents ‘American Weather’
A steel hula hoop spins. When if falls it becomes a container. Then the container's soft outer lining forms, depending on one's point of view, a bed, boat or coffin. Deliberate randomness forms the strong visual story told by Chris Green's American Weather at HERE's Dorothy B.Williams Theatre. Thanks to Green and his collaborator's masterful multidisciplinary combination of puppetry, video, song, verse and live action, American Weather's barometer reads division. This self-contained stage storm is played out across a picket fence with sharp edges. Katie Melby is the slow-moving soul in front of the fence/screen and a puppet costumed as a fencer in back of it. The
Music: Exploring the Sights and Sounds of ‘Symphonie Fantastique’
Recently, two opportunities arose to hear Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fanstatique" within days of each other. This isn't surprising - it's been a crowd pleaser since its 1830 premiere . With that also comes with a lot of "over"s" as in over-programmed and overwrought. Happily, both Bard College's Orchestra Now (TŌN ) conducted by Music Director/College President Leon Botstein at Lincoln Center's Frederick P Rose Hall and Basil Twist's landmark abstract puppet ballet at HERE encouraged audiences to forget everything they thought they knew about this music to discover it for themselves. Their thoughtful invitations to do so succeeded. Limited program notes made