Mortal Beasts & Deities
Joyous purveyors of Earnest Frivolity, Felicitous Discord and Controlled Mayhem

Winter and Spring 2009 Season

GUATEMALA BELIZE LITERACY TOUR

Guatemala Belize Literacy Tour January and February 2009.

Dan juggling on stilts on the shores of Lake Atitilan. Mark Alexander photo.

Thanks mainly to the generosity of many friends and supporters of the Mortal Beasts & Deities and thanks also to Project Troubador for invaluable financial and practical assistance, the Mortal Beasts & Deities joined forces with the Rural Literacy Project and spent a big part of the winter on stilts touring the mountains of Guatemala and the beaches of Belize. They carried gifts of books in Spanish and English to restock libraries, and establish libraries. They also performed skits on stilts taken from some of the books left there, much to the delight of the people there.

It was an eye opening experience for the troupe and for those they encouraged to read. For more details and Geppetto’s reflections about the Guatemala Belize Literacy Tour, click here.

Stilt dancing in city square of Solola Guatemala. Peace Corps worker Sara Jablonski photo.

BACK IN THE USA!

In mid February the plane carrying the troupe back from balmy Central America landed in Miami for a stopover on its way back up to the New England cold. Geppetto disembarked and waved goodbye. No stilt dancing to do in New England’s winter, so why not spend the rest of the winter in Florida?

Once in the USA, the first order of business for Geppetto was to reunite with Super Sadie the Wonder Dog, who had been waiting patiently in Florida while Geppetto played in Central America.

Sadie. Mark Alexander photo.

Then Geppetto unpacked and washed Caribbean sand salt and tropical mountain grime out of the stilt costumes used on the tour, and put away the shorter than normal tour stilts and set to work tuning up his normal height performance stilts. The tour stilts were shorter simply to make backpacking through Central America, encumbered by lots of books, just a little bit easier. Then Geppetto put together several new stilt costumes, thanks to South Florida’s well stocked Goodwill Army stores, yard sales and some very-cool contributions from family.

MARDI-GRAS IN FLORIDA

Geppetto then joined forces with his stilt brother Rick for the rest his winter in the south, stilt dancing at numerous events in Florida. Most notable of these were the stilt dance gigs on Fat Tuesday on the Hollywood Beach boardwalk, a Space Coast Mardi-Gras gig at Cocoa Beach, and some careful stilt stepping at the Cow Chip Bingo fundraiser for Martin County High School’s Project Graduate.

Stilt Dancing at Hollywood Beach Mardi-Gras. Anonymous bystander photo.

Geppetto stilt dancing at Space Coast Mardi Gras. Christina Stuart photo published in FLORIDA TODAY newspaper.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

But even fun in the sun gets old after a while so in late March Sadie and Geppetto got in the old Volvo troupe carrier with its 318000 miles on the odometer, and headed north singing Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again”

Traveling with a dog like Sadie is such a pleasure for Geppetto. Sadie’s abundance of loyal loving and never complaining companionship, and also traveling with a dog means that the trip is broken up at easy intervals every couple hours for pleasant walks to clear the head and get the blood flowing and answer natural needs.

Not in any kind of hurry, Geppetto and Sadie stopped for a drive on the sand at Daytona Beach, just because Geppetto had always wanted to do it. Oddly, cars are allowed to drive on Daytona Beach but dogs are not allowed to run on Daytona Beach. Geppetto and Sadie had planned to stop to play, and get something to eat, but unfortunately there was little opportunity to ignore the unfair dog rule with Ranger Rick following and watching, so they drove north just a couple miles and bought lunch and took the long walk that Sadie had been promised. Geppetto and Sadie ate and ran for an hour or so on a very nice beach they found north of Daytona. They also met and played with a French Canadian dog and his people who said they had also skipped past the Daytona bistros for the same reason. Because of their unfair dog rule Daytona lost a little business that day.

Sadie in Volvo 240 troupe carrier with 318000 miles on Daytona Beach. Mark Alexander photo

Sadie and Geppetto kept a northern compass heading, and that evening they enjoyed a big dinner and copious wine and a restful night catching up with a friend in Jacksonville. The next night was spent enjoying a fine meal and comfortable accommodations and catching up with another friend in Wilmington North Carolina, although the attack cat guarding that home kept hassling Sadie all night. Obviously he thought that was his job, but Sadie always just ignores cats, preferring to just sit or sleep next to Geppetto. Very early the next morning the travelers got on the road again. Sleepless under siege the whole night before, Sadie slept more than normal that day.

Geppetto and Sadie ambled on up the coast to another friend’s home on the banks of the Chesapeake, near Baltimore. Geppetto makes giant puppets, stilt dances, runs a troupe, and is also an expert couch surfer. There are a few of these couch owners who get odd jobs done too… just about the only way to travel on Geppetto’s low wages.

WASHINGTON DC CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL

Meanwhile, back to the most important side of Geppetto’s life: Geppetto had long planned to stop in Washington DC, to soar a Dove puppet around the Lincoln Memorial for the National Cherry Blossom Festival on his way through in early April, but it was David Sharpe’s brilliant idea that he and Robin MacRostie and Maya Apfelbaum, three favorite stilt dancing troupe members from western Massachusetts, would travel down to join Geppetto and together they’d soar the whole Flock of Doves and Hawk. Troupe travel was planned and financed by David, and with the help of even more friends, Geppetto arranged troupe lodging for the weekend in Arlington Virginia, which served as an on-the-road studio where the details for the soar in DC were worked out. David even enlisted his family to come up from North Carolina to assist and witness the fun.

Hawk and Flock of Doves soar at the Lincoln Memorial. Richard Sharpe photo.

The soar of the Flock of Doves and Hawk amongst the cherry blossoms at their peak was absolutely fabulous on that warm sunny day! Early springtime in Washington DC is so beautiful and the city was brimming with people from all over the world who had gone there to celebrate the return of spring and bask in the gloriously sweet cherry blossoms.

Dove soars at the Washington DC Cherry Blossom Festival. Richard Sharpe photo.

Unfortunately, the national police in Washington DC, which is the home of homeland security, tend to take homeland security very seriously. Apparently the sight of a giant Hawk and a bunch of giant Doves cavorting on the National Mall made them feel a little insecure, so they turned Hawk and the Flock of Doves back. They were freaked out by the giant bird puppets, another consequence of 9/11. Geppetto felt badly for the insecurities of the police; being only half as big as a bird must be very frightening if you’re trained to protect the public from anything that might remotely resemble danger. But really, why fear doves? Oh well…. the police’s fear caused them to prevent the bird puppets from soaring the last few yards of their planned route. But that was fine because that didn’t happen until after Hawk and the Doves had already soared several hundred yards and awed many many people! And because the birds were so big the police did press for them to stop and disappear right away; Geppetto just extended the soar by convincing the police that the puppets had to retrace their route, soaring all the way back to the staging area roost on the banks of the Potomac River. So it was a very successful mission despite the interruption, and Hawk and the Flock of Doves spread copious grace and peace and positive good will to thousands of people.

David’s brother Richard Sharpe took lots of great pictures of the giant puppets on the mall and along the banks of the Potomac, including a fun little video of stilt puppeteer Maya Apfelbaum soaring a Dove.

Maya Apfelbaum soaring a dove at Washington DC 2009 Cherry Blossom Festival. Richard Sharpe video.

Before heading home, all four troupe members spent a night at Geppetto’s friend’s home near Baltimore, (Geppetto is always so grateful for friends!) and the next morning the three headed back north while Geppetto stayed on in the relatively warm weather on the banks of the Chesapeake for another couple weeks. Are you getting the theme of things here? Geppetto often sums it up by humming the Beatle’s song: “I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends!”

HOME!

Geppetto and Sadie finally got home to Connecticut in the dark wee hours of Easter morning, although they were a little upset to observe that Easter morning was considerably colder than Connecticut had been on Christmas morning before they left! But the shivering chill wracking their tropically thinned blood didn’t last long; spring finally sprung in New England a few days after they did.

Work began immediately upon Geppetto’s and Sadie’s return home. With the assistance of Robin MacRostie and Maya Apfelbaum and David Sharpe, choreography and movement design and costuming for New York Dance Parade was worked out as events for Spring 2009 started to blossom.

IN CLOWN WE TRUST

Thanks to MB&D friend, supporter and performer David Sharpe, Geppetto was encouraged and made able to attend a very cool In Clown We Trust workshop with Benedicta Bertau and Laura Geilen of Walking the Dog Theater. Held on April 25 & 26th in Spencertown New York, it was amazingly invigorating and empowering and inspiring. No, Geppetto didn’t do stilts or puppets, and no, he will not likely ever become a clown… his nose is quite big enough without putting on a red rubber one, thank you very much… but he will be incorporating the clown license and freedom to make his improvised shows more effective and fun. If it weren’t for the fun, it would be very unlikely Geppetto could ever be coaxed into going along with any of it. Never fear! Geppetto’s life is a boredom free zone, and after In Clown We Trust the whole world becomes available as fodder for fun!

MASSMoCA

Numerous rehearsals for Dance Parade were held in Connecticut and Massachusetts, including an invigorating one of stilt dancing to the rhythms of the Cuban Dance Party at MASSMoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams Massachusetts on May 1.

PEACEABLE PLANET PUPPET PARADE

A short respite from preparing for Dance Parade was offered by the fourth annual Mothers Day Peaceable Planet Puppet Parade in Northampton Massachusetts. Beth Fairservis again organized a great parade featuring many puppets, ending in a group prayer in Pulaski Park. New MB&D friend Keith Snow was the energetic puppeteer for giant puppet Archangel Gabriel, and Geppetto and Robin MacRostie were stilt puppeteers for giant puppets Bestemore and Bestefar. After the parade, in the shadow of the Music Academy in Northampton’s Pulaski Park where the parade left us, the stilt dancers had another Dance Parade rehearsal which elicited several encouraging responses from local observers.

THE EARLY SHOW ON CBS

Well before dawn the morning following the mother’s day parade and rehearsal in Northampton, four of Mortal Beasts & Deities’ dedicated and talented stilt dancers, Geppetto of course, but also Robin MacROstie, Maya Apfelbaum and Ezzell Floranina, drove on down to New York City for an appearance on the CBS TV The Early Show. MB&D had been promised an opportunity to perform on national TV and was honored to be invited to help promote Dance Parade.

But MB&D didn’t even get a chance to perform! Along with a few dozen other early rising dancers, MB&D was all warmed up and in costume and raring to dance for the world, but in their wisdom CBS instead merely used the dancers as an animated backdrop to The Early Show’s highly important and essential features that morning: one on how to accessorize ugly dresses with even uglier jewelry, and another on how to apply gobs of cake makeup to old ladies to make them look younger. Of course to some people these things might have been more important than seeing 30 costumed dancers from around the world displaying their pure joy of dance. But in fact, by ignoring all that free talent CBS really blew a good opportunity to do something for the community that would have held huge visual interest and inspired real positive energy in the public, and might have even been a positive experience for ugly dress lovers and cake makeup wearers.

Seeing CBS was asleep at the stick, in a ploy to attract some attention and some sort of acknowledgment of Dance Parade, towering above the action on his stilts, Geppetto reached over the velvet rope and dropped his costume hat onto the weatherman’s head. Without a pause the weather guy, inspired by the hat began to ignore the teleprompter and assumed the unscripted character of Wimpy from Popeye. He opened his forecast with: “If you buy me a hamburger today, I’ll gladly pay you on Tuesday!” Hey waddaya know! There was a brain in the pretty head holding up that very nice stilt dancer’s hat! Although a dim one, because it wouldn’t have taken much imagination for him to have segued into what the weather might be for the day of Dance Parade coming up, but then again, that guy lives in fake-by-design TV land, and certainly the conclusion that overly optimistic Geppetto drew considering that, was that he had done his best.

