Category: Puppetry Short Work, 2013

Skin and Bone was developed with Smith Purdy and featured Feather on the accordion playing her own compositions and those of folk punk band Abandon Ship. The puppets are a Pilot Whale Bone from Nova Scotia and a White Rabbit Skin from Northern Ontario. The use of real dead body parts as puppets considers the spirit of things: When we feel “dark”, it is both serious and hilarious at once.

In Skin and Bone our clumsy waltzing becomes a hooligan free-form duet and again a waltz. Our trans* bodies are partially exposed in underwear and vests. Feather’s costume included real antlers, Smith’s clothing had feathers, and mine fur trim, connecting us further to our objects and to each other. The set is a chair and a blanket which become branches and moss. The bone and skin transform into an owl and a nervous crawler, which the owl eventually catches and kills. The soul of the rabbit skin then becomes a flier and the owl becomes a whale.

It is impossible to say whether we are mocking traditions or rather embellishing them. We are inventing our own rituals of reanimation to honour where we come from and connection. We bring our futures alive with what little we can find and protect along the way.

Skin and Bone is my most successful puppetry work to date. Unfortunately, there are no documents of the actual performances. I have not been very concerned with image making or making images for posterity on the web. Here is a link to the first exercise in development, while above is a photograph taken as a memento while our Haligonian musician was still in town (Toronto).

Note: While in Halifax (March 2016) I just started working on a second puppet story staring some bones to pair with this one, possibly for video.

Performed May 2013: Mudhouse Skill-share and the Fresh Ideas in Puppetry Conference, both Toronto.