The village of Yellow Springs, Ohio, has always had an amazing arts scene. Currently there is a great upwelling of the visual and performing arts here, with a summer long weekend festival scene for villagers and our many visitors. Village arts folks are busy and happy, with so many opportunities to share.
My own contribution is in the realm of puppetry - actually, a mix of storytelling and toy theater. My little troupe (one human and several toys) is called "Carolion And The HOOZITS,"* and we just performed a new show this Saturday past. True to the spirit of playing with toys, my shows usually come to me at the last minute, as this one did. I went to bed Friday night with the thought that I'd wake up with a great show idea on Saturday morning. Great ideas, of course, are one thing; a coherent, entertaining show is another.
Between waking up and set-up time (3:15 for the 4 p.m. performance) I develop the story line, paint eyes, nose, and mouth on a new character (a standing metal spinning top, named "Spinner"); cut out a cardboard "book" and cut holes in the covers (eaten by a bookapillar, of course - her name is "Lou Lou") and paint the covers, adding words that have holes eaten out of them, and get the paint dry in the sun; make our sign ("Carolion and the Hoozits in - LIBRARY LOU LOU - featuring Music Al the Xylogator, Spinner the Top, and Lou Lou the Bookapillar") and figure out how I'll hang it; pack "scenery scarves" and a "magic flute" into my Magic Hat; figure out logistics of performance set-up (a small take-apart plastic table with a cloth over it so I can hide things underneath, with a little stool so I can sit behind it when I'm not standing or walking). Then I shower and get dressed (puppeteer's black - all the way to my wrists and my toes - nothing else feels right), pack the car and head downtown.
I park in the grocery store parking lot, carry my puppets and simple set and sign to our performance location - a nice shady ex-restaurant space bounded by a wooden fence and the side of a bookstore and wrought iron picket fence. There is plenty of seating and enough shade. I set the backdrop (an old red bedspread) and hang our sign. Emily, my arts council coordinator hasn't arrived yet, so I decide to approach people with young children to let them know there will be a puppet show at 4 p.m. Emily arrives with more signage, and our audience begins to gather. I wait the requisite 10+ minutes past 4 (we operate on "Yellow Springs time"), and during that time I make small talk with the small people in the audience. One little boy explains to us that you don't have to have a lot of performers - that one person can just change voices and make us believe that there are lots of characters. He knows my style - he and I go back a few library storytimes together. I say, "You're right! Maybe one day you'll be a puppeteer!" He beams.
Show time!
I introduce Music Al the Xylogator first, and we sing his signature song to the accompaniment of the rainbow xylophone which is his spine. Al then tells me he wants to go to the library to find a new book. I say, "But Al! You have 50 zillion books at home!" Al responds, "Yeah, but you've read them to me 50 zillion times!" To which I say, "But you asked me to......" But Al is bored with his books at home, so we begin to walk "to the library," along the edge of the little stage. One little boy in the audience warns Al not to get too close to the edge of the stage, or he might fall off "into the water." Al says that he likes the water - that he even sleeps in a wet bed (the swamp) and loves it that way. We go merrily on our way, and Al decides to stop at his new friend Spinner's house, and take him along with us to the library.
Spinner, of course, is so pumped-up about going to the library that he begins to spin and spin, and I have to tell him to slow down or he might get dizzy and throw up. So on to the library we go, singing a little song about that. Finally at the library we talk about being in the World of Imagination. I say, "Good thing I brought my Magic Hat!" and begin to pull scarves out of it, to put in the hands of little audience volunteers. Yellow for the Sun, green for the Trees, and a flowered scarf for the Flowers. We make up a little story about Sun, Trees, and Flowers, and then our volunteers return to their seats. Music Al and Spinner and I find just exactly the book we want, yay! But when we pull it off the shelf, it has big holes chewed in the front and back covers, and all the pages have been eaten. Suddenly Lou Lou appears and confesses to having eaten all this, because she's a bookapillar and she's planning to make a coccoon and become a bookerfly. She's afraid that the librarians will discover her and put her out of the library.
The solution? I decide to pay for the damaged book, so we can take Lou Lou home with us. That way she can be safe to spin her coccoon. Spinner is delighted, and volunteers to help with the spinning. So - it all works out in the end. For the very, very end we sing a goodbye song, with Al's accompaniment.