The CBS The Early Show thing overall was a rather disappointing time for the dancers, especially MB&D’s dancers, since none of them had gotten more than 3 hours sleep due to all the travel necessary to get into the city before dawn from their gig and rehearsal the night before up in Massachusetts. But Geppetto was grateful for the dancer’s perseverance and he is sorry it seemed like such a waste of energy, time and money from those that have little to spare. But really Geppetto’s largest regret about the whole fiasco was that he had sent out an email to the entire MB&D list suggesting that everyone tune into CBS to watch MB&D on National TV!

Probably MB&D’s loyal fans caused the Nielsen Ratings to show a blip for CBS that morning. Scores of calls and emails about the show came into the troupe’s switchboard over the next few days. MB&D fans left comments that could be summed up as: “We only saw you in the background! Did we miss your act?” No, no, no, you fans didn’t miss MB&D’s act. But CBS certainly missed theirs!

Geppetto reports the CBS experience had an invigorating fun energy nonetheless: he says just being in NYC alone can do that for him. New York is such an awesomely alive city where Geppetto says he’s never surprised to find surprises emerging from every corner. Gigs at Halloween Parade, The Cathedral of St John the Divine, the International Peace Vigil, Dance Parade, numerous protests and impromptu stealth gigs and even that May morning wasted at CBS Studios…. all events in New York have a common vibrancy; an energy attributable just to the city where so much happens all the time.

However, every time Geppetto goes into the city, he finds himself exceedingly happy for the contrast of returning to his little studio nestled deep in the quiet New England woods. No matter what time of the day or night he pulls in from city gigs, Geppetto immediately walks out amongst the trees and listens to the hum of the city echoing in his ears, and the ringing soon yields to the lovely peacefully absorbing sounds of rustling of leaves and whispering pines, the brook babbling, the chirping birds and the occasional deer snort.

NEW YORK DANCE PARADE

The New York Dance Parade was May 16th. Dance Parade is a favorite MB&D event, always full of the creative energy to be found in the international city. Even while he was working in the jungles of Guatemala, while New York was shrouded in slush and snow, Geppetto was dreaming and scheming about Dance Parade. At Dance Parade, thousands of dancers representing dance modalities from all over the world converge on New York and dance down Broadway from 28th street in Chelsea, through Union Square, down University Place and out 8th Street and St Marks to Tompkins Square in the East Village, where the parade turns into a festival full of several hours of dancers and musicians and artists networking and showing off.

MB&D at New York Dance Parade 2009. Elizabeth photo.

This year the goal for Geppetto at Dance Parade was to finally succeed in creating a series of unified dance movements that would create the illusion of a well rehearsed and synchronized dance company, out of MB&D’s pick-up style troupe of stilt dancers. A little like making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, except much taller.

With Latin rhythms still reverberating through Geppetto, he decided to base MB&D’s Dance Parade performance on Salsa this year, so he created costumes of colorful tropical shirts (actually Hawaiian but they worked) with white gloves as accents. Geppetto and Robin made several new pairs of black stilt pants for everyone in an effort to pull the troupe’s visual identity together and highlight the floral Caribbean/Latin flavor of the shirts. The troupe looked sharp!

MB&D Stilt Dancers at New York Dance Parade by the Flatiron Building in Union Square. Elizabeth photo.

To create MB&D’s movement design for Dance Parade (loosely referred to as choreography), Geppetto needed lots of help. It is such a blessing that Robin MacRostie, Maya Apfelbaum and David Sharpe are members of the troupe and also talented dancers, performers and artists in their own right! Together with them, Geppetto developed and fine tuned several patterns of movement. It wouldn’t have been possible without their help. Some of these patterns of movement were called line soar, group soar, side line, two side lines, side line switch, switch and weave, solo circle, solo lines, wing twirl, pin wheel and london bridge. Geppetto would then call out the pattern and name a leader, with the leader role being rotated through each of the troupe members. The troupe members would assume the memorized patterns called out, and then follow the dance style and rhythms improvised by the named leader! After several rehearsals to memorize the patterns and their commands, at Dance Parade it worked out beautifully! Just about everyone was able to maintain the illusion of synchronized dance moves, for just about the whole 2 ½ to 3 miles of the parade! Everyone had the chance to showboat, and each pulled off some very inspired stilt dance moves!

Of course the main reason Dance Parade worked out so well and was so much fun was that the stilt dancers at Dance Parade this year were MB&D’s premium stilt dancers! Geppetto was there of course, but also Robin MacRostie, Maya Apfelbaum, David Sharpe, Jeffrey Hammond and Ezzell Floranina.

Geppetto was very excited to have stilt dancer Marta Mozelle there too, but for the first time in a long while Geppetto didn’t think to load up an extra pair of emergency stilts; which turned out to be a huge omission that day, because he had thought Marta was bringing her own stilts and Marta had thought Geppetto was bringing a pair of stilts for her. It was just one of those snags that can happen and Geppetto has been kicking himself about it since. But truthfully, in the end Marta was a real trouper over the mix-up, and she was fine with acting as the troupe sherpa, which we desperately needed anyway and were short of for Dance Parade this year.

MB&D stilt dancers at New York Dance Parade. wlinden video.

MB&D at New York Dance Parade, with Maya soloing. So n so’s video.

MB&D sherpas have the job of following the stilt dancers on the parade route and carrying performer’s water bottles and cell phones and small backpacks with street clothes and maybe jackets, and also to take pictures. Some of the troupe’s best pictures of parades have come from sherpas, who are also at parades to assist stilters when they need someone on foot. Marta was a great sherpa, and she took some fabulous photos. Another wonderful sherpa was David’s friend Elizabeth, visiting from Austin Texas. And of course Jim Britt, a long time MB&D stilt dancer and puppeteer currently with a (hopefully temporary) bone spur in his heel, he cooled his heels at the end of the parade, taking care of security detail as Geppetto and the others danced in the parade. Jim put on his mean and nasty threatening face to guard the costume rack and the stilter’s platform that was stashed in the park where the parade ended. As the parade came into the park he even took a few fine pictures, too!

Robin of MB&D Stilt Dancing at New York Dance Parade on St Mark’s Place. Elizabeth photo.

It is puzzling why it is sometimes so hard for Geppetto to recruit ground crew sherpas. Who knows? Perhaps it’s the name ‘sherpa’ that frightens people, sounding like it does as if they’ll get stuck carrying Volkswagen sized back packs and be forced to climb icy mountain peaks low on oxygen. Fact is MB&D sherpas get to enjoy a fun position from which to enjoy parades and events, and they get to travel and score free tickets to cool events and cast parties where applicable, and even get free meals sometimes, and on occasion they even earn a payday when available. So if any of you reading this think you might have fun being involved with the inner workings of a stilt dance event, but don’t think you would want to get up on stilts yourself, then just let Geppetto know and he’ll certainly consider calling you in as a ground crew sherpa in the future! Sherpas are valuable MB&D crew members that are necessary at numerous events every year!

Right now Geppetto is in the middle of teaching a series of stilt walking workshops at Webutuck Middle School in Amenia New York.

Last weekend was another absolutely inspiring In Clown We Trust workshop with Benedicta Bertau and Laura Geilen of Walking the Dog Theater, this time thanks to some MB&D friends it was held at Lupinwood in Greenfield Massachusetts with another bunch of cool people.

But the odyssey never seems to end. There’s no resting on laurels for the Mortal Beasts & Deities and Geppetto. There are several other adventures and shows approaching on the near horizon that all have details that need attending to, because as usual, MB&D has many fun events to play. Next weekend soaring a Dove on the Norfolk Connecticut town green with the Norfolk Congregational Church, and then June 27th Project Troubador Grove Festival. And more that frankly are hard to keep straight, but the fact is that MB&D and Geppetto and lots of people always seem to pull it off, and each event always contrasts beautifully with the events that preceded it and soon follow it.

To see a listing of MB&D’s scheduled troupe movements up to Halloween 2009, or even scan through the listing of past troupe movements since October 2006, click here.

And of course, always stay tuned here for more New News Maybe News Old News, occasionally posted in all frankness by Geppetto’s imaginary friend Frank! (Frank is to Geppetto what Jiminy Cricket is to Pinocchio, only much taller!)

• October November December 2008: Geppetto earnestly intended to keep up with these updates but frivolity seems to have prevailed. Apparently there’s been more mayhem than control. Oh well, balance isn’t everything.

  .
  
  .
  There’s a new/old video of the Flock of Doves! Sam Haber of uneedfilms.com made this splendid piece last year at Wisdom House in Litchfield, but the video has just now been posted on YouTube for you to enjoy! Sam created an art work of his own out of footage he captured of MB&D’s performance art. Check it out!
  .
  It was a dark and stormy night…. in New Haven that is, for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Night Walk. Held at Lighthouse Point Park on a spit of land sticking way out into Long Island Sound, the whipping wind and threatening rain kept smart folks indoors, but Geppetto and brother Rick stilt danced anyway, much to the amazement of several hundred hearty walkers out there braving the building storm. The wind held steady at 35 mph, with several 50 mph gusts recorded. These conditions definitely posed a challenge for stilt dancing, so Geppetto gave up the actual dancing aspect. Instead he fashioned a set of wings out of a white tarp, and it was a night of awesome fun, leaning into the buffeting wind which held him at an unnatural precarious angle. He found the hardest part was when he turned away from the wind the tarp would wrap itself around his head and very tall body and flap vigorously. This created a deafening roar, and being momentarily blinded he had to keep a safe distance from pedestrians; which was not a problem anyway since most of the people were all huddled together in groups behind buildings and flapping tent walls, and except for being wet with salt spray, and later from the driving rain that dumped in earnest just as the stilting part was finishing up, everyone came through unscathed.
  .

  The sun came out the next day. It was the kind of day God must have made October for, perfect weather for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Ghouls and Gourds Festival. Geppetto and his brother Rick met the rest of the cast there for an improvised version of Resolution Revolution on the Ghouls and Gourds main stage under the big top. Geppetto performed lead Dove and Kyler and Ezzell made up the rest of the Flock of Doves. Robin played a fantastic Rooster and Erik played Hawk. Brother Rick was again irreplaceable as crew, since the path the stilt puppets had to take from the dressing area, through the green room and up into the stage involved a set of stairs in plain view of the audience, where Rick’s discrete hand holding was absolutely essential. Fabulous music accompaniment was provided by John Bertles’ band ‘Bash the Trash,’ who we had just met that day. Turned out beautifully in the end, perhaps the most moving and memorable performance of Resolution Revolution ever, but it certainly got off to a very rough start. Three steps out onto the stage and Lead Dove Geppetto slipped and crashed on the glossy painted stage surface. Gasps from several thousand onlookers echoed through the big top, but the band didn’t miss a beat. Shaking himself off Geppetto felt he was okay. He flashed his thumbs-up signal. Turns out adrenalin does amazing things; Geppetto really wasn’t okay, later discovering two broken ribs. But the show must go on, so Res Rev was started over, and it was simply beautiful.
  .

  Later on that day in Brooklyn, the Dove puppets were stowed and the stilt dancers took to frolicking with a very appreciative audience of thousands. Then at the end of the festival, the stilt dancers donned their glittering costumes and instruments and took their place at the front of the festival parade that was forming at main stage. As the Black and Gold Band they led the parade through the paths and roads of the gardens on their stilts, with their offbeat rhythms and belching horns making music with the screams of glee all the way through and ending with wild stilt dancing in the center of a huge drum circle. Late that night on the way home from Brooklyn Geppetto remarked that his ribs reminded him he really is just an old guy playing a young guy’s game, but that he’ll just ignore it and keep going anyway.
  .

