I am very excited to be able to work with the very special artist Harriet van Reek. She is an illustrator and writer of children’s novels, two times rewarded with a Dutch ‘Silver Pencil’ (Zilveren Penseel) and she also is a theatre performing artist, and a teacher at the art academy of Zwolle, the Netherlands. I really like her work, which can be experienced at www.harrietvanreek.nl as well as in her blog http://harrietvanreek.blogspot.com/. I really like the pure, humane but also mysterious and strange atmospheres her works arouse.
On the left a construction for one of her performances in the Netherlands.
On the right some strange attribute of hers, apparently made of papier-mâché.
© Harriet van Reek
Harriet is making her first trip in China and after many adventures in remote mountainous areas of Sichuan and Yunnan, she will now finally reach Dehong for our long awaited joint project.
In Yingpan, the Prop Roots program’s pilot site, Harriet and I will include elements of the local folklore about ‘trickster rabbit’ in our own performances and are joined by adept Jingpo rabbit-storytellers. We will stimulate the kids to experiment with various new materials and techniques, such as papier-mâché, but also bamboo and other local plant materials, to make their own puppets and other gadgets and perform their stories on/in our special bamboo hut-like stage. All village people can experience our shows under the banyan tree. Dehong television will also be there.
So, I have to stop with other things and I even have to hurry up a bit: selecting music and prepare luggage and such. I made my last piece of “blog-music” before going: ‘One last rabbit’. I have become rather addicted to ‘rabittism’, my recent explorations into more ‘minimalist’ music. This is music for getting into the business of packing and traveling.
And, I finished a little piece of music named ‘Lots of rabbit stories’, specially intended for the puppetry event and also the first piece ever where I use Zaiwa voice recordings. The ‘lyrics’ are below. We could play it to the children before a show or during a break, or just anytime, as well as to visiting grownup Jingpo people. The piece ‘rabbit theme 01’ is also for the Puppeteers project. Besides these, I will make use of some musical themes from earlier works.
The three pieces mentioned are in the ‘My Band’ players of my facebooks, linked to my www.reverbnation.com/AntonLustig page (which works better).
Bangdvai maumi myo r.
‘There’s lots of rabbit stories’
A song for the Puppeteers project, Yingpan village, August 2010
containing the following Zaiwa phrases:
Bangdvai maumi
Rabbit stories
Maumi zyaq zyaq ge zyoq r.
There’s quite, quite a lot of them.
(Zyoq r.
There is.)
Lyem r lyem, gue r gue dai.
He’s just as sly as he’s an imposter!
Gue mvau lye mai!
He’s such a cheater!
By the way, this will be the last blog before the end of August. Blogspot/Blogger is blocked in China (just like facebook and youtube) so I won’t be able to post any new blogs, if I would have the time.
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