For the past eight years, BareBones Productions has produced an annual Halloween puppet show in the Minneapolis City Parks. Using wheat paste and cardboard to create gigantic puppets, the Halloween pageant takes place after dark, combining spooky costumes, live music and the power of ritual to invoke the spirit of the Day of the Dead. This interview took place in the Year 2000, just prior to the seventh annual performance in Theodore Wirth Park.
Mark: We wanted to offer a balance to the May Day [Parade]. Catering to the other side of the year.
It kinda begins with Alison. She was doing a thesis show for her University of Minnesota art degree. And invited a number of people who were in the community to join in that production. Primarily Alison, Molly Ross, and Jill Klinke, and they collaborated with Julien McFall and myself as kind of minor participants.
Alison: I would just like to add that even though that may be the beginning of the annual Halloween show, there were a lot of people who had been getting together. There was a group called Galumph, and a lot of us did these Haunted Hayrides, and other goofy things. But I think that within this community, its really a group of people that were interested in extreme theater and extreme puppet theater or pageantry. And taking things out to the streets.
A lot of people in the group have different backgrounds. But I think all of us share a common thread of really wanting to see some radical theater. And even though it was my project, it never would have happened to the full extent without the work of a lot of people. And once it began then the next year people were like Well, weve go to do SOMETHINGÉ Even though there was a spring board or a diving board, theres a lot of impetus and energy. And this year its wild. It feels like this snowball thats so big its on its own course in a weird way. Its pretty exciting to be around in the beginning of a tradition. If I could be so bold.
Mark: It really is! I was struck by the word-of mouth-thingÉpeople coming from Rhode Island and Kansas. And this year we had Waffle -he's from Florida, but he came from San Francisco all the way here to help put on the show.
Alison: So somewhere here's this guy who hears that theres this great Halloween-thing that goes on in Minneapolis.
Mark: Based on a ten minute conversation, he decided that this is where he wanted to be.
That kind of the thing that always knocks me out: its kind of like the living saints or something. People always show up and have exactly the right vital energy for doing what they choose to do.
J. Cruelty: What was your original intention with the thesis project?
Alison: What was my intention with the project? To do a large, outdoor pageant.
I heard this one guy recently who made a comment about performance: how its the radical inhabitation of the city, and I really love that idea. And If I was that smart when I did this very first project I would have said that was the intention: the radical inhabitation of the city.
I mean, [the first year] it was chaos! And people couldn't really see. There was some fireworks, people couldn't see that.
But those kind of logistics have really blossomed over the years. [We're] learning how to do this kind of theater that's really out there! Its dark, and you can't really see. You have no fucking money, and you're trying to get people to come out and do it, and their schedules are all over the place. Its their generosity that's driving the show, and your generosity. Its just this crazy, crazy vision.
J. Cruelty: Where do you get your materials?
Mark: A lot of donations. Some of it used. And some of it going back to where it came from.
Amy: Its varied and sundry. Bedlam created a movie once: "Beg, Borrow and Steal". But literally a lot of our stuff comes from dumpsters, back allies, the things that people put out in the trash.
Alison: People bring in donations. Paper bags. Old ladies who are trying to clear out their basements... Somebody came in the other day who for their job had helped out at a costume store, and out of the dumpster they had gotten all of these old costumes.
Amy: A lot of the artists bring stuff in, too. A lot of tools. Peoples' personal stuff.
Mark: A lot of the tools and stuff like are donated for the run. But for the most part we use cardboard. So the only real cost is staples and blades for cutting the cardboard. And duck tape. But I'm trying to wean us off of ducktape.
Amy: There's a bike shop across the street, and we take old inner tubes from the bicycle tires, and we cut them up and use them to lash the puppets together. A lot of our puppets are made out of parts from their dumpster. They actually hold onto stuff for us and call us up "The dumpsters getting fullÉ"
J. Cruelty: How did you get involved in puppetry?
Amy: I moved to Minneapolis, and my housemate was going over to Mark's house for a meeting and said "Hey were gonna make this puppet show. Why don't you come write a poem or something for it?" And there was nothing good on TV, so I went over. I was in like three or four puppet shows before I ever saw one. I thought of it as performance art for a really long time, because puppetry to me was Lambchop or the Muppets or something. I didn't have this vocabulary of puppetry as a valid living artform for adults.
Maren: I came to it with a theater background, but I hadn't worked with puppets before.
Mark: As somebody who is kind of young into the whole puppet scene, I started because my brother was a performance artist, and they made puppets for him. But then I was immediately drawn-into this group Galumph. And as a consequence became aware of the May Day Parade. I definitely was aware that was something that I was excited to have happen, and something to look forward to. And although we had all performed on Halloween with the Sleepy Hollow hayrides, that was kind of a real beginning to having a balance to that as the seasons were winding-up. I found myself happier than I had ever been in my life. Really looking forward to the fall and that performance which would really serve as sort of a side curve to May Day and being excited for spring.
