Monster Island and The Children of Mu: an update
In 2003, The Children of Mu was written, based a dream and a specific photograph of child model Xie Kitchen taken by Lewis Carroll. Sometimes Xie would appear in Carroll’s photos dressed in Chinese costumes, and in the dream, Xie said she was the reincarnation of a princess. The Children of Mu is a story told through Xie about her life, creation and the journey of shadow puppetry from its 50,000 year metaphysical origin (as conceived in the writings of Madame Blavatsky and James Churchwood) to the invention of cinema and the shadow theater revival by the French (and Chinese) avant-garde in the 1880s.
The Children of Mu was written by Cary Loren and created into a theater work by the Monster Island collective. Artist Tom Carey who specializes in creating prints and handmade books using woodcuts, produced most of the puppets for Children of Mu. Using ideas and methods drawn from Indonesian shadow puppetry and music applied through gamelan theory ( as practiced by Monster Island). Practice sessions and filming was done with added Indonesian puppets from the collection of the University of Michigan gamelan society.
Woodcuts are one of the oldest known printmaking techniques, going back to the 1400s – where the development of moveable type and the invention of the book began. Between the jump between shadow puppetry and woodcuts, there’s a natural storytelling relationship. Both forms are dependent on the negative cut out space –the line that defines light and shadow.
The Mu shadow play was written first in song and narration and later produced as a double LP, released in 2007. Sections included Chinese translations written and sung by Lee Ambrozy, as Princess Xie –who in character tells the story in song. Alfred Jarry’s avant-garde lament, The Green Candle was sung and translated into French by Noelle Lothamer. The Magic Lantern is another song based on a Victorian image-making story telling device that projects images as shadows and metaphor. The narrated (commentary) version of the story was recorded live using the voice of Annke Auer, a Dutch psychic and web designer, who channeled the spirit of Madame Blavatsky in seance.
Video and light show projections helped frame the shadow screen and blend with puppetry during live performances. The Children of Mu was staged several times in Detroit in 2007. Since then, an unfinished video of the play had begun that includes several dozen animations and live performance works such as The Palace of the Lost Lagoon (2009) –- a performance and Mu ritual recreated underwater by using video cameras shot through an aquarium and projected onto a gallery window. Various plays-within-plays move the focus of Mu from the general to the specific -opening a microcosm of Mu Island life into a view inside contemporary life. Sections of The Children of Mu stand alone and it can be watched as a fragmented story told through music image projection, and performance. Arranging the fragments into a single film or expanded research dense installation is the long-range goal. Here the Mu song “Magic Lantern” is recorded as a video collage: