It was mid-fall and local musician Adam Lipsky was feeling kind of blue. He looked around the Island and thought the possible venues for playing and listening to music felt static.
Sometimes puppets are just a fun diversion and a creative way to tell a story. Next Saturday, June 15, puppets will also help disabled children in Zambia.
Bella & Arakataka’s Little Band is a musical puppet show, a happy play talking about a musical country where musician monkeys live and enjoy life.
The new original song called A Vida e Bela, or Life is Good, composed by Bella, is the key to getting to this magical place, where a party is going on and Arakataka’s Little Band is performing.
The play was written by Bella, and the songs are live, presented in English and Portuguese.
Bella is a singer and song writer and performs with Carol Loud, musician and music teacher for children.
April Thanhauser of Spindrift Marionettes will join the staff of Plum Hill School to offer a free morning of puppets and crafts tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 26, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Family Center at the high school.
April’s puppet show will feature colorful “lap puppets” enacting a medley of nursery rhymes — just right for toddlers and preschoolers.
Stephanie DaRosa and Josie Black of Plum Hill will follow with a natural craft activity for parents and children to do together.
The curtains go up next Friday night for a one-night-only performance of Cupid and Psyche, a 2,000-year-old love story. Spindrift Marionettes will present their most ambitious production yet, a full-length puppet show for adults as well as children over ten. It features marionettes, life-sized goddess puppets and shadow puppets re-imagining the ancient tale of love and loss, courage and despair, in a world where gods and mortals interact to both comic and tragic effect.
A Sunday matiné e musical puppet show for all ages at Che’s Lounge will feature musical monkeys who love to dance and play, with their friends Bella and Arakataka’s Little Band. Are You Looking for Bananas? is the name of this happy play about a musical land where musician monkeys live and enjoy life.
The play and its songs are written by Bella and they are performed live in both English and Portuguese by Bella and Carol Loud, a music teacher for children.
In the age of electronic entertainment, how delightful to see a roomful of children wrapped in the spell — not of a movie, video game or Web site — but an old-fashioned puppet show. Che’s Lounge in Vineyard Haven played host Sunday, Feb. 15 (the second of three consecutive Sundays scheduled) to a local puppet troupe performing a Brazilian folktale — Toad and the Party in the Sky — to a packed house. Children in the audience, ranging in age from one to ten, were clearly captivated, laughing aloud and even singing along with the characters.
The musical puppet show The Hole Without A Bottom (O Buraco Sem Fundo) premieres at Che’s Lounge on Sunday, April 5, and will continue every Sunday in April at 11:30 a.m.
Featuring Island performer Bella, The Hole Without A Bottom is an original play adapted from an original story, performed in English and Portuguese. The suggested donation is $5.
Bella’s Musical Puppet Show presents Arakataka’s Chorus Band/Coral do Arakataka, where everyone is invited to join in singing the American and Brazilian folk songs, on Sunday, June 6 at 11:30 a.m. in the makeshift theatre in a warehouse behind 56/58 Main street in Vineyard Haven.
Look for romance and comedy under the linden tree every Saturday night, when the inimitable Bella brings Trouble in Paradise, her new musical puppet show, to passersby at 6 p.m. weekly through July and August.