After the show, children always want to have a visit with Music Al. He's a popular guy. It's a good way for me to wind down, finish out the performer energy, and get back to my everyday self. After a while of visiting Al and our new hit star, Spinner - and after some photos taken by parents - I tell my friends that Al and Spinner and Lou Lou have to take their naps. I tuck Al into the bottom of the Hoozits' basket, and tuck in Lou Lou and Spinner as well, with the Magic Hat and the Scenery Scarves.....Basket closed, sign and backdrop down, little table taken apart and put in its bag....We're ready to go. Emily has children's arts activities set up, and community volunteers there to help. It's another great arts afternoon in Yellow Springs.
Showing posts with label yellow springs ohio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yellow springs ohio. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Miracle Plays - Christmas, 2007 - Yellow Springs, Ohio
Many years ago during the beginning of my first period of living in Yellow Springs, Ohio, I was invited to play piano for a group which was putting on two old mystery plays (the religious kind) from the 13th century, the Paradise Play and the Shepherds' Play.
The Paradise Play deals with God and Adam and Eva and Satan and Angel Gabriel, and the "fall" of humankind due to the "woeful sin" of eating a certain fruit from a certain tree.
The Shepherds' Play is the Nativity story, told from the country folks' point of view, with a lot of silliness and pranks on the shepherds' end of the crook.
When I left the village at the end of 1995, I thought I'd left forever, since I'd been called by the Powers That Be - always a mystery! - with no telling where I might end up. After nine - plus years of pilgriming, however, I wound up back in Yellow Springs at last. To my utmost delight, I have also rejoined my old Mystery Play family, the Christmas Players. This time someone else is playing piano. In 2008 I was tapped to fill in for our long-term Angel Gabriel player, whose foot problem wouldn't allow her to tread the boards. And the Shepherds' Play turned up one Innkeeper short, so for that role I shed Gabriel's wings and bare feet, and changed into hiking boots and medieval innkeeper's clothes.
One of the best parts of our every-two-years productions is the ritual of breaking-in of our newest Adam and Eva. The actors who play God, Satan, and everyone else pretty much stay the same for years. I mean YEARS. But we always get brand-spanking-new Adam and Eva from among the village high school students, and then the fun begins. Of course there's always just a little teasing about Adam and Eva's costumes - and yes, they do have costumes.
Here, from the Paradise Play, are some of Archangel Gabriel's closing lines, which follow the big windup where God sends Satan crawling offstage on his belly, and then raises Adam and Eva up to stand beside him:
"So think no evil, nor chide our play, But if in aught we have gone astray and shown your Worships what was not fit, Blame not our will, but lack of wit. Think it but well, so all's made right - And we wish you, from God Almighty, Good Night!"
The Paradise Play deals with God and Adam and Eva and Satan and Angel Gabriel, and the "fall" of humankind due to the "woeful sin" of eating a certain fruit from a certain tree.
The Shepherds' Play is the Nativity story, told from the country folks' point of view, with a lot of silliness and pranks on the shepherds' end of the crook.
When I left the village at the end of 1995, I thought I'd left forever, since I'd been called by the Powers That Be - always a mystery! - with no telling where I might end up. After nine - plus years of pilgriming, however, I wound up back in Yellow Springs at last. To my utmost delight, I have also rejoined my old Mystery Play family, the Christmas Players. This time someone else is playing piano. In 2008 I was tapped to fill in for our long-term Angel Gabriel player, whose foot problem wouldn't allow her to tread the boards. And the Shepherds' Play turned up one Innkeeper short, so for that role I shed Gabriel's wings and bare feet, and changed into hiking boots and medieval innkeeper's clothes.
One of the best parts of our every-two-years productions is the ritual of breaking-in of our newest Adam and Eva. The actors who play God, Satan, and everyone else pretty much stay the same for years. I mean YEARS. But we always get brand-spanking-new Adam and Eva from among the village high school students, and then the fun begins. Of course there's always just a little teasing about Adam and Eva's costumes - and yes, they do have costumes.
Here, from the Paradise Play, are some of Archangel Gabriel's closing lines, which follow the big windup where God sends Satan crawling offstage on his belly, and then raises Adam and Eva up to stand beside him:
"So think no evil, nor chide our play, But if in aught we have gone astray and shown your Worships what was not fit, Blame not our will, but lack of wit. Think it but well, so all's made right - And we wish you, from God Almighty, Good Night!"
Woodstove On A Rainy Night - Yellow Springs Ohio, 2006
I leave work, coming out of the library into a driving rain, glad for my new umbrella and happy at the prospect of a quiet evening at home. I make a bit of supper and eat it while reading a book, and then I read some more. I listen to the cold rain beating on the house, and decide it would be a good thing to light a fire in the woodstove.
