Hansl and Kaufmann - Gounod - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Today's final puppetry related post for this month includes a lot of YouTube videos along with a Public Domain selection.  In attempting to stay puppetry related, the "Funeral March of the Marionette" by Charles Gounod popped into my head.  

That brief classical music piece presents a bit of a challenge for puppeteers as I look ahead to July's 

at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

I've never seen any stories about the Funeral March of the Marionette, but like many people the first thing the music triggered in my mind was the old 1955 to 1965 t.v. show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  YouTube is loaded with videos related to that.  Supposedly composer Bernard Herrmann suggested the piece to Hitchcock.  Much as I enjoyed the great director stepping into his outline to Gounod's short composition, this time I really wanted a puppet, not a director who, like Andersen's "Puppet-Show Man", used actors as his puppets.

YouTube had 3, well maybe 4, videos that came close.  

• No information is given on this European version of Funeral March for a Marionette, but it is the only one showing actual marionettes moving through the video.  It combines a small orchestral group with the show projected above the musicians.  The marionettes are shown in actual European settings like an unnamed "Stadsmuseum" after leaving a puppet stage.  The concept is interesting, but I didn't care for the musical performance's tinny arrangement.  As a result the marionettes never really excited me even though I liked seeing people walking past them and the museum's display of toys where the "dead" marionette ended.

• Various types of hand puppets are more my personal style and Anzovin Studio's  award winning computer generated animated film, Puppet, ends the way I'm sure my efforts with marionettes would.  It's a humorous look at a puppeteer, Dennis the Dog, trying to control a rebellious puppet who looks like himself.  The puppeteer's own personality also makes the ending just right.  It's not a real puppet video, however, so on to yet another video.

• Again it's animated, but this time using puppets in Eric Fonseca’s stop motion Funeral March for a Marionette.  It does a wonderful job of catching both the spirit of the music and fulfilling the title.  Fonseca also is an award winner, in this case from the San Antonio Film Festival.  Various interviews can also be found on YouTube explaining how stop motion filming the puppets required a year to produce the 6 minute film where “4 seconds on screen was about 4 hours in the garage.”  Amazingly this was his first video.  Learning from it he went on to create the 40 minute/4 year project, “Fall of the House of the Usher.”  I find it interesting that everybody compares his artwork to that of Tim Burton's films.  It's true, but for years I've noticed how Danny Elfman's music is a crucial element in Burton's final work.  The Fonseca film throws down a gauntlet to puppeteers trying to do a live version.  A workshop at the Motor City Puppet Blast on Friday, July 25, 11:45-12:45 by Larry Larson will be on “ Techniques of Stop Motion Puppet Construction” if this style of puppetry captures your interest.

• There's one other video I loved which uses Gounod's composition.  Out of the Box takes the idea of a music box and reimagines the piece as ballet with a music box dancer learning to move.  Since Gounod also wrote some great ballet music for his opera, Faust, I think he would accept this "marionette", too.

Still I did promise this month to offer both puppetry related information and continue the Keeping the Public in Public Domain series of stories.  Today is a very different type of story.  It's a biographical look beyond the sometimes dry summaries found at Wikipedia.  I enjoy telling biographical stories about people such as authors, artists, scientists, and, in this case, composers.  

A brief but lively such "story" can be found back in the early 1930s when Grosset and Dunlap offered various books in their Minute Sketches series.  The one page composer stories in Minute Sketches of Great Composers were widely enjoyed at the time.  The only opposing view I found comes from the Anton Bruckner; Symphony Versions Discography site. The site is compiled and maintained by John F. Berky, who faults the book for being " full of inaccuracies but it is memorable for its dismissive tone and the classic comment about Bruckner, 'shambling along the street in ill-fitting, dusty clothes.'  At least the sketch has some redeeming values."  I presume he's talking about Samuel Nisenson's illustrations.  

The entire book is available at Archive.org.  It was interesting the people who, unlike Berky, were devoted to the series, especially this book.  Dennis Simanaitis in his blog, Simanaitis Says, loves the Art Deco style of the series and its "micro-essays" of under 100 words. The Billie Sucher Blog on April 19, 2010 put the book in a "hope chest" for her adult son.  Wildflowers and Marbles.com puts the book at the top of a list of composer resources for home schooling across age and grade levels.  Back on April 9, 1938, although the book had been released back in 1932, it was recommended on page 7 of the intriguing pdf of the weekly Radio Guide.  It's a '30s forerunner of TV Guide and gives insight into the entertainment industry of the day and the many other programs people invited into their homes back then.  Google Scholar also cites the book 15 times with articles from its publication through last year.  Additionally I found the book still held in academic libraries.

