the dream community / taipei, taiwan

BIGGER, WEIRDER, MORE

The Dream Community in Taipei, Taiwan, is an extraordinary group of people.  Their artist in residence program brings in creators from across the globe for their big annual parade in the nation’s capital and to connect with indigenous communities throughout the country via art, theater and lots of puppets. Pictured above is Gordon Tsai, its founding visionary, doing what he loves most.

I spent three months there in 2012, with four other artists from New Orleans, and we built a two-headed alligator mausoleum voo-doo throne Mardi Gras motorized party-wagon float for their big annual parade.  My magnum opus of contraptions was at its heart, nested within the beast’s mausoleum belly and surrounded by six “tomb windows,” each of which housed a lo-fi animatronic puppet.  Composed of nine bicycle wheels, a stack of bamboo and fifty feet of aircraft cable, this homespun machine allowed the “pilot” riding atop the second story party platform to manipulate the puppets by turning a ship wheel side to side, which moved the puppets side to side, opened and closed their mouths, and swung their arms.  No I don’t have any pictures at the moment.  It was typhoon season.  Things were hard.  But I’ll find some.

SPACE LION + DOLPHIN PLANE

I was then sent to two indigenous villages in the south to help the locals design floats for their own traditional annual parades.  I was excited to design some beautiful traditional floats. But that’s not what they wanted. They wanted a space lion driving a flaming motorcycle.  An elephant house on wheels.  A dolphin airplane with funny, sexy flight attendants flanking it on all sides for the year’s biggest celebration. I’d present them with a few sketches of ideas in my notepad which I felt were beautiful and traditional and they would say, “Yeah that’s fine but what’s that on that other page?  Is that an airplane that’s also a dolphin?  We love that.  There’s a pod of rare pink dolphins that visits our cove every year. And it’s a plane? That’s crazy. Let’s do that. Can we all dress sexy and silly? That’d be hilarious.”  So that’s what we did. 

I also met Jane Goodall, who is hilarious. Her conservation group, Roots and Shoots, borrowed the bicycle seahorse puppets I designed for a local parade. We walked and joked the entire parade route while a million people took her picture. Also pictured is Mr H, who is eating a banana. This was a really good day.