I brace myself to go out to the chilly porch. There in the woodbox on the porch are broken twigs and branches gathered the other day after the ice storm. There, too, is another log. I carry them inside to the woodstove in the living room, where I begin the ritual of emptying the ashbox under the stove. I sweep up the spilled ash, then crumple newspaper and lay it next to the big partly-burned log lying cold in the stove. I add tinder and kindling, and the other log, and strike the match. It is such a joy to light a fire, and to be with it. It's such a true, deep amazement to participate in the flame dance-paintings. Oh, my Heart.
A simple life, and solitude enough to satisfy the soul for now, mixed in with laughter and service and tired feet in my library job. Tomorrow the earliest returning songbirds will wake me, calling from the big old spruces and sugar maples just outside. The snow is melting, the soil is warming. Soon my other job, keeping the shop gardens downtown, will start up again. Two part-time jobs in public places, for a person who has truly learned to enjoy her solitude. A marriage of opposites inside. A benefit of viewpoints. A successful friendship with my self.
In the front room windows, begonias bloom bright pink all winter long. They bloom whether it's sunny or cloudy outside; they bloom whether it's day or night. They are my love-beacons, and my child-heart happy-song. In the aquarium in the living room, two goldfish chase each other and take turns hiding in a small rock cave. In the back room my sewing machine is waiting for its next project: patchwork wedding pillows for two sets of young people. And in my sense of How It Is and How It Can Be, one thing stands out free and clear: the simple goodness is my home vibration. All are welcome, yet none intrude. Home.
Always, after all these years of wandering, always at the back of my mind is the thought that this particular goodness of staying in one place, being a citizen in this village, being a neighbor and a chorus member - all those things I took for granted before my wanderings - always I notice there's a concern that I'll be whooshed away, out on the road again, ready-or-not. But then I remember: I learned how to find home wherever I was, whatever the work the universe set before me. I know home. I am home. It's all right.
I brace myself to go out to the chilly porch. There in the woodbox on the porch are broken twigs and branches gathered the other day after the ice storm. There, too, is another log. I carry them inside to the woodstove in the living room, where I begin the ritual of emptying the ashbox under the stove. I sweep up the spilled ash, then crumple newspaper and lay it next to the big partly-burned log lying cold in the stove. I add tinder and kindling, and the other log, and strike the match. It is such a joy to light a fire, and to be with it. It's such a true, deep amazement to participate in the flame dance-paintings. Oh, my Heart.
A simple life, and solitude enough to satisfy the soul for now, mixed in with laughter and service and tired feet in my library job. Tomorrow the earliest returning songbirds will wake me, calling from the big old spruces and sugar maples just outside. The snow is melting, the soil is warming. Soon my other job, keeping the shop gardens downtown, will start up again. Two part-time jobs in public places, for a person who has truly learned to enjoy her solitude. A marriage of opposites inside. A benefit of viewpoints. A successful friendship with my self.
In the front room windows, begonias bloom bright pink all winter long. They bloom whether it's sunny or cloudy outside; they bloom whether it's day or night. They are my love-beacons, and my child-heart happy-song. In the aquarium in the living room, two goldfish chase each other and take turns hiding in a small rock cave. In the back room my sewing machine is waiting for its next project: patchwork wedding pillows for two sets of young people. And in my sense of How It Is and How It Can Be, one thing stands out free and clear: the simple goodness is my home vibration. All are welcome, yet none intrude. Home.
Always, after all these years of wandering, always at the back of my mind is the thought that this particular goodness of staying in one place, being a citizen in this village, being a neighbor and a chorus member - all those things I took for granted before my wanderings - always I notice there's a concern that I'll be whooshed away, out on the road again, ready-or-not. But then I remember: I learned how to find home wherever I was, whatever the work the universe set before me. I know home. I am home. It's all right.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Remembering Princess Zucchinia - 1984
When my younger daughter Corrie was seven years old, she and I started a puppet company. We called ourselves PUMPARILLA PUPPETS. Our first show was "The Humpty Show," based on the tragi-comic tale of Humpty-Dumpty. Corrie was the voice and manipulator of the lovely Princess Zucchinia, a little puppet who had such a love for zucchini that she had turned green from eating it all the time. I was the voice and manipulator of the Sad-and-Lonely King (sad in part because his daughter never listened to him.) "I'm the sad-and-lonely King, hoya-hoya-hoya" he would sing, dancing a sort of Russian dance in his blue and red satins and his big gold crown. I also spoke and manipulated Humpty Dumpty, which was quite a challenge, since I had to hold the top of his head on with one finger through a pair of plastic loops inside his head until it was time for him to "break" his egg head. I also played "All-The-King's-Men," rather, the Potato-Skin Men, who happened to be fashioned from baked potato skins that I had hardened with acrylic gel, and mounted all together on a contraption of black-painted dowels. They all had black top hats. "Oh, we're the Potato-Skin Men! Humpty-Dumpty, diddle-de-umpty!" they sang.