J. Cruelty: How is Bare Bones organized? How many people are involved in the core collective?
Alison: I'd say that the group is now about a 20 person collective, and thats pretty amazing. In terms of how a group is structured, a collective is a rare artform!
Maren: And a rare form for artmaking. Although less so now. Ive been finding out more and more about people making art collectively. It has a lot of challenges.
Mark: I remember particularly in the Hullabaloo year really feeling that so many particular visions were stirred together that the audience which is going to be just as varied, if not more so than the performers- are all gonna be able to link with that kind of vision.. people are going to find the meaning that's important to them.
Amy: Its a collective, and theres 20 people. And most of those 20 people are the head of a committee.
Maren: We take on different administrative roles.
Alison: That's one of the things that we think is critical is the balance between administrative work and artistic work. And so, a lot of people take on different aspects of artistic work. So we have this smaller group, but then the group really expands to accomplish this Halloween show.
Maren: We call ourselves the Organizers. So we're a collective of Organizers, and we each have our own area of organization in relating to putting on this huge event. And within each area, theres still a lot of give and take. For example, we have the Build Organizers who are responsible for making sure that all the puppets that need to be built get built. But they're sharing a lot of the artistic decisions with the people who come in to build. Basically, anybody who wants to build something can build it. And as far as performing, theres a lot of give-and-take in terms of what should be said and done.
Amy: We tend to come up with the story collaboratively each year, which is something of a challenge when you get that many minds together. But you also get this richness of different peoples ideas and creativity and energy. So over the last few months weve been getting together in peoples dining rooms, eating food and talking about things. Like this year with the Monkey King People bringing in stuff thats been intriguing them throughout the year.
Of course, this year there have been a lot of political events here in the city, but also around the country that people have been really drawn to. Those conversations are fascinating. And sometimes frustrating. You're trying to get from 20 voices to one vision.
Alison: I think we're still learning how to master the collective process.
We kind of have this loose structure now where we have an organizational retreat somewhere in February or March, and after that we usually have a meeting once a month. Then they start getting more frequent in September and October, where we have more production-orientated meetings every week.
Amy: We do have other events throughout the year, too. We do a winter show in Powderhorn Park, and we do different cabaret events, and cheap art sales and fundraisers. But of course, Halloween is our main event.
Amy: We try to create art in everyday places. Every so often we'll have these "Cheap Art" shows. We did one in like a laundry mat. Or street theater -just to bring art to the people where theyre at. And so the idea of creating art in the park across the street from you and moving that around the city to different places, to go into different communities, that's really interesting to me.
Alison: Art is the great liberator. I'm an extreme manifesto-ist.
Amy: Last year's show [October 1999] was a lot about decay. It was called YDecayÉas opposed to Y2K There were a lot of rotting carcasses and the dung beatles. A lot about the death-to-rebirth.
Mark: The order of chaos, basically.
Alison: Fear of rotting. Fear of that aspect of the cycle. Rot.
Maren: And also the beauty of it. Just exploring that.
Amy: One year we did it off the old Baba Yaga stories. The old crone who in the magic hut in the woods.
Maren: I would say that the theme overall was confronting your fears.
Amy: Baba Yaga is known for eating children.
Mark: And she shares that with the United States. And Brazil.
Alison: Light and dark has also been a theme. And the seasons. We're on a cyclical thing. Thats kind of the anchor of Hullabaloo, that its a wheel, with the spring , summer, fall and winter.
Its kind of this reaction to the current American view of Halloween, and what is that? That's been a theme. Like trick-or-treating kids: how does that represent the changing of seasons? Also the fear of trick or treating. "How does America celebrate Halloween?" has been a springboard for ideas.
Amy: And also, there's a lot of traditions that are honoring the dead at this time of year. And there's a strong spiritual basis for Halloween, and different holidays taking place this time of year. And in a way we've created a ritual for ourselves thats honoring our ancestors and honoring this time, to pay our respects. We're creating our own traditions.
Every year theres a part of the performance where we invite people to call out the names of the dead. We also have a place set aside every year where people can leave gifts for their ancestors, or they can write them messages. And we try to set aside a special place for that. So its become a spiritual tradition for a lot of people. A time for them to honor those who have passed-on.
J Cruelty: Its seems like there is a strong pagan component to ritual... Is this intentional?