By now I've taken quite a few minutes, but here's Gounod's Minute Sketch.

While the Sketch doesn't mention Funeral March of the Marionette, the last two paragraphs, especially about dying upon hearing his Requiem, all seem ironically appropriate.  Before we shut the coffin figuratively, here's another interesting link, Limelight magazine's"The 13 strangest composer deaths in classical music" and I love that it was written on a Friday the 13th.  They wanted 13, but I would have made sure to include Gounod, especially since he died on the 13th of October, and drop one of the others.  Which one?  That would be up to the storyteller.

July will be a return to what passes for normal on this weekly foray into storytelling and research.  Remember to look up the start of this month where I began by reminding everyone to

If you can come to the Detroit area any time from July 25 through the 27th, be sure to check out  the Motor City Puppet Blast information there, too.

Today's musical adventure sounds a bit like my answering machine message where I say "You just never know what I might be up to..."

Of course it will always have something to do with storytelling and often even the Public Domain.
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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings as often as I can manage it.    

  
There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I recommended it earlier and want to continue to do so.  Have fun discovering even more stories!

Motor City Puppet Blast Update

Promised as soon as I knew, I'd post when my workshop will be.  It's Saturday, July 26 at 3:30-4:30 p.m. in the Holley Room at the Detroit Institute of Arts.  That works for folks unable to get to the festival on Friday, but I hope you can come for all three days.  There will be lots of workshops -- even one on stop motion puppet construction which fits the creepy/cool entry I'll be posting here next weekend.

In the meantime go to the Great Lakes Puppetry Festival website for information including registration by or before June 25 to avoid $15 late fee.  Hope to see you there!

Here's a great site listing more information about each of the workshops at the Chicagoland Puppetry Guild site.

Andersen - Puppet-Show Man - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Hans Christian Andersen's theatre fascination began with an introduction using the puppet stage his father made.  At the risk of revealing too much from today's story, theatre directors will appreciate the Puppet-Show Man's choice of a suitcase full of puppets over actors.

Because the Great Lakes Regional Festival, Motor City Puppet Blast, is next month at the Detroit Institute of Arts, this month looks at PUPPETS!  To include stories in this blog's Keeping the Public in Public Domain, I'm convinced the best story on the topic is Andersen's "The Puppet-Show Man."  While children can follow the simpler outline of the story's basics, like so many of his writings there is much for adults in the work, including autobiographical elements.

Illustrator: A. W. Bayes, and Brothers Dalziel (Engravers)

The stories depend on translation to bring the Danish author to English speaking audiences, whether reading or hearing the stories.  Amazon books have 101 pages of Andersen books.  My favorite interpretations are by the actress Eva Le Gallienne, but she only translated seven of his more than 150 stories.  Added to that, while Andersen died in 1875, the translations I must show here need to be in the Public Domain for more than just my usual desire to keep older stories alive.  As I mentioned nearly a year ago when featuring an Andersen story, I encourage you to compare many of them before telling something by him.

Just as I did then, I turn to the translation by Mrs. H.B. Paull because her work is safely within the Public Domain and covers the largest number of his stories.  At the same time even her first and middle name is debated, as Susannah Mary Paull or as Margaret Agnes Paull.  While her work interpreting both Andersen and Grimm is well known, she wrote much more that now is nearly as obscure as her name.  Modern scholarship examines her work in the book, Voices in Translation: Bridging Cultural Divides edited by Gunilla Anderman.  The chapter, "Little Snowdrop and the Magic Mirror: Two Approaches to Creating a 'Suitable' Translation in 19th Century England" by Niamh Chapelle and Jenny Williams contrasts Paull with the popular Victorian writer, Dinah Mulock, who was later known as Mrs. Craik.  The story of "Little Snowdrop and the Magic Mirror" is from the Brothers Grimm.  Chapelle and Williams analysis of the two translators faults Paull for being moralistic both in her choice of words and omissions.  They aren't looking at her work with Andersen, but  still would probably have a similar opinion.