Corrie had a lovely, clear way of speaking Princess Zucchinia. A born actress, she. We didn't have set lines - we always simply improvised on the story line, and somehow it always worked. Princess Zucchinia was a great friend of Humpty's, and she was really terribly concerned that he was showing off too much, and might fall off the wall - which he did. That meant that the Princess had to call on the Giants for help. Uh-oh! She carefully instructed them to be sure, absolutely certain, to give him a smooth ride in the stretcher on the way to the hospital.
Corrie and I were also the Giants. We put on hats and came out from behind the puppet theater, acting giant-y and carrying a puppet-sized stretcher with poor foolish Humpty lying on it, his egg-head definitely cracked. We spoke in "dumb giant" voices, and of course we got mixed up and turned the Princess's directions around backwards. Merrily we went, jostling the stretcher and singing "Bumpy-ride, bumpy ride" until, horror of horrors! Poor Humpty fell off the stretcher and the top of his head came off - and out came his brain (a fried egg sewn of white and yellow satin). Oh, dear! One of the giants - me actually - just happened to have a spatula - and flipped Humpty's fried-egg brain up-up-up like a flapjack, nearly flipping it out into the audience, and getting great giggles out of the delighted spectators. Finally, finally, the Giants managed to get the brain back into Humpty's poor broken head, and then they carried the stretcher to the "hospital" - back behind the puppet theater. Soon the show was done - Princess Zucchinia, in order to help Humpty get well and behave himself better, decided to cut back on the Zucchini. Go figure. Then the Sad and Lonely King was happy again at last; and - oh, happy day! - Humpty's head was mended.
Corrie had a lovely, clear way of speaking Princess Zucchinia. A born actress, she. We didn't have set lines - we always simply improvised on the story line, and somehow it always worked. Princess Zucchinia was a great friend of Humpty's, and she was really terribly concerned that he was showing off too much, and might fall off the wall - which he did. That meant that the Princess had to call on the Giants for help. Uh-oh! She carefully instructed them to be sure, absolutely certain, to give him a smooth ride in the stretcher on the way to the hospital.
Corrie and I were also the Giants. We put on hats and came out from behind the puppet theater, acting giant-y and carrying a puppet-sized stretcher with poor foolish Humpty lying on it, his egg-head definitely cracked. We spoke in "dumb giant" voices, and of course we got mixed up and turned the Princess's directions around backwards. Merrily we went, jostling the stretcher and singing "Bumpy-ride, bumpy ride" until, horror of horrors! Poor Humpty fell off the stretcher and the top of his head came off - and out came his brain (a fried egg sewn of white and yellow satin). Oh, dear! One of the giants - me actually - just happened to have a spatula - and flipped Humpty's fried-egg brain up-up-up like a flapjack, nearly flipping it out into the audience, and getting great giggles out of the delighted spectators. Finally, finally, the Giants managed to get the brain back into Humpty's poor broken head, and then they carried the stretcher to the "hospital" - back behind the puppet theater. Soon the show was done - Princess Zucchinia, in order to help Humpty get well and behave himself better, decided to cut back on the Zucchini. Go figure. Then the Sad and Lonely King was happy again at last; and - oh, happy day! - Humpty's head was mended.
The HOOZITS In King's Yard - Summer 2006
Saturday morning I lie in bed, listening to songbirds in the great old sugar maples outside my window, and hearing/seeing bits and pieces of my new puppet show inside my mind. Friday night I didn't have a show; Saturday morning by 6:30 a.m., I do have just enough of a show in mind to hop up, shower and dress, and start packing my puppets and stage and backdrop and bungee cords and all the rest. The tree! Out to the woodpile to find just the right stick to rig up for Who-Who Hootie Owl to sit in and be wise. Got it. The tarp, afghans for the audience to sit on, tape and scissors and lots of lovely colored scarves, and an orchestra - Ah! The orchestra: pots and pans, wooden spoons, and some jingle bells. And don't forget the flute, for casting a magical spell where all hearts can rest and play in our story.
