Articulations: The History of All Things

Artist’s Statement

My earliest performances, in the late 1970s, featured objects that were masks or costume extensions of my own body. Dresses and skirts of unusual materials—3,000 walnut shells, 90 pounds of glass, dozens of fresh fish—became an integral part of my autobiographical performances. After a while, I felt alone onstage in these solo works, and I began to create small likenesses of myself to take on supporting roles. These were my first puppets. Soon, there were so many “little Theodoras” onstage that I gave up performing and became the director instead. My works expanded out from autobiography to large-scale subjects such as the history of American invention, genetics, food and famine, and medicine. I have always felt that puppets have an innocence and a purity that make them especially effective in illuminating social and political issues. Those qualities, in addition to their ability to express and transmit to audiences deeply felt emotions, have led me to incorporate, over the past 20 years, a wide variety of puppets in my works.

(Photo by Costa Picadas)

MASK PERFORMANCE, 1977, Artists Space Gallery, New York

My piece, a solo performance and gallery installation using 72 life-cast masks of my face in different expressions. The performance consisted of vocal and movement improvisations. During the day, these, plus another group of my masks, were on display.

(Photo by Valery Taylor)

THE VENUS CAFE, 1979, Byrd Hoffman Studio, New York

Autobiographical performance using objects, masks, costumes, slides, film, and audiotape. It concerned the conflicts I felt living in between two cultures, Greek and American. Shown is a slide of the Empress Theodora superimposed over my own face. From the text: So, in one afternoon, I was transformed from a Gypsy whore to a Greek virgin and bride. Sort of like a Byzantine fairy tale. Sort of like Theodora, the one-time prostitute who became the Holy Empress of Constantinople.

(Photo by Valery Taylor)

THE MOTHER AND THE MAID, 1980, The Performing Garage, New York

Another solo performance continuing the theme raised in The Venus Cafe, the conflicts I felt as a person torn between two cultures. In The Mother and the Maid, I went beyond autobiography to consider how Greek myths resonated in my everyday life. Shown is my back onto which is projected Greek village women. Below is a ceramic plate onto which I project various images. Later in the performance, I dropped the plate and it shattered.

(Photo by Sarah Van Ouwerkerk)

SKYSAVER, 1981, gallerie ak, Frankfurt, Germany

Solo performance. At that time, I was teaching painting to mental patients in New York. The piece investigated the life and art of the insane, in my own experience and throughout history. From the text: John Petrolak is 58 years old, institutionalized for 28 years. For the past two years, he has been working on one pencil sketch of Abraham Lincoln. Each week, he draws two or three lines of the face and stares at it for hours.

(Photo by Christian Hanussek)

MICROPOLIS: Seven Portraits and a Landscape, 1982, The Performing Garage, New York

This was my first play for puppets—with 20 of them. Three performers worked with eight miniature tableaux, each with individual sound and light systems.

Sylvia

You can’t see them, but my body is full of needles. They hang from me like pinecones. I heard last week that the governor died of a blowjob. In the papers they called it a natural disaster. The doctors tell me I’m to be released soon. I have a job waiting as a fashion designer. Gloria is one of my sponsors. So is Louis Duy-De. I’m going to be a celebrity. I’ll be on all the talk shows and featured in People magazine. I’ll probably marry Pat Boone soon. I’ll fly first class. I’ll sip the perfect martini as I chat about my life with Gore. I was born with cachet. (Text by Garry Rich)

(Photo by Eli Langner)

Hotel

(Photo by Bob van Dantzig)

Urban Landscape

As a child, my eyesight was sharpened by certain skies.Their features darkened my whole appearance.The phenomena came alive.Now, the inflections of time and the infinity of mathematics are tracking me down.I put up with civic acclaim, famous among weird children.I dream of a war, of unthinkable logic.

(Text by Rimbaud)

(Photo by Eli Langner)

On the Road

(Photo by Eli Langner)

THE AGE OF INVENTION, 1984, Theatre for the New City, New York

A piece for five performers with 39 scenes, 300 puppets, a film, and a score by Virgil Moorefield.

Part 1 — The Eighteenth Century

Prologue: Fade-up. A female buffalo puppet (four feet long) stands next to her three daughters, who function like a Supremes backup chorus.

“Buffalo Gals” Livin’ with the white manStead of livin’ with the IndiansSorta like the landlordWho bought the place from under you.

(Song by Martha Wilson)

(Photo by Cynthia Friedman)

Part 2 — The Nineteenth Century

EDISON: A scientific man busies himself with theory. He is absolutely impractical. An inventor is essential practical. Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent.

(Photo by Bern Boyle)

Part 3 — The Twentieth Century

SALESMAN: Some surgeons go to Stanford or Harvard. My medical education took place in the garage behind my house, in emergency rooms, and morgues. At first, my role was watching or holding an arm while residents patched it up. From then on, doctors began increasingly to consult me about new prostheses and to ask me to perform surgery in the operating room. I could have refused, but frankly, I was concerned about losing business at the hospital. It was one of my major accounts.

(Photo by Eli Langner)

DEFENDERS OF THE CODE: A Musical History of Genetics, 1987, Apple Corps Theatre, New York

Five manipulators, three musicians, and 50 puppets. Score by Virgil Moorefield, lyrics by Andrea Balis.