Unfortunately "Puppet-Show Man" is not one of Andersen's better known works with a large number of versions to compare.  When I did look at others, the differences felt minor.

Andersen's statue in Central Park

Would Andersen as a writer agree?  Because so many of his fairy tales began orally, I would like to think when I tell them he would understand.  After all, he said (essentially the same in all translations) through his Puppet-Show Man: "I can arrange my pieces just as I please. I choose out of every comedy what I like best, and no one is offended. Plays that are neglected now-a-days by the great public were ran after thirty years ago, and listened to till the tears ran down the cheeks of the audience. These are the pieces I bring forward. I place them before the little ones, who cry over them as papa and mamma used to cry thirty years ago. But I make them shorter, for the youngsters don’t like long speeches; and if they have anything mournful, they like it to be over quickly.”

By the way, blogs place the most recent article first, but all this month, if you haven't yet read the start of this month my article "A to Z, Puppets Are Easy", which began this month, be sure to catch it.
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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings as often as I can manage it.  

A to Z, Puppets Are EASY!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here's 10,000 from my workshop, "A to Z, Puppets are Easy", I will present at the Great Lakes Regional Festival, Motor City Puppet Blast.  (More on that after all the pictures.)

Buzz, my puppy puppet, is dressed like a pirate -- AAARF!  (He never learned a proper pirate's AAARGH!)

Nina the Teenage Ballerina

Puppets can be dangerous!

The Gunniwolf has caught me!

He's a lover of lullabies

(He's falling asleep)

This is Ivan, my Signing Siberian Tiger

Anansi, the trickster, has fingered a spot in the program, too

Here's a view of many of my puppet friends who help put on this workshop

Those great photos were taken last year at the program I did for the Birmingham Storytellers Guild by Kathy Calhoun.  THANKS, KATHY!!!  I'm awful when it comes to taking photos and so I'm immensely grateful to Kathy.

I promised more information about the 2014 Great Lakes Regional Festival, a.k.a. the

It will be held July 25-27 at the Detroit Institute of Arts.  They have a long history of puppet collections and performances and should be an excellent venue.

Here's the offiffiffic'al description of my workshop:
Story telling with puppets for all those interested, especially the beginner. Let puppets enrich your work! These unpaid co-performers can help tell a story, comment for humor, be “fillers” between stories, or serve as your assistant in story telling, teaching or preaching. Discover a combination of ways to use puppets, and easily located on line and print resources to help you craft programs “Out Front with your Puppet”. Be sure to bring a note pad and pencil. (one hour)

I've given this very popular workshop many times, including several times for my own puppeteers guild, the Detroit Puppeteers Guild, for their annual Day of Puppetry.  I'm also the coordinator for the group, Out Front with My Puppet on Puppet Hub, the "global network for professionals, amateurs, and people who just like puppets."  The purpose behind Out Front pretty well summarizes my own usage of puppets:  
A group for puppeteers who don't stay behind a stage. Whether storytelling, or performing music, or. . . it's just the puppet & their human performing directly to their audience.

Here are some ways to find out more about the festival and my suggestions on puppets

• http://www.greatlakespoa.com/Festival.html has the most information, but at the moment the exact time of my workshop is still being arranged.  I'll update this article so you know it right after I do.
• This wonderful link http://www.chicagopuppetguild.org/#!great-lakes-region/cshr from the Chicagoland Puppetry Guild gives a fine summary of the workshops, letting you see there's much more at the festival to learn.  (Yes, there will also be performances and puppets to buy and still more...look closely at the general festival link above.)
• My own website has two spots where puppets are featured, including on the Specialized Resources page, just scroll down to Puppets for my top 5 favorite links.
• Additionally here are some earlier articles here at Storytelling + Research = LoiS on Puppets.

You will notice the first of those articles here -- a rather long article on the Billy Bunny series -- is also part of my Keeping the Public in Public Domain series where I post stories from storytelling anthologies in the public domain. Billy Bunny was a toy to start children in their first explorations with puppets.  I'm uncertain if I'll find some additional stories for this month including puppets, but I'm certainly going to look.  Until then, happy storytelling and remember puppets, too, after all 
"A to Z, Puppets are EASY!"