All right - Hootie and Music Al and the wonderful red-spotted golden stegosaurus whom the children in the audience will later name - all stuffed into their black bag. Oh! The cave - how will I make the cave? Aha - there's that funky little yellow plastic table out on the deck, left over from last week's wedding. I snag it, and discover that the legs come out/off. Perfect for packing in the trunk of my trusty old Nissan. I pack the car, discover I'm hungry, and eat half an avocado. Perfect! Got my jar of water, my hair looks good, I feel right in my puppeteer's black; I'm off!
Downtown in the Village on Saturdays, the Farmer's Market is the big draw. I'm due to perform at 10:30 in the adjacent King's Yard gazebo as part of the YSKP (Yellow Springs Kids' Playhouse) summer festival. Driving over, I have it in my mind that I'll have the perfect parking spot, and that is what happens. I begin unloading my equipment, and have only two trips to make, working my way through the crowded market place to the quieter gazebo area. There I encounter a group of Village music students, playing for donations for the schools' music programs. I explain to the directors that I've got a show scheduled, and we work out a time-share agreement for the space. These are some of the same kids who were in the "Borchestra" which accompanied Music Al's BIG SHOW earlier in the year. We appreciate each other.
Michelle, a high-schooler who's a YSKP intern, is there to help me set up the stage area. We get busy attatching tarp backdrop to gazebo with bungee cords, and then weighing down the bottom of the tarp with stones because of the breeze. I set up the stand with my new cardboard box theater atop it, and the little yellow table-cave next to that. Then Michelle and I get busy with my black cloth and a roll of tape, covering the stand and turning the table into the cave. It works! There's just enough cloth for the desired effect. We use more tape positioning Hootie's tree. Then we tape up the title of the show: Carolion and the Hoozits present TREASURE IN THE GLEN.
It's time for the school musicians to go to their next location, as Michelle and I spread the afghans and tell curious passers-by there'll be a show starting in a few minutes. Ready at last: Hootie is in her tree, the Stegosaurus in his cave, well hidden, and Music Al is behind the stage, preparing for his entrance. I've got the treasure map in my pocket.....And soon there are a group of us drumming and whacking pots and pans as our prelude to the show. Then....Ahhhhhhhh. I just fall into my very comfortable storyteller mode, setting the stage with words about the treasure map, and getting some audience particpation as children and parents become trees waving their branches in a dance to the music of my flute. The actual trees bordering the gazebo area begin to dance as well, as the breeze plays with all of us - and we believe, we believe. The floating colors of the scarves add more magic - I keep naming the colors wrong, and my audience corrects me, and one after another lovely floaty scarf gets tossed aside. We're looking for gold, so the treasure map can be right. We need gold. Ah, at last: the big yellow scarf and the smaller orange one become the famed Yellow Spring in the nearby Glen. That's gold. The green scarf gets tossed up into Hootie's tree to be leaves, and so we discover our wise owl, who is sitting in the branches.
Music Al makes his entrance, following me....He's always "late" because I pull him on a string...We sing Al's song because we always do; then we ask our audience members to hold the treasure map, which depicts a tree with an owl in it, a pool [the yellow spring], and a cave with a big X. I carry Music Al, playing "walking music" on his six-note xylophone spine as we walk off the stage and around the audience [through the Glen]. It's a tiny area, so I stop every few steps. "Are we there yet?" I ask. Our audience messes with us, telling us we ARE there, and every single time I look around and say, "That's not a cave - that's somebody's mom!" Giggles and more giggles. Finally we get back around to the stage, and the audience is pretty sure there's a cave. Hootie has already hinted that the treasure might be a golden dragon. Music Al isn't too sure about going into the cave...Finally, though, it's time to try.
I lift up the scarf covering the cave, and am immediately overwhelmed by children rushing up to touch the red-spotted yellow stegasaurus! I go with the flow - how not? They adore him! He tells them he's really not a dragon, he's actually the "last of the dinosaurs." Wow - not only do we have a Glen and a Yellow Spring here at the edge of our Village, but we also have a mysterious cave with the last of the dinosaurs. Wow again! The children decide his name must be "Dragon." So it all works out. They resume their seats so the show can go on.