  Halloween in 2008 was on a clear and warm Friday night, so the NYC Village Halloween Parade was even more jam packed with revelry than usual! That is a large statement, since even when the weather and calendar doesn’t make conditions ideal, the NYC Village Halloween Parade is the largest Halloween parade in the world. There were countless millions of people lining the Avenue of the Americas and tens of thousands of people actually participating in the parade.
  This year the theme was ‘Ghosts.’ Parade director Jeanne Flemming instructed all the stilt dancers from MB&D and Bond Street Theater who lead the parade to come as “white and fluttering ghosts.” Frantically costuming the week before, MB&D’s Maya, David, Robin, Marta, Erik, Rick, Dona, Jim and Geppetto were certainly decked out in white and fluttering. Ghostly they were, in outrageous Casper-like ghosts, and joined by the white and fluttering ghosts from Bond Street Theater, they revved up the crowds in fine tall style. Geppetto’s slower stilt dance antics due to his slowly healing ribs were not noticed because he made up for it with more attention paid to intimate interactions with people on the sidelines. It was a fantastic night, though there were a few snags, such as the traditional sweepers in front of us, who’s job it is to symbolically clear the automotive filth and the city’s day-to-day vibe from the street, had a leaking bubble machine, which created many slippery patches of bubble juice that the stilt dancers had to watch out for, and there were no crashes. Then after the parade, well past midnight, David was stuck in traffic on the West Side Drive for more than three hours trying to get through the Lincoln Tunnel. Geppetto had to drive into the city with the car loaded with stilt gear and costumes, but the other MB&D’ers took public transportation, except for David who drove in because for him, NYC was merely a stopover on his way from Massachusetts to North Carolina. Everyone left all at the same time, but Geppetto and brother Rick were pulling into the woods of northwest Connecticut and nearing the studio, just as David finally got across the Hudson river. Frustrating and exhausting for David after hours of stilt dancing, so no doubt next year he’ll take the train.
  .

  The Outerspace Party was the Saturday night after Halloween. The Outerspace Party is a private party put on by the Outerspace Band, which after 40 years holds the undisputed record for making funky R&B music together the longest time without ever scoring a recording contract. The party is for 300 of Outerspace’s and Geppetto’s friends and neighbors, so for MB&D its a small event these days, but its always a special night. MB&D staged the Casper-like ghosts used the previous night at NYC Halloween Parade. Geppetto made a very short appearance on stilts, but since he was still seriously sore he stepped back as the rest of the MB&D’ers there that night indulged in a longer set of rambunctious stilt dancing. Towards the end, Geppetto climbed under the giant puppet Gabriel for a huge ceiling scraping entrance and enormous dancing with the band. Jim, Rick, Dona and Geppetto had a great time at the Outerspace Party closing out the official MB&D season in style.
  .

  The Thanksgiving Service at the Salisbury Congregation Church was November 23rd, and with the Rev Richard Taber’s impending retirement it was a perfect time for Geppetto to express his gratitude for the kick start Dick Taber and the congregation had given MB&D by picking up the commission to create the Flock of Doves for their Pentecost service back in 2005. The Flock of Doves that Sunday were puppeteered by Jeffrey as lead dove, and Robin, and also Desean, who was one of the original puppeteers in 2005. Shorter stilts were used this time so that the Doves could avoid the head splitting experience of crashing their heads into the bottom edges of the balconies as they had in 2005. Tears of joy were witnessed in all the pews as Eliot Osborn elegantly played Ferlin Huskey’s “On the Wings of a Snow-White Dove” and the doves cavorted and blessed. Plainly put, it was most memorable and moving. Geppetto lives for times like these.
  .

  Stay tuned for reports on the giant Christmas Pageant puppets in New Jersey and also news of the upcoming Guatemala Belize Literacy Tour!

• Ocober 18, 2008: So much controlled mayhem and earnest frivolity has gone down that October 4th seems like ages ago, but it was really only a coupe weeks back. Details pulled together at the last minute for a successful show in Newburgh New York for the African American Multicultural Unity Day Parade and Festival. The MB&D stilter’s platform was set up at the historic General Washington’s Headquarters along the banks of the Hudson River. There was an opportunity for the on-time puppeteers to take a little tour, and there were some fabulous things to see! One was a copy of Copley’s portrait of Washington that everyone would recognize, this one copied by Asher Durand, one of the most famous of the Hudson River School painters. Beautiful painting with an interesting provenance. Geppetto wants to return there someday when he’ll have more time to explore. But in any event, the whole day turned out to be beautiful. Very sunny but not hot. Perfect weather, and never before has Geppetto seen so many beautiful children at one place at one time! They certainly pulled at his heart strings. The Doves did a great job in the parade. New dove puppeteer Robin, and second time dove puppeteer Ezzell, were led by Geppetto, who hadn’t done a dove puppet since his knee injury in early August. Sweating but sweet soaring! Videographer Sam “Agent Q” Haber captured more footage for the ongoing Leesa Sklover music video project, this time of the graceful soaring of the Doves against a depressed urban backdrop, tempered by hundreds of appreciatively bright beaming faces. As soon as the parade ended the dove puppeteers and even Rick the spotter/dresser of the day changed into stilt dance costumes and hopped up into the festival. Rick played on the jungle gym with the rambunctious kids and danced with the grinning grandmas. Geppetto greatly appreciated Robin and Ezzell’s perseverance performing so gracefully with those challenging Doves, and the crowds obviously appreciated them when they came out to play at the festival too. For the first time ever, Geppetto was the youngest troupe member present. There was a hot drum and dance corps there, and after the parade they arranged themselves in a huge circle in the street. The majorettes invited Geppetto in to dance, and he didn’t do too badly for a way tall old white guy with a bad knee. The knee held up for 20 minutes of tall mimicked hip hop and a little imitation Thula Sizwe, and Geppetto’s exploration of the sounds of his stilts banging as they rapidly slammed into the pavement. Geppetto’s efforts were answered by abundant cheers and knuckle bashing and high fives. Always such rich rewards. It was a splendid day, made especially so due to providing heartfelt support for the cause of multicultural unity. Geppetto and all MB&D’rs present, and no doubt even the MB&D’rs not present too, sincerely hope the day encouraged a sense of pride and community for Newburgh.

  Then on Saturday October 11th several stilt dancers stormed through the bucolic New England village of Salisbury Connecticut, home town to Geppetto and a few of MB&D’s puppeteers and stilt dancers, for Salisbury Fall Festival. Unlike past years, this time six of MB&D’s stilt dancers dressed in Guatemalan themed costumes and cajoled people over to the MB&D table where Jill Gibbons, a long time friend of Geppetto’s, a strong MB&D supporter, and also a troupe parent, filled everyone in on the details of the upcoming Guatemala Belize Literacy Tour. A wide selection of authentic hand made Guatemalan bags and accessories were sold to make money for the tour, and many contacts were made for more fundraising. Special mention must be made for 12 year old Emily Gibbons, Jeffrey’s cousin from Pennsylvania, who had her first stilt walking lesson about 10am Saturday morning. By noon she was in costume and out stilt dancing well above the streets! Such a champion! Geppetto hopes Emily can come out to play with MB&D again one day real soon!

  As an old art school buddy used to tell Geppetto, ‘there ain’t no rest for the weary or the wicked!’ True enough words that he’s forgiven for pro’lly stealin’ ‘em. The next day Sunday October 12th a MB&D duo headed out to Cambridge for stilt dancing at HONK! Fest in Harvard Square, Cambridge Massachusetts. HONK! Fest celebrates large outrageous horn bands playing all-out music with sounds reminiscent of Circus/Klesmer/Funk/Dixieland. Lots of horns and drums. There were 27 or so honk bands in Harvard Square for HONK! Fest this year, coming in from North Carolina, Oregon, Brooklyn, Ohio, Chicago, Canada and lots of other places around the world, even a band from Rome. By the end of the festival no doubt there was enough horn spit and busted drum sticks in the streets of Harvard Square to choke the most efficient street sweeper! Many of the honk bands perform with added atmospheric attractions like acrobats, tumblers, fire spinners, jugglers, sword swallowers, stilt walkers, unicyclists and lots of other crazy stuff that adds to the fun, and that’s where MB&D’s duo of stilt dancers entered the fray. They joined up with Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band and Madcap Rumpus Society, the honk host band and performance art ensemble based in Sommerville Massachusetts. Emperor Norton abandoned the ‘Stationary’ part of their name, and MB&D stilt danced with them for the two mile HONK! Parade from Davis Square, down Massachusetts Avenue through Porter Square, and on into Harvard Square. Then after the parade they separated from Emperor Norton and stilt danced with several other bands that mixed and matched and commenced jamming on all the street corners and also stilt danced with the bands playing in more formal arrangements on several stages as well. Geppetto had been fooling around with some new dance steps culled from encounters with the Hip Hop sounds the band at Newburgh played, and other Hip Hop bands experienced over the past season. At HONK! Fest Geppetto began to discover, or maybe Geppetto invented, a new stilt dance step he’s calling Skip Hop (thanks for the name, Sharpie!). Skip Hop involves turning the wood stilt pegs into a percussive musical instrument with skipping moves that bang out an accompanying rhythm while the upper body and arms are busy with Hip Hop’s jerky aerobic moves. Very exciting to do and apparently interesting to watch. And loud! Geppetto left behind about two inches of worn out stilt peg in Harvard Square that day! Afterwards, needing to recover, Geppetto and his brother Rick decided to ignore the adage about no rest, so they both took the next forty eight hours as zero mile days, sleepin and chillin and grinnin all at once!

  Its time now for Geppetto to pack up for a scheduled afternoon of teaching several individual stilt walk lessons, and then he’s off to a video shoot of his Lion and Lamb puppets for the Leesa Sklover music video. The next weekend will bring another couple days packed with incessant fun, in New Haven and Brooklyn. Then the week after that is Halloween in New York City with some seriously silly splendor scheduled in Greenwich Village and then back to Connecticut for the annual Outerspace party. Wheww!

• Ocober 1, 2008: MB&D is plannin and packin, gettin excited for Saturday the 4th, when they finally get to play in Newburgh New York. This will be the make up day for the rained out September 6th event. The Flock of Doves and Hawk will be soaring in the celebrations at the African-American Day Parade and then the Multi-Cultural Unity Day Festival immediately following. This has been a rough gig to get going, but perseverance always pays off, and details are starting to fall into place. All three doves of the flock have been reborn and are back to life better than ever now after losing some of them to the Falcon Ridge tornado. The cast for this show has shuffled again and again due to date change and now several puppeteer’s busy lives getting busier. Although Geppetto much prefers casting to be all set and finalized several weeks in advance, only two days to curtain and finally a nice cast with a lot of promise has been secured. A funny thing happened to mess with Geppetto’s head today. Tryng to set final details, the event producers told MB&D to report to Frederick Douglas at Washington’s Headquarters, and be prepared to have the Flock of Doves step to the front of the parade from there. Oh dear, Toto! This certainly doesn’t feel like Newburgh anymore! But a few google searches and phone calls resolved Geppetto’s ignorance. There’s an historic site in Newburgh called Washington’s Headquarters (Geppetto learned Washington headquartered there during the Revolutionary War), and Frederick Douglas will indeed return by way of a character actor (bet he’s exhausted after all he did with Lincoln during the Civil War)! Ha! Who knew? ANyway, our staging area is inside Washington’ headquarters! Now even George Washington can boast that the Flock of Doves roosted there! Now they’ll have to get another cool plaque engraved!

  On September 14th, Geppetto’s brother Rick soared a dove and later, stilt danced, at the Vigil For International Peace. He really wowed them in Prospect Park in Brooklyn New York that day. Geppetto was hesitant to set this gig when the promoters called at the last minute, because he had already made important plans elsewhere that were impossible to change. But Rick was available, and certainly capable, so Geppetto broke his longstanding rule about personally being at every MB&D gig. Geppetto is often not on stilts or doing the puppeteering, and sometimes he never emerges from backstage, but the fact is even if only behind the scenes, he’s been at every MB&D show. Geppetto’s accomplished brother Rick had been up north joining MB&D for several shows this summer and fall, and last year Rick had been doing several of his own stilting shows around Florida perfecting in his own clown style stilt stuff. Rick has even redesigned and built a prototype for new stilts. His idea of a hinged foot bed is apparently working well. Anyway, reports are that Rick had a great time, and he pulled off the Brooklyn Vigil very nicely, with the help of an event volunteer on spotter and dresser detail. A couple nice pictures came from that day too. Wheww!

