Banners and Cranks Festival at DIA

The Detroit Institute of Arts will be co-hosting the annual traveling Banners and Cranks Festival from Nov. 19-22.

Banners and Cranks presents cantastoria performances and cranky storytelling brought to audiences by local, national and international artists. This is the first time that Banners and Cranks has come to the DIA.

“This festival is a showcase of some very talented people doing some very interesting things of which most people are completely unaware,” said Emily Bowyer, family program coordinator at the DIA. “This is a chance to experience something new.”

Bowyer herself had not heard of cantastoria before the DIA was approached to host Banners and Cranks, but now she said she is surprised that so little known about this precursor of cinematic performance.

“Stories being told through moving pictures,” Bowyer said. “This is the base of television and movies. Students, or quite frankly anyone who is interested in any type of story-telling, should come down to see how an ancient performance form is still relevant and compelling today.”

The cantastoria artists themselves describe their work in vividly individual ways. Performers, Lindsay McCaw, Clare Dolan and Dave Buchen took the time to introduce themselves and their art to The South End.

McCaw explained that cantastorias are performances that present paintings narrated by singing. While cranky shows utilize long scrolls on spools that are cranked as it is driven by the story and its song.

“Honestly, it is a form of theatre that is not easily described in words,” McCaw said. “Once people see it, it makes sense and they are often inspired by its simplicity and power. Although you have nothing but some pictures, a couple performers and maybe some instruments, a cranky or cantastoria show can be totally engaging and take you to places that other forms don't dare to go.”

McCaw’s pieces for the festival include a radical Woody Guthrie poem with a 40-foot long painted banner, an Italian folk song about underdogs, a psychedelic cranky show and gorillas.

Buchen said that he enjoyed someone once refer to cantastoria as a living comic book. He loves theater and he makes books, so cantastoria allows him to combine his passions.

Buchen will be bringing two cantastorias called “Get Drunk” and “Anywhere Else in the World.” His new cranky story entitled, “Vlad the Structuralist and the Interminable Curse,” featuring a cursed book, a witch, a magical forest and a dragon.

“The apparent simplicity of cantastoria belies the incredibly complex ways it can construct and deconstruct a narrative, enabling all kinds of sophisticated play with time and character, and layers of meaning,” Dolan said. “It allows a performer to approach very difficult subject matter in an accessible form. It is as approachable as a child’s picture book! So, all kinds of viewers can approach the experience without feeling intimidated. I am excited to bring it to Detroit.”

Dolan’s festival work is comprised of a new episode of her series “The Adventures of Gogo Girl,” a diary of triumphs and tragedies in her ordinary life. Also, a new piece called, “Exquisite Corpse.”

Festival activities will divvied up by day. On Thursday, Nov. 19, cantastoria practitioners Clare Dolan, Lindsay McCaw and Dave Buchen will present an illustrated history of performance practice. On Friday, Nov. 20, the DIA will showcase a mayhemic evening featuring the Detroit Party Marching Band. On Saturday, Nov. 21, there will be cranky and cantastoria shows placed throughout the galleries and on Sunday, Nov. 22, there will be a family-oriented performances in Rivera Court.

For more information, please visit: http://bannersandcranks.org/ or www.dia.org.

Contact Aleanna Siacon at 586-354-5040 or fv7748@wayne.edu. Follow her on Twitter: @Aterese11.

http://www.thesouthend.wayne.edu/arts_and_entertainment/article_bba18854-8eff-11e5-8e83-ab352fbe0bf5.html