I tell the children that it's very good luck to have a dragon fly over you. So they and I together are not surprised when Hootie volunteers to carry Dragon, to be his wings, since he doesn't have any of his own. Of course! How not? Dragon must fly. The children lie down, and Hootie/Dragon fly over them pouring good wishes and beauty into their hearts. Well, now! The story has ended just right, and we all truly played it together. It happened through us. Music Al and I sit down to sing and play a little goodbye song, and everyone joins in.
The show's over - though the audience was very small, suddenly there's a crowd and people taking pictures as children ask to pat Music Al and play a few notes on his spine. Someone even asks if I might do the show again, but no - not today, I say. Another time. Maybe in the library. A very little person takes a long time looking and looking at Music Al, and finally tiptoes up to touch his head, and then, at last, to play a few notes.
Time to wrap. Michelle, and now Melissa from YSKP help me make fast work of the tear-down and packing and toting-to-the-car. I'm happy. I'm high. Oh, this is the kind of puppetry I love to direct, and now am developing for myself. Improv makes me happy, that's all there is to it. I love to play.
All right - Hootie and Music Al and the wonderful red-spotted golden stegosaurus whom the children in the audience will later name - all stuffed into their black bag. Oh! The cave - how will I make the cave? Aha - there's that funky little yellow plastic table out on the deck, left over from last week's wedding. I snag it, and discover that the legs come out/off. Perfect for packing in the trunk of my trusty old Nissan. I pack the car, discover I'm hungry, and eat half an avocado. Perfect! Got my jar of water, my hair looks good, I feel right in my puppeteer's black; I'm off!
Downtown in the Village on Saturdays, the Farmer's Market is the big draw. I'm due to perform at 10:30 in the adjacent King's Yard gazebo as part of the YSKP (Yellow Springs Kids' Playhouse) summer festival. Driving over, I have it in my mind that I'll have the perfect parking spot, and that is what happens. I begin unloading my equipment, and have only two trips to make, working my way through the crowded market place to the quieter gazebo area. There I encounter a group of Village music students, playing for donations for the schools' music programs. I explain to the directors that I've got a show scheduled, and we work out a time-share agreement for the space. These are some of the same kids who were in the "Borchestra" which accompanied Music Al's BIG SHOW earlier in the year. We appreciate each other.
Michelle, a high-schooler who's a YSKP intern, is there to help me set up the stage area. We get busy attatching tarp backdrop to gazebo with bungee cords, and then weighing down the bottom of the tarp with stones because of the breeze. I set up the stand with my new cardboard box theater atop it, and the little yellow table-cave next to that. Then Michelle and I get busy with my black cloth and a roll of tape, covering the stand and turning the table into the cave. It works! There's just enough cloth for the desired effect. We use more tape positioning Hootie's tree. Then we tape up the title of the show: Carolion and the Hoozits present TREASURE IN THE GLEN.
It's time for the school musicians to go to their next location, as Michelle and I spread the afghans and tell curious passers-by there'll be a show starting in a few minutes. Ready at last: Hootie is in her tree, the Stegosaurus in his cave, well hidden, and Music Al is behind the stage, preparing for his entrance. I've got the treasure map in my pocket.....And soon there are a group of us drumming and whacking pots and pans as our prelude to the show. Then....Ahhhhhhhh. I just fall into my very comfortable storyteller mode, setting the stage with words about the treasure map, and getting some audience particpation as children and parents become trees waving their branches in a dance to the music of my flute. The actual trees bordering the gazebo area begin to dance as well, as the breeze plays with all of us - and we believe, we believe. The floating colors of the scarves add more magic - I keep naming the colors wrong, and my audience corrects me, and one after another lovely floaty scarf gets tossed aside. We're looking for gold, so the treasure map can be right. We need gold. Ah, at last: the big yellow scarf and the smaller orange one become the famed Yellow Spring in the nearby Glen. That's gold. The green scarf gets tossed up into Hootie's tree to be leaves, and so we discover our wise owl, who is sitting in the branches.
Music Al makes his entrance, following me....He's always "late" because I pull him on a string...We sing Al's song because we always do; then we ask our audience members to hold the treasure map, which depicts a tree with an owl in it, a pool [the yellow spring], and a cave with a big X. I carry Music Al, playing "walking music" on his six-note xylophone spine as we walk off the stage and around the audience [through the Glen]. It's a tiny area, so I stop every few steps. "Are we there yet?" I ask. Our audience messes with us, telling us we ARE there, and every single time I look around and say, "That's not a cave - that's somebody's mom!" Giggles and more giggles. Finally we get back around to the stage, and the audience is pretty sure there's a cave. Hootie has already hinted that the treasure might be a golden dragon. Music Al isn't too sure about going into the cave...Finally, though, it's time to try.