  Geppetto hadn’t been on stilts since August 17th. He had to rest his knee injury from early August. He hoped his knee had healed up enough for his solo stilt dance gig to rev up the crowds at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light The Night Walk in Hartford on September 25 th, but then at the last minute he decided that just in case he had been overly optimistic, he’d take his brother Rick along too (Overly optimistic? NOT Geppetto! Of course not!). It has been great Rick has been around, even though it turned out Geppetto’s knee was fine that night, and for the next couple days it was only a little bit sore. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society got two stilt dancers for the price of one, and Rick and Geppetto had a blast together! Anyway, the other worry that night was that the weather forecast was for strong storms, but they held off till later. Perfect. See, like Geppetto always says… do good work and good things happen! Hopefully optimism will continue to rule on knee and weather status for Geppetto’s next solo stilt dance gig with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in New Haven later on in October.

  The next MB&D gig, the next Saturday, was at White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield Connecticut. They had a great Festival planned, but again the weather forecast was terrible. The festival was moved indoors, and Hawk and the Flock of Doves were almost canceled because of the expected rain, but Geppetto had a gut feeling that he needed to go for it. See, he often wonders, why are all the forecasters always so pessimistic? Why say there’s a 90% chance of heavy rain? Even if that is the case, the fact is there’s still a 10% chance it won’t rain. And on September 27th, it didn’t rain on Hawk or the Flock of Doves! It rained before and after their several appearances, but it didn’t rain on their shows! Cool! Optimism prevails, yet again!
  And the shows were beautiful, too. Although due to the forecast, the crowds weren’t as large as expected, they certainly made up for their low numbers with their high spirits. It was exciting for MB&D too because two new stilted bird puppeteers joined this cast (Maya and David) and they did a great job following seasoned lead dove Jeffrey, and added their own creativity to the show. David’s unique posture really is more dove-like than Geppetto had thought it would be. Maya combined the move that MB&D calls feeding frenzy with the move called the blessing. Her dove shimmied and shook, and the people below her had the unmistakable impression that the dove was making a spiritual connection with them, with intense eye contact with each of them personally. Then later, Hawk and Dove (Rick and Jeffrey) practiced the new move called jousting. Geppetto discovered jousting is just as exciting to see as it is to do. Jousting involves two stilted bird puppets at 30 yards, a standoff reminiscent of gun fighters in a duel in wild west movies. Then instead of drawing six shooters, they jump up and soar towards one another at high speed, and then at the last minute they tuck their left wings and pass each other with a spin to the right. Fabulous. The splendid grounds at White Memorial, with all those majestic trees and bucolic fields bathed in that serene light of that overcast day was perfect for photography, and also for the filming of some footage for the Leesa Sklover music video MB&D has been working on for her song Universe Road. Another cool thing that happened at White Memorial that day was the perfect opportunity to hold a meet and greet with the cast that’s going on the Guatemala and Belize Rural Literacy Project tour this winter. Everyone is excited, but needed to get better acquainted with everyone else involved with the tour. Seems they’ll get along fine.

  Last few weeks Geppetto has been busy working with Project Troubador and Rural Literacy Project on details for the stilt dance tour of Latin America this winter. Budgets, financing (These two essential items cause Geppetto’s head to set off a spinning like Linda Blair’s in the Exorcist… tis a good thing Louise and Sue are on the job!), fund raising, itinerary, reservations, book seeking, connections with communities needing libraries, networking with host families, and the initial stages of writing MB&D style skits illustrating some of the stories in the books they’ll be leaving in the rural communities. Lots to do. So exciting!

  And last but not least, the old black Volvo 240 wagon that the Mortal Beasts & Deities uses as the main troupe carrier had a momentous day this week! The odometer rolled past 300,000 miles! It’s certainly not much like a new car anymore, but it isn’t rusty and it still goes strong every day!

• August 27, 2008: Its been an incessantly joyous summer season for the Mortal Beasts & Deities! So much has been going on the last few months, Geppetto hasn’t seen to New News Maybe News Old News updates! Here’s a taste of some of the shenanigans:

  Geppetto returned from Taos New Mexico in one piece, feeling encouraged by the generosity of a few special people, including the ‘Newborn’ family, Geppetto’s family, and even the airline porters in Albuquerque, who waived oversize baggage fees (the crate with Geppetto’s stilts and Dove puppet measured too big) so he could fly back to the home studio cottage in the woods feeling inspired, rewarded and refreshed.

  Falcon Ridge 2008 never saw the Flock of Doves soar because of the weather. Frequent rain storms kept things damp, but there was still plenty of controlled mayhem, and some mayhem not so controlled. The debut of the Mona and Leo show on Falcon Ridge Family Stage went okay, although not as Geppetto had pictured it. The actor puppeteers played very well. Script was only okay, but then tremendous rain forced some of the puppets in the show to make pre-cue entries onto the stage. The thunderous drumming of rain on the big tent top drowned out almost all the dialog… but Geppetto heard it, and thought some of the work on that stage was pure genius improv, making something out of the bashed-to-bits something else! Too bad the audience missed much of it. The most memorable MB&D action at Falcon Ridge 2008 turned out was not on Family Stage, but in the dance tent. Two nights of zydeco stilt dancing, swing stilt dancing and some mummeresk stilt dancing with Gandolf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. Geppetto even got a proposal for marriage! One afternoon the troupe of stilt dancers cruised mainstage and the midway, stopping to create a cool rhythm band by stilt kicking the trash barrels and adding occasional crash cymbals by kicking the recycled bottle barrels.

  Falcon Ridge stilt dancing drew to a finish when mid-arabesque Geppetto slipped in the mud and crashed. No injuries, but the crash foreshadowed the theme of 2008 Falcon Ridge. By the end, weather was the news at Falcon Ridge 2008. Sunday afternoon it started to rain really really hard again. Then a mustache bending wind picked up. Then the hail made it dangerous mustache breaking wind, so the puppeteers jumped into the puppet tent and successfully saved it from being blown to the Land of Oz. When the tornado and hail calmed, MB&D was overjoyed to emerge and see that the puppet tent was still standing, even though all the other puppet camp tents and hundreds of other tents had been blown down. Even a couple of the huge commercial tents blew down! But the joy was short lived. The puppet tent filled with water when the flash floods came. Doves aren’t water birds. Doves don’t swim. Two of the dove puppets drowned, their papier mache heads turned into a pulpy melted mush by the floods, much like the wicked witch from the west. All the dove feathers and almost all the stilt costumes were wet and stained the color of Hillsdale mud. Devastating. This video found on YouTube shows the Mortal Beasts & Deities camp at Falcon Ridge, shot soon after the flood had receded a bit. The puppets had already been rushed to safety out of the large tent seen still standing.
  

  Two weeks of puppet rebuilding and feathering work later, two of the three doves were ready to fly again, like a pair of phoenix after a fire, just hours before the weekend gig to soar at the Audubon Sharon Festival! They looked marvelous! Splendidly majestic soaring! At the Audubon show the Dove puppeteers developed an exciting new series of moves they’ve been calling ‘jousting.’ But due to the rainy summer thus far, the ground at Audubon was soft. Geppetto’s left stilt sank in the turf and stuck fast, six inches deep. Not usually a big problem, but Geppetto was moving onward in a dove, and his knee got bent the wrong way. Tooth gritting got him through the rest of the show and the next three days of performances and three afternoons leading stilt dance lessons. Since then Geppetto’s knee has been in the shop for repairs, repairs he’s finding a tad more complicated than adjusting a puppet’s screw eyes. Obviously Geppetto will have to be even more reliant on the troupe’s able stable of stilt dancers and stilt dance puppeteers in the coming months, but it looks as if Geppetto’s knee will be ready for a few of the upcoming shows where he is scheduled solo. Always something to be grateful for!

  Annalee and Teddy, two beautiful girls visiting from Fort Worth Texas, became stilt dancers in three days, and with their can-do attitudes and love for dance, they got up into step quickly. They literally sparkled at the Music Mountain show, along with the troupe that included Carrie and Heather and Rick and Kyler and Jeffrey and Erik and Geppetto. Nine performers presenting eleven characters! A great photo of Erik and Geppetto stilt dancing was published in that week’s Lakeville Journal. Following the theme of the summer, rain shortened the Music Mountain show by an hour, but by that time MB&D had already wowed ‘em all!

  The Soapbox Derby in Kingston was perfect! This year Jeanne Fleming’s troupe created a giant puppet show about the restored walking bridge in Poughkeepsie, which lightened up the responsibility of MB&D’s annual tradition opening the Derby. Geppetto and his visiting stilt dancing brother Rick created a stilt dance twin duo, and Michael Angelo and Nate Britt, MB&D stilt dancer Jim’s brother and nephew, created a very cool video of their stilt dancing at the Soapbox Derby.
  .

  MB&D is circling around the studio’s fire pit each evening doing traditional Native American drought dances, hoping to bring the influence of the gods in for a dry finish to the rest of MB&D’s 2008 season.

• June 17, 2008: Resolution Revolution at Salisbury Central School went off very well, considering this staging of Resolution Revolution came with a couple significant ‘first-time-ever’ hitches and some other more normal difficulties to be overcome. Fortunately, MB&D’s very talented cast and crew were able to roll with the punches and in the end joyous magic was made.

  Unfortunately there was some last minute cast shuffling. Originally Resolution Revolution was to have an all Salisbury Central School related cast and crew, but in the end we had two players who were not, but they did a great job. Our Hawk puppeteer was experienced with the part and in fact his home is so close he can shout across the river to Salisbury. Being so local he knew many of the students and faculty of Salisbury Central School anyway. The very talented musician wrote the original Resolution Revolution music, and he lives and teaches at another school in town with the sometimes confusing name ‘Salisbury School’ (same name but without the ‘Central’). As a well known local musician, most of the students and faculty knew him. They both fit in nicely, even if they had never attended Salisbury Central School. It sure is a remarkable that MB&D has so many wonderful performers willing and able to cover these parts on short notice.

  Next problem was the weather. If it had stayed dry we would have done the show out at the edge of the athletic field for the whole student body, but last minute rain forced us inside to do the show in a small room that couldn’t fit all of Salisbury Central’s students, so we ended up doing the show twice.

  Salisbury Central School’s custodians and taxpayers are rightfully proud of their shiny floors, but stilt dance puppeteers prefer more traction. Even though the puppeteers had switched to rubber tipped stilts, in the middle of the first of the two presentations of Resolution Revolution at SCS, the Hawk puppeteer slipped on the impeccably polished floor and crashed. It worked out okay because the crash was during what was intended to be an unsuccessful attack of the Flock of Doves anyway (Geppetto could even write a crash into the script if stilt puppeteers could get back up more gracefully). Remarkably, that was the first time MB&D had a stilt dance puppeteer crash on stage in a show, and we all hope it was the last time too. No injuries and determined, Hawk quickly got back up to carry on.

  Next, a Dove puppet’s head fell off. Again, that’s the first time that has ever happened on the stage, and hopefully the last.

  It was confusing and difficult to translate Resolution Revolution’s choreography from the big stage to a stage a third the size with no rehearsal in the smaller space. The entrances of the new stage were on opposite side from the original stage layout, so all places were set in reverse from those the puppeteers had rehearsed. The cast handled that beautifully, perhaps because the show has been adapted to so many stages, the experienced puppeteers were able to take the changes in stride. The result of the smaller stage and shifted orientation though was that the show was a bit shorter in duration than written and some cues were missed, actually very little was left out. In spite of all these difficulties, the show went on beautifully, and it was nice that half an hour later we got to do Resolution Revolution again, for the next group of students, and that second show went much better.