Mark: I think the great thing is that so many people come from so many different points of view spiritual or otherwise- and this is also an era of a very liberating feeling of religion. Some people definitely feel tied to the more pagan aspects of the performance.
Amy: I'm always surprised by all the different kinds of people, and the significance of the show in their personal lives. And some of us have a really strong spiritual connection to this time of year. And other people really don't at all, and they want to be out there making a political statement about life today in Minneapolis. And there's other people who couldn't care about that, theyre there because their friends are there, and its gonna be a lot of fun! And others who are like "This is all about ART!"
Its really amazing when you see all of these different people with all these different personal investments in the show, and being really respectful of one another. Even if its not of spiritual significance for them, they're very respectful of the people for whom it is.
Alison: We've had some pretty intense conversations about politics and spirituality. Its always been really mind-expanding. Very painful, and very mind-expanding. But I think thats part of the process of working with such a large group of people and being open to so many different ideas.
Alison: We're getting a pretty big following. Thats kind of crazy! Its good. There's something pretty intimate about the show, though -that's kind of scary. Like how big can this get and still be a good show? Its a balance.
Mark: There's always a trade.
[Like] that year that it rained so horribly, and ending the show with everybody singing in that big circle of mist. And everyone was holding hands -everyone in the audience- and you couldn't see to the other side. But that wasn't possible the following year. We tried to reproduce it, but there were just too many people!
There's a story about me giving myself an electric shock working a puppet. It was a crazy year! There were a lot of puppets that we couldn't even use just because of the weather. To say that it was raining was an understatement! It was TORRENTIAL. I had built an elephant which couldn't be used. And the rain had gotten into the wires of this 30 foot tall lantern puppet, and so I had the people who were puppeting it let go. And I took both sides and immediately got shocked. And what was supposed to be this beautiful ballet and a salute to Life wound up being more like an Elvis shimmy, and then falling down Elvis. And then Dead Elvis.
But it was still beautiful. On the dress rehearsal night when it was still dry, it was just exquisite. So I got to see The Vision, but I didnt get to share The Vision with anyone else outside the show. But that night we were more than recompensed for that negative occurrence because the rain stopped by the end of the show, and the mist came up from the valley and everyone in the audience held hands and sang a call and response.
Alison: There's inevitably something thats insanely frustrating. Because there's so many people, and so much communicationÉAnd whenever you get frustrated and youre at the end of your rope where youre like "Fuck this! Just fuck it!" something miraculously beautiful always comes. Like you go to the space, and someone cleaned it. Or, you go to the space, and someone has done all this work and you're just blown-away by how amazing everybody else is..
Amy: I'm always really amazed by the people who come to work on it. The way people blossom or find their role. People who come in and say "Well I can't really build anything" and they offer to rip paper bags for the machZ Mark: He actually did his senior thesis at the University of MN as a puppet show. A very political puppet show.
Alison: Last year, this woman named Lisa came in from out of town, and she had been working on this saber-toothed tiger. And then the last week she decided that she was going to make a whale. Not a little whale. A GIANT whale. A LIFE-SIZED WHALE SKELETON. And this guy comes up to me who's in the more established puppet community, and he goes "Why didn't anyone tell her 'No'?! Why didnt someone tell her 'No'?" -I'd say that was a beautiful moment, too. Because this whale was unbelievable!
Mark: He [the more established puppeteer] just said "How could you let her do that? Its gonna take all these resources and all this time"É But that's his point of view. He really believes in setting limits. And we really don't. I'm really adverse to that. I've always been like "Great! Go for it!"
...But the person who puppeted that whale -I've never seen him more ecstatic. And he's a happy, happy man! When he was puppeting, the bliss on his face was unbelievable.
J. Cruelty: The show has gotten to be pretty elaborate. There's free food, and electric lighting... where do you get your funding?
Mark: The funding varies year to year. Two years ago, we funded that show entirely ourselves -except for after the show, we did receive some funding from Target.
Amy: Mostly its just donations. Passing the hat.
Mark: Last year, Julien really spearheaded this grant, and got us a State Arts grant for $20,000, which allowed us to really expand and help the people who were helping us, too. We were able to turn it into a real festival -which was also a learning experience! Because its one thing to do a couple hour long show, and another to have someone out all day from early in the afternoon until evening. Its a different kind of demand on the audience. But I think that people really, really enjoyed it.
Alison: In economic terms, our budget for that day [the 1999 Puppet Festival] was about $33,000... So we we're giving away the equivalent of a $16 ticket to all the people who were there that saw the show.
Amy: We got a couple smaller grants this year. Just a couple thousand dollars.
Mark: Some people who had been audience members in the past supported us...
We did take in about $1,600-$2000 in donations [one year], but it costs $1,200 just to buy the hay bales (for people to sit on), not including the labor...