I lift up the scarf covering the cave, and am immediately overwhelmed by children rushing up to touch the red-spotted yellow stegasaurus! I go with the flow - how not? They adore him! He tells them he's really not a dragon, he's actually the "last of the dinosaurs." Wow - not only do we have a Glen and a Yellow Spring here at the edge of our Village, but we also have a mysterious cave with the last of the dinosaurs. Wow again! The children decide his name must be "Dragon." So it all works out. They resume their seats so the show can go on.
I tell the children that it's very good luck to have a dragon fly over you. So they and I together are not surprised when Hootie volunteers to carry Dragon, to be his wings, since he doesn't have any of his own. Of course! How not? Dragon must fly. The children lie down, and Hootie/Dragon fly over them pouring good wishes and beauty into their hearts. Well, now! The story has ended just right, and we all truly played it together. It happened through us. Music Al and I sit down to sing and play a little goodbye song, and everyone joins in.
The show's over - though the audience was very small, suddenly there's a crowd and people taking pictures as children ask to pat Music Al and play a few notes on his spine. Someone even asks if I might do the show again, but no - not today, I say. Another time. Maybe in the library. A very little person takes a long time looking and looking at Music Al, and finally tiptoes up to touch his head, and then, at last, to play a few notes.
Time to wrap. Michelle, and now Melissa from YSKP help me make fast work of the tear-down and packing and toting-to-the-car. I'm happy. I'm high. Oh, this is the kind of puppetry I love to direct, and now am developing for myself. Improv makes me happy, that's all there is to it. I love to play.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Climbing Tree In The Glen - 1990
In my days as a naturalist in Eco-Camp at Glen Helen*, I alternated between Discovery groups (age 5-6) and Arts Camp groups (young teens interested in a combination of nature and arts). I loved both ages. I only had one really difficult group, and it was difficult simply because the young teens were so overloaded with sophistication that they were bored with the simple good things of life. Perhaps "bored" is the wrong word to use here. Actually, they seemed to have some sort of barrier against receiving the feeling-experience of Nature.
During most of their week of camp we did the usual things, which had always been rich and fascinating for my other groups: we hiked the Glen, found the bee tree, drank from the iron-golden waters of the yellow spring; we found snakes, walked the creek, and of course, made plenty of art. But there was no spark! The kids got most of their excitement from putting each other down and shifting little clique energies. The one thing that seemed to light them up just a little was our quick-time hike back for lunch on Wednesday: we passed the Climbing Tree. The Climbing Tree is a large old osage orange, long dead - and it's the only tree in the Glen that the campers are allowed to climb. That particular day we had no time to stop and climb, so I promised my young folks that we would hike to the Climbing Tree on Thursday night, which was always our no-flashlight hike night.
Thursday dawned, and my teens were again moody and clique-y and generally unpleasant in some elitist way I still could not break through. We were discussing our skit for Friday's end-of-camp performance. The skit the group was brainstorming was just plain unpleasant. I worked to open the kids to other ways of seeing, but had no real luck with that.
Finally evening came. All the groups of campers and their naturalists were gathering and heading out on the trails. The naturalists all had their stash of Wint-O-Green Lifesavers, the kind that, when you crunch down on them in the dark, produce flashes and sparks - our little bit of night magic. My group was eager - for once! - to get on down the trail. We got to the Climbing Tree, they began to climb into its limbs, and soon all six teens were up in the top of the Tree. Then - an act of God! I don't know how else to describe what happened. As soon as all the kids were up in the Tree, a whirlwind came and shook the Tree! Nothing else around was touched by that Wind. Not even I, standing at the base of the Tree, was touched. The Wind shook the Tree furiously, and scared those young people so that they all screamed for help!
I said, simply, "BREATHE." My presence, my voice, everything about me, was directing those kids to find their calm center, stop screaming, and breathe.
As soon as they did, the Wind stopped. Everything was perfectly calm. The campers came down out of the Tree and were in a hurry to get back to the dining hall and cocoa. We had to hike until it was pitch dark, first, of course, so they could bite their magic Lifesavers. I have to say, that little human magic was nothing compared to the holy terror they had just experienced in the Tree.
On Friday we hiked out to a good place to practice the end-of-camp skit. The kids had a lot of ideas, but mostly, they were developing something secret. I'm a theater person - I love directing improv and on-your-feet playwrighting - but this time the campers wanted to work without me. It felt all right for me to wait quietly at a distance down the trail. Their secret felt like a good one, not exclusivity.