  Special note should be made that one Dove puppeteer was very new. He had his first stilting lesson the week before, and worked very hard all week to become a stilt dancer and then to become a stilt dancing puppeteer. He did a fabulous job creating the awesome grace of a giant Dove, and Geppetto predicts you’ll be seeing a lot of him in future roles.

  Geppetto is again grateful to the cast and crew, and also to the fine people at Salisbury Central School for the invitation to share Resolution Revolution in the local school Geppetto and many of the puppeteers had attended.

  After all is said and done, hopefully the Mortal Beasts & Deities’ Resolution Revolution show still made some sense to Salisbury Central, and they’ll be able to decipher and take to heart the overriding message of understanding and accepting differences and understanding the importance of forgiveness and compassion finding peaceful solutions to conflict.

• June 3, 2008: Great news! Looks like that dwindling flame for the tour of South America has been rekindled! It seems the idea was dropped leaving me with a discouraging silence because of a sudden serious illness. But fortunately health has returned for the organizer and discussions have resumed for the Flock of Doves, Hawk and Rooster to tour the Resolution Revolution show in Uruguay and Argentina. (see May 1, 2008 below) There is also a related opportunity to do the Resolution Revolution show in Washington DC this summer! Check back for details.
• May 26, 2008: The weekend after Dance Parade was Memorial Day weekend, and Geppetto accepted the previous weekend’s invitation and headed back to New York to join New York Music in Motion for their New Orleans funeral style parade. Dressed in a silver lame shirt matching the youth corps’ costumes, Geppetto basically mimicked their hip hop and break dance moves, reveling in their African-rhythms-meet-drum-n-bugle-corps sounds. One member of their troupe, Rah, was also on stilts, and it wasn’t until after the parade that Geppetto learned that not only had Rah taught himself how to stilt just that week, having been inspired by Geppetto’s wild stilt dance performance New York Dance Parade and Festival, but Geppetto also discovered that Rah’s stilts were well built but of such an inferior design that they had self destructed during the parade and that thankfully serious injury was only narrowly averted. (lesson here is to not believe stilt designs secured by google searches!) Anyway, Geppetto met with the New York Music in Motion at their spacious facility after the parade and shared expressions of gratitude for discovering each other. Looks like a week long stilt dance residency may soon follow to get some of their dancers up on stilts. Professional grade performance stilts for them are on order.
• May 17, 2008: New York Dance Parade, and the New York Dance Festival immediately following it, were both absolutely splendid and exciting all the way through! Nonstop compliments from New York’s dance community proved that the Mortal Beasts & Deities presentation was not only fun to do but appreciated as well…. the roar of the crowds and the smell of the greasepaint! Oh but Geppetto digresses. With a troupe of seven stilt dancers, with ages ranging from 12 to 63, with three stilt dancers taking huge strides to hide that they were still wet behind the ears, Mortal Beasts & Deities looked super sharp! The cast of stilt dancers included Geppetto, le Grande David Sharpe, Maya Apfelbaum, Robyn MacRostie, Jeffrey Hammond, Kyler Rolo and Maximum Biggins. Geppetto is grateful for the talents, energies and can-do attitudes of all the stilt dancers, as well as the assistance of the two troupe parents acting as accompanying sherpas. He is also grateful for the concessions each stilt dancer made to accommodate his sometimes sketchy vision of costuming and dance step structures.

  Like with every one of the Mortal Beasts & Deities previous New York City performances, there were several gratifying highlights for Geppetto from this show: The lack of complaint about the dress rehearsal wearing raincoats in the cold rain, the delightfully sunny weather greeting us for the parade the next day, the generous offer for the use of the neighboring Mary and Mac Rogers cottage for bunking the Massachusetts stilt dancer contingent, the keystone cops scramble through the city to get all nine troupe members uptown to the step off line in time, the securing of the park with its unusual but coincidentally perfect height benches for use to get up on the stilts, mid-parade switch from unexpectedly slow jitterbug music to much faster paced hustle music, everyone bravely navigating the surprise of the rough cobblestone pavement of Union Square without tragedy, seeing friend Marta Schmidt in the crowds in the East Village watching the parade, meeting up with Robyn’s stilt walking daughter Marta and loaning her some stilts to play with at the festival, watching Maya’s and David’s spectacular stilt dances interacting with the crowds and grooving to the music in sequined wings as if they had been stilt dancing for years, meeting up again with six year old Simone on her stilts taller than she is, witnessing Robyn storming the festival on stilts in her delightfully mysterious and beautiful winged creature, dancing with the only other three stilt walkers participating in the parade and festival and then realizing that they were indeed hampered by their graceless and heavy drywall stilts and also realizing that the four Mortal Beasts & Deities stilt dancers that were dancing on Joeppetto’s state-of-the-art professional performance stilts had a huge advantage over them (see May 9, 2008 below) . The highest stilt dancing highlight for Geppetto was happening upon the awesomely fast and rhythmic drumming and dancing energy of the New York Music in Motion, a youth organization led by Sampson. This crew was rhythmically ceaseless and inspired a long stretch of stilt dance from Geppetto. For an old white guy, he did a pretty good job keeping up with them, and they were impressed enough to invite him to join them in their next gig in Mt Vernon New York the following weekend. Apropos for Geppetto here is a recently discovered witticism: “I used to be responsible, but now all I can do is clap and dance.”

  Drew Vanderburgh made a way cool video at NYC Dance Festival of the Cheap Art Manifesto from Bread and Puppet, assigning Geppetto and MB&D supporter Marta in staring roles!

• May 11, 2008: Due to unavoidable challenges with preparations and personnel, the Peaceable Planet Puppet Parade in Northampton was quite a bit smaller than previous yearst, but certainly not any less impressive. Geppetto performed Gabriel, one of the four giant puppets completed for the church in New Jersey in December 2007, to an exhilarating reception. At PPPP it was Geppetto’s first time to personally puppeteer Gabriel, so he was able to trouble shoot several aspects of his design that will make the giant puppets much more successful for their next series of gigs scheduled in December. The crossed signal about the step off time reduced the number of puppets actually in the parade, but the puppets that missed the parade ended up merely extending the puppet presence at the end, enchanting the Women’s Congress and the Raging Grannies ceremonies at Northampton’s Hestia Mural at the terminus of the parade.

  Stilt dance lessons in Massachusetts continued to step up (see April 2008 below), with lessons at the Fine Arts building at UMASS, with a stealth gig practice to the sounds of the band Third Eye Blind at Amherst College, and then another stealth gig stilt dancing for enthusiastic crowds at Polaski Park in Northampton immediately after the Peaceable Planet Puppet Parade. Stretched to ignore their fear of heights, their skill levels grew like Jack’s beanstalk. Stilt dancers took the lead and as expected, they left the stilt walkers in the dust. Although each occasionally expressed doubts along the way that they might not be ready for New York, Geppetto had guided them past many benchmarks more quickly than usual, but was never less than absolutely confident they would be ready to shine in time for Dance Parade. At the beginning of each lesson he pried their white knuckled death grips off crutch-like tree trunks and goaded them on. In the end they indeed did shine!

• May 9, 2008: Joe Brien of Lost Art Workshops is also known as Joeppetto. He is a detail oriented woodworker, a teaching artist, an accomplished sculptor and a master puppet maker. His marionettes are delightfully fine artworks, and his workshops are in great demand. It is also remarkable that Joepetto and Geppetto are both active in the world of puppetry and Joepetto and Geppetto also both live and work in small studios in the woods of Falls Village, the second smallest town in Connecticut with only about 1000 year round residents. Visit the
  Lost Art Workshops website.

  Today Joeppetto finished several pair of performance and workshop stilts for the Mortal Beasts & Deities. These are truly the finest stilts Geppetto has ever seen! Joeppetto used the finest grade wood and skillfully crafted these superior stilts to Geppetto’s exacting standards. Geppetto is eternally grateful that Joeppetto is hugely understanding and patient, and willing to let the Mortal Beasts & Deities use the stilts to earn the money to pay for them.

• May 1, 2008: With the Mortal Beasts & Deities’ phone ringing steadily and emails buzzing constantly, several paid gigs were secured for the 2008 season, and eventually it became rare when producer’s event dates fit. In May the 2008 season was about set, with very little wiggle room remaining.

  The good news of a full 2008 performance season amply offset the sad fact that the event producer who had invited the Mortal Beasts & Deities’ Resolution Revolution show for a South American tour had simply evaporated. Her phone calls and emails mysteriously ceased and my attempts to rekindle the dwindling flame were ignored. So it goes. If it were meant to be, it would be. Geppetto’s close friend, seasoned musician and world traveler Eliot, predicted that the opportunity might arise again, but Geppetto was actually relieved because he loves his snowy woods in winter and he wouldn’t have wanted to miss any of it merely for a trip to the stinking tropical heat of Brazil and Uruguay with the Flock of Doves, Hawk and Rooster.

  Meanwhile, optimism being Geppetto’s over riding rule, the Mortal Beasts & Deities show had to go on. Looming in May was the Northampton Mother’s Day Peaceable Planet Puppet Parade and the New York Dance Parade, and to do these two shows properly will require Geppetto’s undivided attention. Travel plans for a tour in South American would only have been an unfortunate distraction.

  Optimism always works, in that even when things don’t work out as hoped, optimism provides the required resilience so that the all too frequent but seldom expected difficulties that do arise are much easier to deal with in the day to day. Sadly, after lengthy negotiations for a full cast and special guest artist at Taos Solar Festival in June, Geppetto has discovered that for various reasons, none of the cast that had been planning on joining Geppetto in Taos can make it (see April 2008 below). Geppetto wishes he hadn’t been so successful in selling the package with such a full cast and so many cool bells and whistles. While Geppetto knows he can amply fill the bill solo, he’s left in the uncomfortable position of hoping the event producers will agree. Now he’s forced back to the negotiation table with the Festival producers. Making the silver lining harder to discern here is the fact that suddenly the producers have stopped responding. Truly, the best part is that if after four years of trying to play at Taos Solar Festival Geppetto loses his chance, he will just get to spend that much more time visiting with his much loved first born son who lives out there. That will certainly be the best consolation prize ever!

• April 2008: Geppetto joined the circus! Old Oracle and his Horn and then some solo stupendous stilt dancing with multiple costume changes, jumped in with Professor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band and Madcap Rumpus Society at their troupe’s fundraiser gala in Davis Square in Boston. Old Geppetto was not up to attempting any of the acrobatic stilt moves proposed by Genevieve and the other stilt dancers. With all of them apparently 20 to 25 years his junior, he took great pride and was very encouraged to see he was able to set and maintain a very brisk pace with his aerobic improvised stilt dancing that the others seemed unable or uninterested in following. It was wonderful to work with this talented band and young circus troupe and bask in the possibilities of future collaborations with them. After striking the PNSMB and MRS sets and packing up the show, Geppetto made an impromptu midnight swing through old territory, for a short but sweet visit with his second born son who was at work on his night shift in Gloucester that early morning.

  Geppetto made several trips up to Northampton Massachusetts to prepare three new stilt dancers, earning from one of them the new moniker ‘High Priest’. It was exciting to see each of these new stilt dancers approach and develop their new skills so quickly, applying to the task the fine tuned sense of spatial awareness and gravity that dancers seem to own. It will be interesting to see them use their extensive previous dance and performance experience at their first gig, the New York Dance Parade and Festival in mid-May.

