A Shortage of Realness
I've got nothing against taking kids to the movies. Disney has produced some great films. The Harry Potter movies are gorgeous, and the Narnia movie was pure gold.
But movies, even the best of them, are flat. 2-dimensional in ways that even 3-D glasses can't fix. They can't reach off the screen and engage your senses the way, oh, say...puppetry can. Do you sense a bias here? Sorry, can't help it. The world today suffers a severe shortage of realness, and live, physically manipulated entertainment helps fill the gap. Puppets are something you can put your hands on. Kids--well, they seem to be made of hands.
Duke Ellington's Cat at the Center for Puppetry Arts is, dare I cliché it, a feast for the senses. Featuring live vocal music, stop-motion animation, real-time shadow puppetry, rod puppets, and giant black-light-reactive flat puppets, it cavorts off the stage and grabs the attention--in fact, it breathlessly dances the attention around the room--of children, parents, grandparents, and the odd group of 30-somethings out for an afternoon.
skellington, partytrick, abovenyquist, and I surely made an odd group. I think we might have been the only people in the theater--not to mention the "cool cat" puppet making workshop beforehand--without children. But that was ok, because this show has something for everyone. There's slapstick comedy for the youngest, lively music and plenty of action for the too-young-to-care-about-being-cool set, and for the adults, a brief history of early 20th centry jazz.
Of course, it is Black History Month, and this performance showcased not only the positive influence of jazz on American music, but also dealt well with the more serious issues of the times. In fact, I was quite impressed with the way the show's tone darkened briefly on a few occasions, without dampening the joyous romp through a great man's life. It was as if the scriptwriter (the great Jon Ludwig of Avanti, da Vinci!) were saying, "here, this is what happened...discuss it with your kids later, but it's not what this story's about." It doesn't ignore the dark side of Black American history, it merely says, "we will not let the darkness steal the light's show." Moreover, it uses that darkness to highlight jazz's sister genre, the Blues, in a gorgeous live rendition of "Mood Indigo."
Possibly the best thing about a show at the Center is that, after the lights come up and the curtain comes down, and the magic gently recedes, the puppeteers introduce themselves and explain how the magic is done. And though it turns out to be everyday, dimestore magic, made of paint and paper, lights and a whole lot of teamwork, it's still magic, and still amazing. Possibly even more so. The performers love what they do, despite the tremendous physical toll taken by two or three of these energetic shows per day, and both the love and the energy find their way into the imaginations of the kids in the audience.
The Henson Foundation is heavily invested in the Center, which is the largest space devoted solely to puppetry in the US. In other words, Atlanta is not only the place to learn the craft, it's the place to get "discovered" as a puppeteer. Keep an eye on those kids in the audience. The wide-eyed one sitting next to you, mental gears turning madly, may just be the next Jim Henson.
(Duke Ellington's Cat is running through March 16th. Click here for tickets and show times.)
But movies, even the best of them, are flat. 2-dimensional in ways that even 3-D glasses can't fix. They can't reach off the screen and engage your senses the way, oh, say...puppetry can. Do you sense a bias here? Sorry, can't help it. The world today suffers a severe shortage of realness, and live, physically manipulated entertainment helps fill the gap. Puppets are something you can put your hands on. Kids--well, they seem to be made of hands.
Duke Ellington's Cat at the Center for Puppetry Arts is, dare I cliché it, a feast for the senses. Featuring live vocal music, stop-motion animation, real-time shadow puppetry, rod puppets, and giant black-light-reactive flat puppets, it cavorts off the stage and grabs the attention--in fact, it breathlessly dances the attention around the room--of children, parents, grandparents, and the odd group of 30-somethings out for an afternoon.
skellington, partytrick, abovenyquist, and I surely made an odd group. I think we might have been the only people in the theater--not to mention the "cool cat" puppet making workshop beforehand--without children. But that was ok, because this show has something for everyone. There's slapstick comedy for the youngest, lively music and plenty of action for the too-young-to-care-about-being-cool set, and for the adults, a brief history of early 20th centry jazz.
Of course, it is Black History Month, and this performance showcased not only the positive influence of jazz on American music, but also dealt well with the more serious issues of the times. In fact, I was quite impressed with the way the show's tone darkened briefly on a few occasions, without dampening the joyous romp through a great man's life. It was as if the scriptwriter (the great Jon Ludwig of Avanti, da Vinci!) were saying, "here, this is what happened...discuss it with your kids later, but it's not what this story's about." It doesn't ignore the dark side of Black American history, it merely says, "we will not let the darkness steal the light's show." Moreover, it uses that darkness to highlight jazz's sister genre, the Blues, in a gorgeous live rendition of "Mood Indigo."
Possibly the best thing about a show at the Center is that, after the lights come up and the curtain comes down, and the magic gently recedes, the puppeteers introduce themselves and explain how the magic is done. And though it turns out to be everyday, dimestore magic, made of paint and paper, lights and a whole lot of teamwork, it's still magic, and still amazing. Possibly even more so. The performers love what they do, despite the tremendous physical toll taken by two or three of these energetic shows per day, and both the love and the energy find their way into the imaginations of the kids in the audience.
The Henson Foundation is heavily invested in the Center, which is the largest space devoted solely to puppetry in the US. In other words, Atlanta is not only the place to learn the craft, it's the place to get "discovered" as a puppeteer. Keep an eye on those kids in the audience. The wide-eyed one sitting next to you, mental gears turning madly, may just be the next Jim Henson.
(Duke Ellington's Cat is running through March 16th. Click here for tickets and show times.)