DC Theater Arts: Michele Valeri and Ingrid Crepeau, the singer-songwriter and puppeteering duo behind DinoRock, have been entertaining the DC area for 40 years. Dinosaur Babies, their show at the Puppet Co. at Glen Echo Park, will be the last of their final public performances, giving this run a particular air of significance for these masters of their craft.
2 comments:
As someone with more experience in the scenic/prop area of live entertainment I absolutely adore the use of puppetry in this performance. Puppets at their core are a fantastic storytelling tool, especially with little children in bringing these fictitious characters to life in a physical manner. Then from a more technical side of puppetry the design of them has always interested me. How all the joints work together alongside the puppeteer to make such an animated character. Another fantastic example of beautiful puppetry in live theatre is in the Broadway production of The Lion King with a lot of the animal characters being voiced by their puppeteers while the puppet itself takes on the physical form of the character. I hope to see more common usage of puppets in live performances as more than just a cutesy storytelling tool but as a real physical embodiment of the characters that perhaps a human form can’t replicate.
The puppeteers are inspiring with the amount of care and time it is clear they have put into their work. I feel like we have much less of this style of interactive experiences for children these days outside of television. The work that Michele Valeri and Ingrid Crepeau did is inspiring to anyone wishing to appeal to a much younger audience. From my experience people can get stuck thinking that theater has to be serious and dramatic, but when we take a step back and examine shows like ‘Dinosaur Babies’ we can see how shows can be just as good when not aimed at the usual theater going audience. It is clear how much the children loved the performance and that can be extremely rewarding as children, more often than not, are bluntly honest about their opinions. I hope that the dynamic duo of Valeri and Crepeau understand how much shows like theirs can stay with a child and provide a learning experience.
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