  Details for Taos Solar Festival seem to be just falling perfectly into place. Since learning of Solar Fest on his first trip out to Taos in 2004, Geppetto had been hoping for a chance to play there. Thanks to the gracious and generous gift of round trip airfare, 2008 is going to be his year! Geppetto had been resigned to performing solo in Taos, due to the high cost of traveling long distances with a full cast and crew, but then out of the blue one day, one of the new stilt dancers in training from Massachusetts, a gifted puppeteer in her own right, announced she would be heading west in June and could swing through Taos on her way, bringing with her the perfectly suited solar powered puppet she had coincidentally made previously. Perfect! Incredibly, a week later, a family with two experienced Mortal Beasts and Deities stilt dancers and puppeteers then announced they were planning a southwest summer vacation and would steer the family Winnebago into Taos to join us at Solat Fest. Geppetto was elated! These developments meant that the Mortal Beasts & Deities could perform all three of the Flock of Doves, present a large troupe of stilt dancers, and feature a special guest artist and her puppet that perfectly matched the Solar Festival’s theme! This was a very salable package, and because the cost of the cast’s airfare was already covered, all that the performance fee needed to cover was enough money to ship the puppets and gear and collect a little spending money. Geppetto’s negotiations with the festival were enthusiastic and fast paced all the way, and a great deal was struck. This is going to be a trip to remember!

• March 18, 2008: Generally Geppetto welcomes snow and winter weather, but the snow beginning to fall outside now, with the 90% chance for more snow overnight and mixing with sleet and rain tomorrow, means that the two Dove appearances scheduled for March 19th have been canceled. The two vigils commemorating 5 years of war in Iraq are still on, so even if Doves won’t be out, everyone should go anyway.

• March 13-16, 2008: Travel weary, Geppetto and Sadie are recuperating and regrouping. Lots of walks in the woods. Lots of catch-up errands. Reconnecting with New England friends. Chasing details for what is looking like a rather busy performance season ahead . Next week’s planned return to Washington DC on the 19th for the fifth year vigil has been changed, replaced by two vigils that are more local. Some exciting new high profile gigs are in the works too! Ah, its so good to be home, but as Geppetto’s old Indian friend Wibben used to say, “There ain’t no rest for the weary nor the wicked!”
  

• March 12, 2008: After six weeks in the southeast, Geppetto and Sadie found they were sorely missing the peace and quiet of the cottage studio in the woods of New England, so Geppetto hit the road for home on March 10th with his old Volvo troupe carrier loaded to the gills with Super Sadie the Wonder Dog, and piles of stilt gear, and maps, and dozens of costumes and puppets. The new air foil positioned on the Volvo roof in front of the stilt platform ended up saving four miles per gallon!

  On the way home they stopped to visit good old friends in Arlington Virginia, one of whom is a stilt walker, and both of whom love Sadie so dearly they were willing to put up with Geppetto sharing some fine meals and an overnight stay. Geppetto (and Sadie) are blessed to have such good friends providing so many good reasons to feel such abundant gratitude.

  With the wonderful assistance of his Virginia friends, Geppetto soared a Dove at the Washington Memorial Monument in Washington DC, much to the glee of the numerous bus loads of tourists and a few Ranger Rick’s who happened to be at the monument on that sunny afternoon.

  The weather was warm, but very windy. Perfect for kites, but it is a problem when a Dove puppet flies like a kite! Geppetto, wearing unfamiliar stilts (he’d worn out and eventually broken his favorite stilts), had to literally lean into the wind, and due to the feathers blowing, he was totally blinded when turned away from the wind. So he soared a long distance into the wind, but was then stranded there because he couldn’t see to soar back. Geppetto was forced to break character and remove the dove puppet head before he could navigate a return to home base (a first). That wasn’t too bad though, since the soaring that was accomplished resulted in lots of fabulous pictures, and numerous new fans!

  Later Geppetto and Sadie were back on the road, with a stop to visit another friend in the Baltimore area, and then finally an uneventful overnight run took care of the last leg home.

• March 2, 2008: Stuart Florida has recently become the hometown of most of Geppetto’s immediate family, so while gigging in Florida, stilt dancing at Stuart’s Riverwalk Jazz Festival was a natural.

  Again, Geppetto’s twin-looking brother joined Geppetto in the fun (but really, he’s much much older). Again, similar stilting outfits were worn to play with the recognition confusion. The duo’s favorite (and only) sister generously provided backstage assistance.

  The site layout was limiting, with the bandstand on the dock and the audience positioned primarily on the terraced park above and on the narrow wooden river walkways and stairs (a stilt walkers center of gravity is well above those standard height handrails!), but that didn’t stop anything but the most outlandish stilt dancing. Lots of mingling and tons of pictures were taken by Stuart’s jazz lovers.

  Having worn two inches off his stilts the previous weekend, Geppetto was sidelined early when one of the pegs split apart from his favorite pair of stilts. No crashes, and almost doesn’t count (UPDATE: A dozen pairs of new stilts are now on the workshop bench!).

  Again, networking appears to have been successful, with a few event planners scheming to get us back next year for this and other events in the Stuart area. Florida loves MB&D!

• February 23 & 24, 2008: The fun and glee is just incessant! Two MB&D stilt dancers traveled out to Clearwater Florida’s Gulf coast for two nights of stilt dancing and dove soaring at the Knology Sea-Blues Festival, headlined by Derek Trucks and Coco Montoya. Geppetto was joined again by his now Florida based and way tall brother, to whom he is and always will be grateful. There was some trouble with a broken dove wing, but Geppetto was able to hide the wing limp well enough that miles of smiles were elicited (UPDATE: wing surgery was successful and wing wound is all healed now, so that dove is raring and ready for future flights!).

  But stilt dancing to world class rhythms of the blues! Wow! For five hours on each of two nights in a row, they worked the crowds and danced and danced and danced. Both Geppetto and brother learned new steps. Both stole hundreds of dance partners.

  As a result, sweat soaked costumes had to be changed every hour or so, not only for the change of pace, but also so the city didn’t stink too much. Geppetto’s brother shares family genetics and similar build and facial structure as Geppetto (sad to say), and also, both brothers sport 30 year old handlebar mustaches (as did their paternal great-grandfather), so for years many people have confused them. Just for fun, they decided to play with that confusion and arranged it so they were always wearing similar looking stilt dance costumes. People commented that they were either one stilt dancer who could be found miraculously dancing everywhere at once, or that MB&D must be a troupe of stilt dancing quintuplets. Double trouble! Such a blast!

  For the overnight between the two Clearwater gigs, lodging for Geppetto and his way tall stilt dancing brother was arranged in a motel positioned precisely at the end of what must have been the busiest runway at Tampa International Airport, but they were so beat after the first night of all out stilt dancing, they hardly noticed. None of their much needed sleep was disturbed, and they were ready for another five hour marathon of stilt dancing the next day.

  Anyway, at the end of the powerful weekend of shenanigans, and after all the gut busting awesome seafood, and after hearing the hundreds of glowing compliments from the crowds for their antics, and the grinning appreciation expressed sincerely and personally by both Coco Montoya and his bass player, it became merely a minor issue that the result of their stilt dancing marathon was losing half a pound of flesh off each of their shins (UPDATE: scabs have flaked off and legs are just now fine, raring and ready to dance some more!).

  Numerous contacts were made, networking established, for many more gigs in this beautiful area of the country again next year, and maybe a return engagement at Clearwater’s Sea-Blues Festival, too.

• February 14, 2008: Even tall people need to find a valentine on Valentines Day, and two tall MB&D stilt dancers found theirs at the Valentines Day street festival called Jammin Jensen in Jensen Beach Florida! Despite a mysterious and seriously inconsiderate lack of communication from the Jensen Beach Business Association, the hosts, Geppetto and his brother stepped out in splendid costumes and passed out a couple bazillion little heart stickers and warmed the hearts of throngs of wonderfully receptive “valentines for the night” in the streets of old town Jensen Beach. Certainly many enjoyed their antics so much that many will be returning to Jammin Jensen in the future, looking for more fun with the tall guys (and shopping and dining…) However, let it never be said that the Mortal Beasts & Deities are bitter about being so sorely snubbed, with not even a thank you for giving their all for nothing, Geppetto and his very tall brother realize that the wonderful time they had and all the positive energy from the hundreds of smiles they earned are ample payback…. and they are still considering a return next year, but of course it is never too late for the Jensen Beach Business Association to acknowledge their efforts and cinch the deal.

• February 2 & 3, 2008 : Hollywood Florida rocks! Geppetto had two stilt dance appearances at their Mardi gras celebrations.

  Saturday night was Hollywood’s huge Mardi gras parade which wound around the city and ended up at a concert/ festival in the downtown art park. There, Geppetto did his ‘winged jester’ and his ‘southern rock star’ costumes.

  On Fat Tuesday there was raucous revelry on Hollywood’s beach and six miles of boardwalk, where they had an enormous bonfire and two stages featuring several fabulous zydeco and cajun bands. Danced all around there with the ‘white stetson hat and seersucker’ and then the ‘southern rock star’ costumes.

  Both nights were full tilt carnival with lots of great music, wild dancing, standing room only bars and spicy cajun food. Very well attended, huge crowds of people of all ages. Guessing, it looked like Geppetto interacted and danced with several thousand of them personally, and posed for hundreds of pictures with rejoicing revelers. For both nights, the promoters had Geppetto set up his home base in the VIP areas just a few steps behind the main stages, which made it easy to discretely duck in to rest and rehydrate and change costumes … and on Fat Tuesday, it was a perfect place to meet the mayor after his turn introducing a band to the stage, and to meet some of the musicians as they finished their sets. Both nights there were world class musicians from New Orleans. Geppetto’s favorite was Trombone Shorty. It seemed they sure liked his stilt dancing too. While Geppetto was wildly dancing in front of the stage, Troy ‘Trombone Shorty’ Andrews, the band’s namesake and leader, poked at his hat with the slide of his trombone, so tall Geppetto passed his hat to the short trombonist, who loved voguing with it for the rest of the song. Improv is the best!

  Geppetto’s sister Megan and her friend Janet helped assisting back stage and spotting hazards and acting as sherpas carrying water and the stash of extra beads up and down the play route. Couldn’t have done it with without them. Much gratitude!

  Because of the thick crowds to play with and navigate through, it was Geppetto’s decision not drink at all while stilt dancing, but both nights after 10 pm, when he got down off his stilts, he found several meals and drinks lined up waiting, bought by appreciative people he’d played with earlier in the night. Megan drove home.
  

• January 2008: January has been spent primarily decompressing from the Trinity Project, and for Geppetto this time, decompression has included such joys as watching the snow fall, reading novels, taking naps, splitting firewood and becoming reacquainted with the day job.

  It has also included mucking out the studio, digging through and sorting out all the debris and gear left over from the mad deadline chase scene that went on essentially non-stop through December. All the heaps of stuff covering every flat surface, propped in every corner, leaning against every wall, and even hanging from the ceiling have been put back to order, although the always delightful storage problem has become tighter with all these new huge puppets!

  January is officially the off season, but that means it’s a time for brainstorms! Geppetto has three exciting collaborative projects in the works, and he’s been emailing and visiting and yakking on the phone (which Geppetto usually avoids) working out story lines, puppet ideas, finding staging venues and investigating funding possibilities. Even the very early stages of new projects are invigorating!

  Geppetto has also been scouting for gigs and the beginning of the 2008 season is shaping up really good. First stop will be in Hollywood Florida for two stilt dancing and puppetry gigs for their Mardi Gras celebrations. While in Florida there are a few other smaller gigs planned, and even some stealth gigs in the works too. On Geppetto’s return to New England there looks to be a couple days of stilt lessons for a middle school in Amenia New York, then some stilt lessons for a couple new MB&D troupers in Greenfield Massachusetts, all in April. Then the Mother’s Day Peaceable Planet Puppet Parade in Northampton Massachusetts, then the New York City Dance Parade, both in May. Then in June a trip to Taos New Mexico for the Taos Solar Music Festival. Looks like Geppetto will be busy!