Time came for the final cookout, whole-camp picnic, and all the skits. When my group got up, they amazed me with what they did - not because of how talented they were, or because of the quality of their work, but because, in the space of the last twenty-four hours they had made a sea-change as a group. They had been truly and deeply soul-shaken at the Climbing Tree. Their skit? They acted out what had happened to them in the Tree the previous evening. When they got to the part where I told them to breathe, the one who was playing me said, "BREATHE!" Something came through her voice and her presence. Something good, something right, something powerful - and the whole audience was still. We all felt it.
I think of that group of kids every now and then. Who could ever forget such a dramatic visitation? Whenever I feel discouraged about all the separativism and elitism and this-and-that-ism of divided, warmongering humanity, I think about that moment: the youngsters in the tree, the power of the wind, the strength of the breath - and I get very still inside, knowing that Love itself WILL intervene when the time is right. And then I just breathe.
During most of their week of camp we did the usual things, which had always been rich and fascinating for my other groups: we hiked the Glen, found the bee tree, drank from the iron-golden waters of the yellow spring; we found snakes, walked the creek, and of course, made plenty of art. But there was no spark! The kids got most of their excitement from putting each other down and shifting little clique energies. The one thing that seemed to light them up just a little was our quick-time hike back for lunch on Wednesday: we passed the Climbing Tree. The Climbing Tree is a large old osage orange, long dead - and it's the only tree in the Glen that the campers are allowed to climb. That particular day we had no time to stop and climb, so I promised my young folks that we would hike to the Climbing Tree on Thursday night, which was always our no-flashlight hike night.
Thursday dawned, and my teens were again moody and clique-y and generally unpleasant in some elitist way I still could not break through. We were discussing our skit for Friday's end-of-camp performance. The skit the group was brainstorming was just plain unpleasant. I worked to open the kids to other ways of seeing, but had no real luck with that.
Finally evening came. All the groups of campers and their naturalists were gathering and heading out on the trails. The naturalists all had their stash of Wint-O-Green Lifesavers, the kind that, when you crunch down on them in the dark, produce flashes and sparks - our little bit of night magic. My group was eager - for once! - to get on down the trail. We got to the Climbing Tree, they began to climb into its limbs, and soon all six teens were up in the top of the Tree. Then - an act of God! I don't know how else to describe what happened. As soon as all the kids were up in the Tree, a whirlwind came and shook the Tree! Nothing else around was touched by that Wind. Not even I, standing at the base of the Tree, was touched. The Wind shook the Tree furiously, and scared those young people so that they all screamed for help!
I said, simply, "BREATHE." My presence, my voice, everything about me, was directing those kids to find their calm center, stop screaming, and breathe.
As soon as they did, the Wind stopped. Everything was perfectly calm. The campers came down out of the Tree and were in a hurry to get back to the dining hall and cocoa. We had to hike until it was pitch dark, first, of course, so they could bite their magic Lifesavers. I have to say, that little human magic was nothing compared to the holy terror they had just experienced in the Tree.
On Friday we hiked out to a good place to practice the end-of-camp skit. The kids had a lot of ideas, but mostly, they were developing something secret. I'm a theater person - I love directing improv and on-your-feet playwrighting - but this time the campers wanted to work without me. It felt all right for me to wait quietly at a distance down the trail. Their secret felt like a good one, not exclusivity.
Time came for the final cookout, whole-camp picnic, and all the skits. When my group got up, they amazed me with what they did - not because of how talented they were, or because of the quality of their work, but because, in the space of the last twenty-four hours they had made a sea-change as a group. They had been truly and deeply soul-shaken at the Climbing Tree. Their skit? They acted out what had happened to them in the Tree the previous evening. When they got to the part where I told them to breathe, the one who was playing me said, "BREATHE!" Something came through her voice and her presence. Something good, something right, something powerful - and the whole audience was still. We all felt it.
I think of that group of kids every now and then. Who could ever forget such a dramatic visitation? Whenever I feel discouraged about all the separativism and elitism and this-and-that-ism of divided, warmongering humanity, I think about that moment: the youngsters in the tree, the power of the wind, the strength of the breath - and I get very still inside, knowing that Love itself WILL intervene when the time is right. And then I just breathe.
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About Me
- carolion
- Mother, grandma, gardener, all beings communicator, multi-religous/spiritual inner child folk minister, writer-singer-painter-puppeteer, dynamic peaceworker
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