FusionFest Turns Spotlight on Puppeteer Basil Twist Through Collaboration

A four-night run of Basil Twist's Dogugaeshi is Cleveland Museum of Art's Viva! & Gala Around Town contribution to FusionFest running at the Cleveland Play House. Cool Cleveland we've drawn on Twist's own words with CMA's assistant director of creative services, Greg Donley -- all in an effort to describe this unique show and characterize its appeal.

Inspired by the Abstract Expressionists, puppeteer Twist created what he believed to be a highly original work, Symphonie Fantastique, over ten years ago. It's wholly abstract, nonrepresentational puppet theater and was a fantastic success, opening at The HERE Art Center in New York and running there for two years before an extensive North American tour ensued.

"I was very proud of myself," says Twist.

But soon afterwards he learned about dogugaeshi, a Japanese tradition of abstract puppetry that dates back to the 17th century, and as Twist tells it, “I was amazed and humbled. Here was this tradition that was already doing what I thought I had invented.”

Eager to learn more, Twist traveled to Awaji, Japan’s island of dying art forms, where he went up into the mountains and interviewed old people who remembered dogugaeshi performances from decades ago. “It turns out I’m part of a small movement of Americans who have contributed to the presentation of these traditional art forms,” Twist says. “But honestly, that wasn’t my intention -- I just wanted to make a cool show.”

How cool? Dogugaeshi has enjoyed so far sold out runs in 2004 and 2007 at Japan Society in NYC, a 2007 tour of Japan, a Bessie Award, and currently tours the U.S. In 2006, Twist was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Drama and Performance Art.

Unheard of for a puppet show.

Critical response to ‘Dogugaeshi’ characterizes it as “meditative” and “mesmerizing” rather than the kinetic slapstick of Punch and Judy. It begins and ends as a succession of sliding screens, revealing and concealing. But the frankly clunky paper and paint screens are punctuated by a multimedia sound design that includes drumming, chanting, Japanese pop music, the sound of a storm, even a snatch of "There’s No Business Like Show Business," in addition to live accompaniment on shamisen and koto by Yumiko Tanaka.

Integration of music with puppetry is a theme throughout Twist’s work. As the sliding screens present dogugaeshi’s traditional arc of creation and destruction, the images refer back to the genesis of Dogugaeshi.

“My show starts with a re-creation of the little film that first made me aware of dogugaeshi. Then, as the screens and doors move, there are silhouettes of people moving, carrying things, echoing those nomadic troupes on Awaji that used to haul everything up these mountain paths and light the whole thing with candles.”

A video of Twist’s interview with the old women reminiscing about dogugaeshi performances in their childhoods, theatrical lighting by Andrew Hill, projection design by Peter Flaherty, sound design by Tanaka, Greg Duffin, and Yasuhiro Otani – throughout this mix of media from the 17th and the 21st century, beautiful fox puppets appear at apparently random moments.

As Twist explains it, “I was in a vault of a museum and amazingly I found some of the actual screens that were in that original film, but they were all torn up, and off to one side was a puppet of a fox with long white hair, gold teeth, and nine tails. I felt like it was guarding them. So back home I made my best approximation of that fox, and in the piece it acts as our guide.”

Dogugaeshi is easy to find on YouTube, so viewers can form their own impressions before springing for this one-hour show.

Experience it all at the Cleveland Play House’s Brooks Theatre this Thursday, April 30 and Friday, May 1 at 7:30PM, and on Saturday, May 2, and Sunday, May 3 at 3PM. Tickets are available by visiting the CMA online Box Office at http://www.ClevelandArt.org/Tickets or by calling 888-CMA-0033.

From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas vicnelsaATearthlink.net

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