• December 30, 2007: The greatly anticipated New Years Eve celebration gig with the semi-famous folk/rock/blues band in Philadelphia ended up not panning out at the last minute. The band is hot, and it was such an honor for Geppetto to share creative visions with the band on how the Flock of Doves would soar through the crowds, and how the Mortal Beasts & Deities’ splendorous stilt dancers would rev up the raging crowds. There was even talk of doing the world Famous Philadelphia Mummer’s Parade! It would have been a spectacular spectical of controlled mayhem and earnest frivolity, Mortal Beasts & Deities’ specialty, but business is business. Geppetto never did get the band to discuss any practical details, let alone commit to covering expenses. Oh well. Just as well. The Trinity Project had taken such a huge chunk of Geppetto’s energy, Revelry wasn’t an R included in the the R&R he desperately needed on New Year’s Eve.

• December 24, 2007: The Trinity Project culminated in tears of joy!
  Hard to imagine much better than that!

  The Mortal Beasts & Deities puppet characters of the Trinity Project were, in order of appearance: Archangel Gabriel, Mary, Joseph, the star rising in the East, infant Jesus, and Lamb.

  The cast was nervous and reticent at first, but I am grateful that once the first entry cues in the Lessons and Carols service passed, they rewarded all present with solid puppeteering. Their expressive gestures and majestic movement illustrated the story of Jesus’ birth, creating memorable proof of the power of the liturgical arts. Puppeteers Laura, Cathy and Amanda performed giant puppets Joseph, Gabriel and Mary respectively. They delivered splendid performances, and can now include ‘puppeteer’ in their resumes. Nine year old Emily stole everyone’s heart as the star rising from the East, and then performed the playful Lamb at the nativity. All were parishioners of the Cliffside Park New Jersey Trinity Episcopal Church who devoted several hours practicing and helping me trouble shoot the new giant puppets in the weeks beforehand. Geppetto the puppet making director was left with pretty much nothing to do but enjoy the show, and to concentrate on taking lots of pictures. Perfect.

  It was a genuine pleasure to work with and get to know them all, and especially Father Willie Smith, and his very supportive congregation. Thank you.

  In the sleep deprived six weeks of puppet building leading up to the debut, there were times when it looked as if we might be shedding tears of frustration instead of joy over this commission. The timing on this one was so tight, but we made it, thanks to the numerous magnificent MB&D supporters and helpers who emerged to assist. It’s miraculous really… that so many were willing to take time away from their families and friends in the days just before Christmas, to help glue feathers on wings, fabricate aluminum frames to back backs, paint puppet faces, sew costumes, string sequins, fix computers, repair cars, plow snow, cover for me at my long ignored day job, bring delicious meals and otherwise offer the support and encouragement needed to make this commission a success. The start of the project was delayed by a few weeks, and with an immovable deadline, there is no doubt that the show would not have come to fruition without these angels. Thank you for your faith in me and MB&D and in this project, and of course for your energy, time and talents.

  The new giant puppets are about ten feet tall, but for flexibility they’re performed by puppeteers wearing special back packs, not performed by stilt dancers. Each giant puppet is designed to be easily adapted to secular roles as well, and investigations for a few appearances prior to their return to Cliffside Park for Christmas Eve 2008 has already begun.

  Fabulous life, this!

• November and December 2007: The Trinity Project has absorbed Geppetto’s energies. The project is a commission to create four giant puppets and their performance on Christmas Eve. Thanks to the Rev Willie Smith and the congregation of the Trinity Episcopal Church in Cliffside Park New Jersey for the awesome challenge and for their help executing it. Angel Gabriel and the Holy Family will be giant puppets, giant even by MB&D’s over sized standards. Built on custom welded aluminum skeletons mounted on backpack frames, they will feature movable papier mache heads and hands. The puppets will be clothed in more than 50 yards of sensuous fabrics and Gabriel’s wings will be festooned with pounds of real feathers! The heads and hands are all first being modeled in 350 pounds of clay, with the ethnically diverse parishioners serving as reference models. Papier mache is applied to the clay. When dry the papier mache gets cut off, and when the cuts are patched back together, they stand as very lightweight but strong heads and hands. Details such as ears and eyes are then modeled in fine paper clay, then the heads and hands are painted in an adapted renaissance technique of color glazes called sfumato, which will beautifully highlight the form. Geppetto’s tiny studio is brimming with puppet pieces in various stages of their construction, and the place is over flowing with excitement as many step in to help in the process and the pieces begin to fit together. Jill Gibbons is sewing costumes. Willie Blass is welding the frames. Ann Getsinger, Sarah Rydingsword and others are gluing Gabriel’s wing feathers. The parishioners of the church will serve as cast and crew for the performance with weekly rehearsals in NJ through December. Trinity Project was behind schedule when begun and is still behind schedule, but it continues on and continues to be exciting and rewarding for Geppetto and helpers. The universe provides.

• November 3, 2007: The annual Outerspace Band Halloween Party was a splendid hometown event yet again this year. Put on each year by the venerable Outerspace Band, famous not only for their awesome rock n roll and blues, but also for the amazing feat of playing together for 40 years but never being signed to a recording contract! Must be a record! Preceded by a cookout at the MB&D studio, attending the party this year were three MB&D puppets and two MB&D stilt dancers in multiple costumes, plus a few costumed friends who had raided the MB&D costume and accessory closets with Geppetto’s blessings. Because it was a private party Geppetto needs to stop here, but if you have the right connections don’t dare miss Outerspace in 2008!

• October 31, 2007: The most eagerly anticipated, purely playful fun event of the MB&D year is the NYC Halloween Parade! Stilt Dancers from the Bond Street Theater joined Mortal Beasts & Deities, filling out the ranks for a big and tall presence at the opening pod of the world’s largest Halloween parade. While the piety of the weekend before was still fresh in our hearts, that hardly meant we felt any obligation to pull punches, and the result was the performance that night was way over the top!
  This year the parade theme was Wings, so Geppetto made up color coordinated sets of sequined wings and some way cool hats with dozens of embedded electric lights. Geppetto sported his newly made red crushed velvet stilt pants and his new neru jacket, while MB&D stilt dancer Katherine Miller wore the beautiful new cool blue stilt dress that she made specifically for the event. They looked sharp!
  The weather was perfect, about 60*, so the crowds lining the sidewalks from curb to storefronts were the thickest Geppetto has ever seen. He admits he gets keyed up by the literally millions of viewers and TV lights, which was more than ample fuel for very fast paced and high spirited stilt dancing and spinning for 22+ blocks of Avenue of the Americas. Geppetto was proud also to discover that night that he’s finally getting the hang of stilt dance arabesques. They were much more predictable at the Halloween Parade and he actually pulled a few of them out of pirouette-like spins.
  MB&D stilt dancers Katherine and Geppetto were assisted by a friend of Katherine’s named Bella (thank you very much!!). She was wearing sequined wings and a colorful costume too, but not being on stilts she was able to carry water and gear on the parade route for us, and she was also able to help Geppetto quickly fix a problem with his stilt pants snagging and tripping up his stilts at about 12th street. God bless who ever was smart enough to invent safety pins!
  Afterwards the stilt dancers were joined by friends and enjoyed a rejuvenating Thai meal in Chelsea.
  Geppetto was moving much slower and remained in his bathrobe most of the next day, but couldn’t stop grinning ear to ear constantly.

• October 28, 2007: The Flock of Doves brought symbolic soaring blessings of peace to the parishioners attending the Sunday morning service at Trinity Episcopal Church in Cliffside Park New Jersey. Graceful dancer Lita Lundeen and the extraordinary veteran dove puppeteers Maximum Biggins and Jeff Hammond generated joy in the hearts and huge smiles on the faces of the congregation, which made Geppetto’s job later much easier…. selling the congregation on the long planned Trinity Puppet Project and generating their interest in joining the ranks as puppeteers for giant puppets Angel Gabriel and the Holy Family to be created for their Lessons and Carols service on Christmas Eve. Thanks to troupe parent Armen Babigian for driving most of the puppeteers in and out of New Jersey, taking numerous great pictures of the Flock of Doves in the service, and for feeding and entertaining the puppeteers with authentic Asian food for lunch on the way home.

• October 20, 2007: The Northeast Community Center held their Fall Fun Day in Millerton New York and invited the MB&D stilt dancers to spice things up and to sell stilt walking lessons as a fund raising effort for NECC and MB&D. The stilt dancers climbing high on this sunny day were Jeff Hammond, Maximum Biggins, Jesse Cappelaro, Cormac Clune and Geppetto. Working out of the MB&D performance tent, set up on the edge of Millerton’s Rail Trail, great interest was generated in the stilt dancing and future stilt lessons.

• October 7, 2007: The Flock of Doves grace the Bishop’s Garden at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in New York City for their annual appearance at the St Francis Fair. Thick crowds and perfect weather contributed to a great appearance for the Flock of Doves this year, with Kyler Rolo and Jeff Hammond contributing delightfully playful performances, inspiring Geppetto to join the flock for some earnest frivolity in their last set. A highlight was when Judy Collins and Paul Winter with his Paul Winter Consort exited the cathedral after playing in the service. Their reaction to the delight of seeing the Flock of Doves was to stop and play an impromptu acoustic piece for them to dance to!

• October 6, 2007: There are always lots of fun things to do at the Salisbury Fall Festival. The whole town comes together to celebrate the harvest and share their wares and creative energies, including a scarecrow contest. As we’ve done in years past, MB&D spoofed the scarecrow contest, and spooked the abundant crowds with tall stilt dancing scarecrows. Always a great time,, this year MB&D stilt dance regulars Kyler Rolo, Maximum Biggins, Geppetto, and Jim Britt stalked the village as scarecrows! Not one nuisance crow was seen for miles! A ridiculous picture of Jim Britt as a tall scarecrow ended up above the fold and over the banner of the front page of the Lakeville Journal, which some have attributed as responsible for his poor showing at the polls.

• September 29 & 30, 2007: Two new MB&D puppets, Mona Lisa and Leonardo da Vinci, debuted at the Kingston Rondout Business Association’s popular Italian Festival in Kingston New York. Hundreds of attendees posed in Mona’s frame for snapshots that are now gracing countless family photo albums, not to mention the pictures of Leo and Mona published in the Kingston Daily Freeman newspaper and the Chronogram Magazine. Kelly Austin Rolo and Paige Vincent were impeccable Monas for the weekend. Thanks Paige, for generously forgiving Geppetto for the Brooklyn fiasco he led her through the night of April 14th (see below)!! Geppetto puppeteered Leonardo, which means it was an artist, playing an artist, playing an artist! This event was yet another great example of the Mortal Beasts & Deities’ successful work with event themes, delighting audience and receiving a wonderful reception and earning the event planner’s gratitude.

• September 22, 2007: Resolution Revolution was finally played on the big stage, at the Naumberg Bandshell in Central Park in New York City! The Flock of Doves, Hawk and Rooster rampaged through their conflict and resolved their differences, in a beautiful and glorious spectacle, closing the 2007 Vigil for International Peace on an upbeat note of peace and hope!
  Lita Lundeen played Hawk with grace and power. Veteran MB&D puppeteers Jeff Hammond, Kyler Rolo and Maximum Biggins played the fluttering but unflappable Flock of Doves. Perfectly rude Rooster’s squawking and strutting was by the awesomely talented puppeteer Jim Britt. George Potts and Jill Gibbons played their version of Resolution Revolution’s wonderful accompanying music. After the show, Geppetto and the cast took a tall stilt stroll through the great mall of Central Park, a perfect way to end a fabulous day!