A laboring woman is attended to by three medieval midwives who encourage her to give birth at an astrologically auspicious moment.

(Photo by Adam Bartos)

Every race has its characteristic nose, and from its shape and size may be determined the degree of development attained by that particular race.

(Photo by Adam Bartos)

EMPIRE AND APPETITES: A History of Food and Famine, 1989, Theatre for the New City, New York

A musical with six performers and 100 puppets. Score by Pat Irwin, lyrics by Andrea Balis.

Dance

A 10-foot aluminum and wood ape-man marionette crawling on all fours gradually rises up onto two feet.

(Photo by Michael Cummings)

“Song of Malthus”

The population of the earth progresses mathematically.The generation of the food supply progresses arithmetically.

(Photo by Elba Lugo)

THE RADIANT CITY, 1991, American Place Theatre, New York

This play is about the legendary master builder of New York, Robert Moses, who from the mid-1920s until 1968 determined the shape of today’s New York, and had enormous influence on the rest of urban America. Five people manipulated 150 puppets. The five-piece band played music by Christopher Thall, with lyrics by Andrea Balis.

A 12-foot-long Robert Moses puppet surveys mid-Manhattan.

(Photo by Valerie Osterwalder)

Wheel of Power: A 12-foot Ferris wheel identifies each of the 12 unelected positions Moses held simultaneously in New York City and New York State governments.

(Photo by Michael Draper)

A group of New Yorkers evicted from their homes to make room for highways haunt Robert Moses in a dream.

(Photo by Michael Draper)

“The Bill Song”

You got to write it rightTo get your bill to flyYou’d be amazedJust how much crap gets by.

(Song by A. Balis)

(Photo by Michael Draper)

UNDERGROUND, 1992, La MaMa E.T.C., New York

When a 1960s radical resurfaced after hiding “underground” for more than 20 years, I became fascinated with people who live, work, and hide underground. This was a piece for six manipulators and 50 puppets. Score by Bobby Previte.

Bomb Shelter

CHET: I’m sure we’ll be out of here any day now, gang. (Pause)

JUNE: Of course we will, honey.

(Text by Sebastian Stuart)

(Photo by Valerie Osterwalder)

Egypt

Death presents itself to me like a familiar road.As when one returns from war to one’s own home.

(Text from Egyptian Book of the Dead)

(Photo by Valerie Osterwalder)

UNDER THE KNIFE: A History of Medicine, 1994, La MaMa E.T.C., New York (First version, University of Iowa, 1994)

For the first time, I experimented with ambulatory performance—spectators moved to 12 different environments covering La MaMa’s large Annex Theatre, its lobby, and the stairway leading up to the theatre. The play was about the history of medicine. As spectators moved, they traveled in time from the past to the present. The play used 22 performers and 100 puppets. The score was by Virgil Moorefield. In addition to my own writing, I used texts by Greg Armknecht, Art Borreca, Erik Ehn, Diana Son, Maggie Conroy, Jack Shamblin, and Jamie Leo.

(Photo by Michael Draper)

Dissection (scene 9)

VESALIUS: It was my first year of university that I learned of it, opening bodies. My teacher said, “Before royal crowds, they do, they take criminals and they open them, there, sometimes still alive, that while breath remains they might seek out the secrets of nature.”

(Photo by Valerie Osterwalder)

Medusa (prologue)

Sung text: He who takes the blood from the veins of my left can heal the sick and raise the dead. He who takes the blood from the veins of my right can cause disease and bring destruction.

(Photo by Nancy Chu)

BODY OF CRIME PART 1, 1996, La MaMa E.T.C., New York

This is a history of women in prison. Another ambulatory performance, spectators travel through 10 environments in and around La MaMa’s Annex theatre. There were five performers and 50 puppets with a score by Barry Greenhut. Part 2 was presented in April 1999.

Scenes from the Salem witch trials.

(Photo by Valerie Osterwalder)

In prison, the accused, Mary Warren, did deny her testimony. By the time she gave up her denials she was having fits so violent that her legs could not be uncrossed without breaking them. She seems to have been driven insane by the refusal of the magistrates to accept her sanity.

(Photo by Valerie Osterwalder)

Inmates sewing in a 19th-century American prison.

(Photo by Arthur Aubry)

Based on criminological studies, I made a sideshow of late-19th-century criminal women.

(Photo by Valerie Osterwalder)

INSTALLATIONS, 1995 and 1998, 60 Broad Street, New York

These motorized figures were part of two exhibitions in abandoned spaces, featuring multimedia. The first exhibition was presented in a former office building, the second in a former bank.

Why is she all lit up? 1995

Three latex figures, motors, typewriters, audiotape.

(Photo by Valerie Osterwalder)

Patty Hearst 1998

One paper puppet, motor, videotape, CD.

(Photo by George Hirose)

A HARLOT’S PROGRESS, 1998, The Performing Garage, New York

A chamber opera for puppets based on William Hogarth’s engraving series of the same name. Thirteen performers, 60 puppets, with a libretto and score by Barry Greenhut.

(Photo by Tom Brazil)

Inside a gigantic animated woman’s head, an intimate scene between Moll and her loyal maid, Lucy.

(Photo by Marianne Courville)