Cambridge Chronicle/Tab 01/01/03

Butterfly Dreams

to premiere this weekend at CMAC

By Susie Davidson

CORRESPONDENT

The tenuous balance between the waking and the sleeping worlds will be explored this weekend in a visually dramatic presentation of Chinese-American puppeteer Hua Hua Zhang’s Butterfly Dreams. The Boston area premiere, produced by the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center in conjunction with Brookline’s Puppet Showplace Theatre’s Puppets at Night series, will be performed at 8 p.m. on Jan. 3 and 4.

Zhang, the production's conceptual artist, designer, choreographer and performer, will be joined by director and technical designer Bart P. Roccoberton Jr., composer and musician Bruce Gremo, performer and creative collaborator David Reagan and performers Ceili Clemens and Faye Dupras.

The show premiered at the University of Connecticut in October, 2001, and at La Mama in New York in May, 2002. Several vignettes, which run from serious to humorous within an overall Buddhist philosophy, venture into the dark and the lighter facets of human experience, as the question “Do we dream that we dream?” is posed.

“Butterfly Dreams combines several forms of puppetry, music, movement and projections,” explains Puppet Showplace Theatre Artistic Director Karen Larsen. “Zhang creates an intriguing, interdisciplinary show for mature audiences.”

Zhang trained in ancient Chinese Rod Puppetry in China; from 1974-1999, she was a leading performer in Beijing's renowned China Puppet Arts Troupe. Following an MFA degree in Puppet Arts at the University of Connecticut, she has actively performed her children and adult variety shows in the US. She has appeared in the Jim Henson International Festival of Puppet Arts, Richard Termine's Tango and in Cathy McCullough's Untitled, and joined Oscar winner Tan Dun in his production of 2000's The Gate, where she created a puppet representing "Koharu" from the traditional Japanese Bunraku Theatre. She conceptualized, created and performed 30 puppet characters which appeared on PBS’s award winning program Between the Lions, and collaborated with the Ming Ri Theatre of Hong Kong in Playing With Klee. She has perfomed in Belgium, China, France, Germany, Holland, Luxembourg and Taiwan.

Her Butterfly Dreams is a heady examination of dreams, based upon ancient mythology as well as the viewer’s own reactions and perceptions.

"Dreams are a conversation with one’s self, a dialogue of symbols and images that takes place between the unconscious and conscious levels of the mind," said Larsen. According to Taoist mythology, a sage, Zhuang Zi, had a dream that he had become a butterfly; upon awakening, he wondered if it mattered if he was a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or if he was a butterfly had dreamed that it was a man. “We are living in a dream of dreams,” said Larsen. “In this production, we are using dreams as a vehicle to explore humanity. Do we dream that we dream?”

Zhang has dedicated her work to greatly transcend sheer entertainment value. “I have learned that theatrical and fine arts can serve as dynamic tools for personal expression, classroom studies, and esteem-building,” she said.

Roccoberton, Director of the University of Connecticut's unique degree program in the Puppet Arts, has worked in myriad productions including 1998’s The Last Enemy, a touring show performed at the U.N. and through the Middle East with a cast of Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian actors, focusing on terrorism, extremism, bus bombings and suicide missions.

Gremo, who recently won a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, is currently Artist in residence at Engine 27 (NYC) and the Civitella Rainieri Foundation in Italy. His computer music has been performed worldwide. “Many of these works are conceived to enable acoustic soloists to control computer generated sound using only musical means,” he said. “The scores frequently take the form of highly structured improvisations. In all cases, I create idiosyncratic sound synthesis processes for each work.”

Regan’s U.S. and European tours include work with Sandglass and Crabgrass Puppet Theatre. He has designed work for Mexican Stand-off at Fat Squaw Springs at NYC's Vital Theater, Stick Stickly in Stuck! for Nickelodeon Television and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court for Connecticut Repertory Theater. He has helped create puppets and masks for Boston Ballet, Houston Grand Opera, and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, among others.

Butterfly Dreams’ musical score features unusual and rare instruments and technology. Varied ancient flutes, percussion instruments are meshed with computer generated sounds involving acoustic instruments, synthesizers and samplers written on a PowerBook hard drive, all controlled and driven in real time.

“Expect to hear highly expressive and rare solo instruments with lush, complex, yet distilled computer generated textures, backgrounds and gestures,” said Gremo. “Expect a music which brings together elements of east and west, old and new, conservative and experimental.”

“This is a beautiful show, full of surprises, lovely moments, high drama, and warm humor from a masterful designer and performer,” said Larsen.

Butterfly Dreams, performed by Hua Hua Zhang and Company, is presented by The Puppet Showplace Theatre in partnership with The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, located at 41 Second St.

Tickets for the Friday, Jan. 3 and Saturday, Jan. 4 8 p.m. shows are $20/$17 CMAC members, students and seniors. For information, please call 617-731-6400, the Puppet Showplace Theatre at 617-577-1400 x10, or visit www.cmacusa.org. All events are handicapped accessible.