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The admirable people.

Monkbot

Jul 13, ’11 2:48 PM

This is the “monkbot,” an exquisite 16th century automaton who now resides at the Smithsonian Institution. Photo by the talented Rosamond Purcell. Watch the Monkbot move in the video below.


From the Blackbird journal:

Driven by a key-wound spring, the monk walks in a square, striking his chest with his right arm, raising and lowering a small wooden cross and rosary in his left hand, turning and nodding his head, rolling his eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies. From time to time, he brings the cross to his lips and kisses it. After over 400 years, he remains in good working order. Tradition attributes his manufacture to one Juanelo Turriano, mechanician to Emperor Charles V. The story is told that the emperor’s son King Philip II, praying at the bedside of a dying son of his own, promised a miracle for a miracle, if his child be spared. And when the child did indeed recover, Philip kept his bargain by having Turriano construct a miniature penitent homunculus.

Via Boing Boing

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Clown Town

Jun 28, ’11 12:33 AM

I took a red nose clown workshop from Paola Coletto two weeks ago. One of the apprenticeship students, Ned Brower, doccumented our progress and just started putting photos on line this week. These are from an excercise we did on the last day of class when we swapped costumes and clowns with a partner.

Twin Sons of Different Mothers

That’s me and Alee as our clowns, Gar and Sparkle Grape. I’m not sure they’re if even from the same universe, but if they are they would not wish to be acknowledged by the other on the street.

As silly as the photos may seem, I feel really lucky to have found such excellent and uncommon training so soon after arriving in Chicago. I wouldn’t have known how to look for this kind of class if I tried. I stumbled into them really. My friend mentioned taking clown classes, I asked him about them and a few days later he introduced me to her at the opening of his show.

I’ve been fascinated by this kind of clown performance since seeing in Fellini’s La Strada for the first time. Innocent Gelsomina is an impossible situation and fails over and over again in a beautiful way. The little flame she started in my heart was fanned at Slava’s Snow Show. My mom bought tickets to it even though I thought it sounded dumb. Clowns mom? Come on! I came out of the theater totally flabbergasted by that show and immediately afterword I can’t remember if I speechless or wouldn’t shut up about it.

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Frayed Sew Online

Jun 25, ’11 1:10 PM

Helena’s one and only consignment craft boutique and best place to find a birthday present for my sister, just launched a brand new website. If you have never been up to Reeder’s Alley you’ve missed out on a really special nook in Helena’s history and a great part of town.

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Phantom Limb’s 69˚S

Jun 23, ’11 7:05 PM

These evocative marionettes were made for a new production called “69˚S.” by a New York puppet company called The Phantom Limb. This project has been in the works for a few years now and just a few days ago they got their last bit of funding.

I was excited to see this new work from them after hearing about this project from the artists who sat on a Henson Foundation panel I got to see in New York City last year. On the same trip I saw the Phantom Limb productionThe Devil You Know directed by Ping Cong.

I especially like the texture and detail in the costumes, it’s extraordinarily tricky to make fabric look like clothing at such a small scale. I love the sober expressions on the plainly formed heads. My first impression was that they were cut from blocks of gray styrofoam, then I thought maybe they were cast concrete. Now I’m convinced I have no idea what their made of, but I love their black eyes.

During the panel talk Jessica Grindstaff talked about the history of the company and how this project represented a lot of what they had learned from past productions. They got their start with some spectacular shows involving massive . She made special mention of the icebergs, and the creative thinking involved in creating the illusion of mass on stage.

Phantom Limb (Jessica Grindstaff & Erik Sanko, Co-Artistic Directors) is joined by an extraordinary team of multi-disciplinary collaborators. Synthesizing theater, dance, puppetry, photography, film, original contemporary music and an unconventional acoustic palette creating a stunning and evocative series of tableaux vivants that follows a group of gentlemen frozen (literally) in crisis.

Watch the video and you’ll see she solved the problem beautifully using fabric suspended from the fly. Stilt walking puppeteers are a bonus! Thanks to Taylor from the clown class for the link.

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Zhenya in Detroit

Jun 21, ’11 1:02 PM

I met Gene (AKA Zhenya, Euvgene) in 2005 when we both worked at the Paramount in Wellington. We were fast friends and collaborated on a few projects together. (Maybe you remember this?) We’ve been in intermittent contact since I moved off the Long White Cloud.

Gene’s visited the U.S. a few times since then, but every time he’s been stateside I’ve either been too far away or too broke to see him. But a few weeks ago Gene ventured outside of New York City and went on an impromptu tour of some great American cities, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago.

I jumped on the chance to meet Gene in Detroit, a city that looked close enough on the map to justify jumping in without much of a game plan. I meant to spend a day with him but we ended up spending the long weekend together.

THE SPIRAL

Gene filled me in on what he’s been up to for the past few years. Back in Wellington he had been performing a little, collaborating on a few shows, he started a theater company, produced some plays and even flew a director in from New York out for a production. But he told me, “I made a hundred bucks man, it just wasn’t worth it.” He swore theater off and focused on making music.

After several months of producing music and DJing in Wellington, Gene found himself in a Commedia del’Arte workshop given by this mad man. The work was powerful enough to inspire taking a significant risk, so after talking it over with Giovanni (the mad man) and Gene’s long time partner Erin, he took the plunge and for the past six months has been studying at Helikos, a small physical theater program in Florence, Italy.

As it turns out, the woman who gives the amazing red nose workshops I’ve been taking in Chicago, Paola Coletto worked with Giovanni to develop the previous incarnation of the school in the early 2000s. Small world right?

 

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