The amount that we're getting just from personal donations is going up. Which is nice. Its nice not to be dependent on grants.
Alison: Although grants are nice, too!
Mark: But I think that's part of the reason why we got the grant: because without the funding, there was still all that visible momentum in the community. They said that when they saw that video of all the people coming down the hill, a thousand people coming down the hill to see the show, there's no denying that there was something LIVING there. And I feel more personally empowered when we are the parent of that energy rather than being kind of the adopted recipient.
The year we did Baba Yaga, I had immense feeling of personal pride that we had done it, and we could do whatever we wanted to do because our art can support our art.
J. Cruelty: What did you have to do in order to get permission to perform in City parks?
Mark: Oh God! There were a lot of hoops to jump through! You've got to pay for the police to watch the area. That's kind of the biggest hassle. Off-duty police are expensive!
Alison: You've got to prove that you're within the bounds of park rules and regulations. And you've got to OK a lot of things with them. Its kind of strange, youre gonna do this free event that illustrates and illuminates their beautiful park, but they've just got these pretty big hoops.
Mark: Which are partly self-protective. You've got this era of lawyers, so freedoms are being confined.
Last year was right on the edge of that with the fire twirlers, and people hanging from trees.
Amy: But I think by this time we've established a pretty good relationship with the people at the parks, and so when we say things like "We want to have a bonfire", or zip-lines from the trees, they're like "Well, do it here. Don't do it there." I think that we've established ourselves.
Mark: They wrote a beautiful, beautiful letter for us. Just supporting what we do. So the Establishment finally did offer their support. But we really had to earn it. And I think they still dont quite understand it, just because of the economics of it.
Alison: They're just protecting their property from being damaged.
J. Cruelty: And you share a space with the Bedlam Theater?
Amy: The space is co-owned, or mostly owned, by Bedlam Theater.
Maren: Run. Managed. Not owned.
Alison: Occupied.
Maren: The space is used for a lot of different things. Its used to build the shows. Theres a smaller group of Bedlam Theater. All of us work on this Halloween show as well. But during the summerÉwe just did our own play there. And we use it for rehearsals of our own personal things. And then we also rent it out -or loan it out- to various groups for meetings or slide shows or benefits.
Lots of different political groups use the room for benefits. Lots of parties. And then the Romps are every other month, and they are cabarets. And whats nice about them is a lot of different people who use the space come together to watch and perform and drink and hang out. Its really helped to merge a lot of these people who are interested in using puppets for demonstrations with people who are interested in puppets for their art. Like people who come from Camp Coldwater [anti-road protestors], back when that was going on, coming in asking for puppets and meeting people who make puppets.
Mark: We've had some really famous people in there doing their thing. Basil Twist who's like a big marionette puppeteer- came in and did his thing, and that was spellbinding. There was a guy who came from Chicago who was like an opera singer. Its not knowing what to expect. And the energy has always been strong, though different sometimes.
I had the most minimal Romp. We did root beer and root beer floats for everyone on the way in. Its been dubbed The Quaker Romp. And during that Romp it was almost more like testimonials. Some young Somali kids came in and talked about their experiences here and abroad. And it was just personal sharing. Less about art, and more about something that was incredibly special.
Alison: Its really just an awesome place to experiment. Verbal crowds.
Amy: Bare Bones hosted a cabaret at the Hard Times CafZ J. Cruelty: What are some of your favorite moments?
Amy: I think this last year the pumpkins on stilts was a really transcendent moment. All those people [in costume on stilts] -and I would say at least 50 percent of them had never stilted before until four days before the performance- and here we were sitting in this water gully, and NOBODY FELL!.
Maren: We had 18 stilters They were dressed up as scarecrows, and they were frozen for the whole first half of the pageant. So a lot of the audience didn't even know that they were people. They just thought that they were scarecrows -and then suddenly they came-alive.
Amy: I was one of the scarecrows. And we were all perched up there on our stilts standing still. And there was a woman with her child who walked up and said "There, you see? I TOLD YOU they weren't real!" And they were like this far from me [less than five feet]... [And I'm thinking] "The joke's gonna be on you!"É [Laughs]
Part of that whole illusion goes back 5 or 6 years. My friend was fooling around and he had this pumpkin on his head, where kids would come up to him, and say "Nice pumpkin", and he would jump up and say "Thank You!" And this woman jumped about 16 feet, and she left her kid in a stroller on the porch! That same technique was used in Hullabaloo, and while we were trying to stay still before the performance, kids would come up and hit me with sticks to see if I was real...
We funded it with money that we had earned throughout the year doing events. Installations.
Copyright 2002 by Erik Farseth