• August 19, 2007: The 13th annual Kingston Artist’s Soapbox Derby was opened again by the Mortal Beasts & Deities. Delightful day, but a couple things happened to make it almost disastrous.
  The original plan for this year was for the Mortal Beasts & Deities to join the returning gypsy band that had once been the traditional opening act of the Derby. Bestemore and Bestefar had been practicing their musical talents and tuned and polished their instruments for the big day. But minutes before the scheduled step off at 1pm, it became obvious that the gypsy band was not going to materialize. So Bestemore and Bestefar simply shrugged their big shoulders and picked up their instruments, determined to make up for the missing band with style. Maximum Biggins (Max Babigian) played Bestemore on stilts, with a deft rhythmic clash symbol. Geppetto played Bestefar on foot, with his hugenormous horn. And they sounded great! Maybe not at the same volume as the gypsy band, but they certainly charmed their way through and were very well received by the crowds lining Kingston’s Lower Broadway who were encouraged that the Derby was soon to begin. A frightening thing happened about half way down…. the starting line above had been breeched (again. see Aurelius page), and the first entry came barreling down the course aiming for Bestemore and Bestefar. That has to be one of the most frightening things, to be concentrating on entertaining crowds with limited vision and mobility in a puppet, then to notice a several hundred pound vehicle careening down the hill towards you! Fortunately this time the intruder was spotted in time and no crash occurred, but hopefully Geppetto’s conference with the starting line official, later on, will prevent this dangerous situation from happening again. As fun as the event is every year, Geppetto needs to be reassured that his safety and the safety of all the other MB&D puppeteers is taken seriously. But then the highlight of the day for Geppetto came after the Derby, stilt dancing. A great youth troupe of hip hop dancers were performing in energetic lines and circles at the bandshell, and coaxed him to join them. Always game for improvised stilt dance, he stepped into the fray, found the very fast rhythm, and surprised himself and the youngsters by actually keeping up with them! Well earned sweat pouring off his brow, he bowed out at the end of the first tune to streaming applause. Later there was a Brightcove TV Video of the Derby that included a snippet (at 1:15, for about 15 seconds) of the old white guy doing his hip hop stilt dance.

• August 11, 2007: Music Mountain is such a gem! New England’s longest continually operating chamber music festival with world class chamber music concerts broadcast live from Gordon Hall on National Public Radio each week in the summer.
  Plus, Music Mountain just happens to be located in the Mortal Beasts & Deities’ hometown and is worthy of our support. We gladly contribute to their annual Family Festival. This year Lion and Lamb returned to frolic and roll in the grass with the children and their families, and Phoebe and Laka Flower Nymphs skipped and danced around the bucolic campus and offered free flowers to all. Thank you Kelly, Kyler and Carrie for your energetic puppeteer performances, and thanks also to Chris for your assistance backstage, and thanks yet again to Jo of Thornhill Flower Shop for your gracious service and generous and beautiful contributions! Your work was very well received, and it was all for such a great cause!

• July 28 & 29, 2007: With 12 puppeteers and stilt dancers, the Mortal Beasts & Deities hit Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in waves of earnest frivolity and felicitous discord! Synchronisity ruled, as the universe sent a ferocious but quick thunder storm, which forced Hawk and the Flock of Doves to hit main stage late, only to find that the delay from God caused a perfectly timed entry to the first chords of Gandolf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams’ version of Peace Train! Even Cat Stevens never had it so good as to have huge birds dancing when he played Peace Train! Tears of joy streaked many faces, proof that our show couldn’t have been more powerful, even if it had been planned! Without a doubt, that was a few unforgettable Mortal Beasts & Deities minutes. Other highlights were when some of the younger stilt dancers frolicked with heart throbs over midway lattes as the elder stilt dancers successfully sought abundant dance music. And when the children’s parade wound proudly through the muddy festival roads led by a tall gaggle of stilt dancers and Old Oracle Horn. Lion and Lamb stole pizza and hugs, and it is rumored Old Oracle Horn ended up wandering off with a polka band. If Falcon Ridge is truly a small community as their website says, then our family of stilt dance performers and puppeteers were the toast of the town.

• July 14, 2007: A spectacular stilt practice develops from an invite to do some salsa style stilt dancing at the Northeast Community Center Family Arts Center in Millerton New York. A few experienced stilt dancers showed how it was done, and a few newbie stilt walkers began to dance….. stilting is much easier with Latin rhythms!

• June 30, 2007: As always, Project Troubador on the shores of Lake Wonoscopomic was the place to be! Great weather this year, except for the 10 minute deluge just as Hawk, Rooster and the Flock of Doves were prancing around the makeshift roost preparing to soar. In the end they gracefully flew, damp feathers and all, making great work adapting their Resolution Revolution to a reggae band. Earlier, three Flower Nymphs, Old Oracle Horn and Lion and Lamb provided the enchantment part of the enchanted forest one always expects at Project Troubador. Later, all Stilt Dancers dropped their puppets and donned their long duds for a ridiculously aerobic stilt dancing extravaganza to the awe inspiring rhythms of The Equalites.

• June 17, 2007: Clearwater Festival at Croton Point Park on the Hudson River was Fabulous! Performing there wasn’t originally planned because of other commitments, but change is constant. Plans evolve and the universe provides…. and this time it provided a perfect opening in the schedule, and perfect weather, and a perfect audience, and a perfect crew…. for a truly delightful time supporting an important cause… saving the Hudson River. Dove soared, eliciting squeals of joy from hundreds while spreading the benevolent message the doves were made for. Geppetto donned stilts and a silly colorful costume to dance and wreck havoc with his special blend of controlled mayhem and earnest frivolity. Special thanks go to friend and volunteer Kathy Good for making up the able crew at the last minute, and to Eliot for easing some major red tape at the gate. The Joint Chiefs and the Cowboy Junkies and Buffy Saint Marie and Bruce Cockburn and many others played at the festival, so there was plenty of pleasure to be had while Geppetto and assistant pretended to be normal people.

• June 9, 2007: Spiritually and aesthetically, the Wisdom House celebration for the 10th anniversary of their Labyrinth in Litchfield Connecticut was without a doubt the most beautiful performance for the Flock of Doves so far. Videographer Sam Haber created his own art piece out of the day, with a cryptic and succinct video of the Flock of Doves at Wisdom House, which I hope will soon to be offered for viewing on the website. Puppeteers for the doves were Geppetto, Jeff Hammond, and for his first dove performance, Kyler Rolo. Volunteer dressers and spotters were Kelly Austin, Rick Alexander and Jill Gibbons. Was truly hard to get the feet back on the ground after that delightful afternoon.

• May 27, 2007: Two new stilt walkers are closer along on their mission of becoming stilt dancing puppeteers, after an afternoon of stilting on a stealth gig in Millerton New York. Originally planned for later the same evening in Great Barrington Massachusetts, the ominous weather forecast forced Geppetto to make a seat-of-the-pants decision to go for it sooner in the day and closer to home. A couple hours of controlled mayhem and earnest frivolity on stilts, playing with unsuspecting (and short) people on the sidewalks and in the streets is awesome practice and such great fun.

• May 26, 2007: Geppetto enjoys painting the new dove’s beak and eyes! A favorite part of puppet building, especially when the studio is moved outside in the beloved afternoon sunshine!

• May 24, 2007: The New York garment district yields ample selection of fabrics for dove legs and feet, an assortment of stilt pant fabrics, and dozens of yards of assorted white satins at close out prices for dove feathers. Nothing like a day in New York City and Times Square to make Geppetto appreciate the quiet woods and pastures surrounding his home and studio!

• May 15, 2007: Geppetto discovers that his favorite fabric outlet has closed it’s doors! Arghh! That’s the second fabric outlet (of a total of only three within a 50 mile radius) that has closed this spring. Geppetto needs to find fabric for the new fourth dove puppet, so a trip to the NYC garment district is planned.

• May 13, 2007: The Peaceable Planet Puppet Parade is a fabulous success! Geppetto joined Beth Fairservis and the other artists of The Feat of the Sky Collective to create a theatrical parade through downtown Northampton Mass on Mother’s Day. Geppetto helped create the new NoKnow puppet (bravely operated by Lita) symbolizing the greed of the media and power mongers. Puppets Bestefar and Bestemore on stilts (puppeteers Geppetto and his brother Rick) paced a busy Main Street corner and lured a bigger audience, then joined the parade of many puppets big and small as it passed. As benevolent grandparents, Bestemore and Bestefar blessed the efforts of Great Mama puppet in creating a peaceable planet. Afterwards Geppetto and Rick removed their puppets but remained on stilts to join the Women’s Congress and Raging Grannies for songs, speakers and a shout out at the Hestia Mural. Perfect weather too, unlike the 1st annual parade in 2006. Geppetto loved the project and met many wonderfully gifted artists while working on it, a few of whom have expressed interest in joining in with the Mortal Beasts & Deities in the future!

• Spring 2007: Three new stilt walkers! Geppetto’s work progresses on new dove, to add a fourth to the Flock of Doves. Old Woman Oracle gets a face lift, a new hairdo, and a new dress costume to accomodate stilts and become the new Bestemore.

• April 21 & 22, 2007: Geppetto joined Feet of the Sky Collective in Cummington MA for a weekend work party brainstorming and building puppets for the Mother’s Day Peaceable Planet Puppet Parade, to be held May 13th in Northampton MA.

• April 14, 2007: Mortal Beasts and Deities had a bizarre time at Luna Lounge in Brooklyn at the New York Halloween Parade fund raiser! New puppeteer Paige was seriously challenged by a long string of unexpectedly strange events: low turn out at the event that was exacerbated by the puppeteers arriving early, a mix up at the venue finds the Volvo troupe carrier parked out in the street serving as the puppeteer’s dressing room, upstaged by the burlesque review and the inebriated emcee. Volvo troupe carrier breaking down on the way out of Brooklyn and finally sputtering back home at about dawn. It will be a miracle if Paige ever musters the courage to do MB&D puppets again, but she really did a great job and maintained a fantastic attitude…. especially considering the circumstances. We’re used to “controlled” mayhem, but this was “out of control” mayhem!

• April 13, 2007: Spring has arrived! Running water has been returned to the pipes at the Mortal Beasts & Deities’ studio in Pine Grove!

• April 1, 2007: MortalBeastsandDeities.com website is launched thanks to Matt Alexander of
  Alexander Web Design in Taos New Mexico.

• March 16 and 17, 2007: Nor’easter cancels trip to Washington DC, preventing Flock of Doves from soaring in the March on the Pentagon.
• March 2007: Collaboration with the Mortal Beasts & Deities and Northwest Connecticut Arts Council is begun for a spring TV show on CATV 6.
• Winter 2007: The Geppetto bench is busy with a few new puppets, including a new Dove to expand the Flock of Doves to four for more theatrical flexibility.
• Winter 2007: Puppet performance pieces are constantly in development including an optimistic adaptation of a pessimistic Samuel Becket play, and a collaborative work with poet/playwrite Rick Spisak of Hobe Sound Florida for a piece called Dogs of War, tentatively planned to be performed on a highway cloverleaf. Some of this may happen, some may not.
• January 9, 2007: Family friends and troupe supporters provide free charter jet to Florida for Floridian Felicitous Discord and family visit and itinerant day work. Geppetto enjoys 500 mph living room with full kitchen and bar.
• January 6, 2007: Troupe carrier back on the road after three weeks of Geppetto working as an auto mechanic, thanks to the assistance of Lisa Gold and Steve Ohlinger of Auto Shop in Salisbury Connecticut.
• December 24, 2006: Geppetto performs Angel Gabriel of the Holy Family puppets in the Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols service at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City, with a cast of 10 from the congregation of the cathedral church. December’s puppet renovation project was completed just in time to make the puppets more expressive and easier to handle for their annual appearance, and last further into the future too. The performance was a huge success and the story of the birth of Jesus was received with great joy and wonder. Performing in the cathedral is always awe inspiring.
• December 13, 2006: Volvo 240 troupe carrier wagon full of puppet parts and tools crashes on Saw Mill Parkway in Yonkers on the way to the Cathedral in New York City. Geppetto at fault…his nose isn’t growing, it’s always been big.
• December 2006: Puppet renovation project of the giant Holy family puppets at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City. St Columba Chapel turned into studio, sharing space with Keith Haring altarpiece. Learned a lot more about how to make giant puppets; also how NOT to make giant puppets.