Shadow Play

Last autumn I created a group of shadow puppets for the telling of a contemporary fairytale and finally, in May, was able to see the end result performance at a theatre near my home in Nantes. The shadow show is part of a larger work entitled "Les Fabuleuses Histoires du Fabularium", a charming piece full of humour and accordion music performed by Les Aretes du Biftek troupe:
http://lesaretesdubiftek.wix.com/lesaretesdubiftek

Below is the princess character minus her control rods...

She is beloved of the wolf, a dandified fellow who in some ways might not be all bad, although still obsessed with harassing pigs...

Here they are in performance...

And we all hope they lived happily ever after...

Or in the meanwhile at least had a very good time...

Beginnings

Once upon a time in the small season between seasons called March, in the kitchen of an ancient house tucked under the ruined walls of a medieval city an artist sat pondering this thing called a blog---wondering how to begin, how to share all the images and ideas from today and yesterday, from traveling here and there and beyond...And so it begins with an artists' residency at a petit theatre in the west of France. I am here to create a new work, jointly, with music and shadow puppets, projections and marionettes. But the beginnings of spring and the evocative remains of history beckon between work sessions--the ruins of a fortified chateau are outside the back doors of the theatre, beyond them a series of waterways bordered by an ancient mill and 15th century dovecote, first violets tucked among the mossy roots of a massive oak and the sound of bells and new lambs calling out to their mothers.