female announcer: "Studio Space" takes you on a journey to the path of the artist.

What's the process?

James Hildebrandt: My basic tools are gaff tape, masking tape, baling wire, and hot glue.

announcer: What's the inspiration?

Dionna Fletcher Ndlovu: One of the things that I love to say and a principle that I operate on is that we are "living theaters," and we are watching each other live out this life, and that is the play of life.

announcer: "Studio Space" introduces you to art and artists in Northern California, a place where a unique art colony thrives and supports each other while creating some of the most dynamic, kinetic, and impressive art in America.

This activity is funded in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Kati Texas: Hi, I'm Kati Texas.

David Ferney: And I'm David Ferney.

Today on "Studio Space," we'll explore the work of two performing artists and how their different methods engage community.

Kati: I'll join performing artist Dionna Fletcher Ndlovu, who tells deeply human stories without words.

But, first, David discovers the power of shadow puppetry with sculptor, painter, and puppeteer James Hildebrandt.

James Hildebrandt: That's just the magic of it is that is the most satisfying thing is taking trash like that and creating incredible, incredible magic.

♪♪♪ David: We're here in the Arcata Playhouse with puppeteer, painter, and sculptor James Hildebrandt.

Welcome to "Studio Space," James.

Really great to have you here.

James: Thanks for inviting me.

David: Let's jump right in with your puppetry work.

Now, I know you've done a variety of different styles of puppet from giant backpack puppets, to smaller puppets, to even object puppet theater, but you have done most of your work and been drawn to, it seems, to shadow puppetry.

James: Yeah.

David: Can you tell us a little bit about your shadow puppetry work and how you got started doing it?

James: Shadow puppetry, I didn't really get into puppetry till I was maybe about 20 years old.

I was at the University of Minnesota, and I was working in a co-op, and there was a MayDay Parade, and it was put on by Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in Minneapolis--and went out there, and I was like--all walks of life, ten-foot-tall stilts, giant Bunraku puppets--you name it--and all different types of people 'cause it was a community parade.

I followed them all the way to Powderhorn Park, where they did a performance, where they called the sun, and it came from an island, and, you know, I'm watching this, and there's two guys on stilts on each side, shouting out the story line.

And I was like, "How can I be a part of this?

How--what is this?"

You know, never experienced that before.

So he said, "Come on around next year in May and, you know, come before, actually, in January and get involved."

So I did a MayDay Parade with them, "Ever Whirling Wheel of Change," and I made some giant puppets and a giant brick wall where, actually, we took this "Ever Whirling Wheel of Change," and we crashed this wall of racism.

It just said "racism" on it, and we smashed through the wall, and then all the little wheel warriors would run through, all the little kids, so it was all community-based parade.

After that, I was just, like, "There's really nothing else," you know?

So I continued to stay with them, and then I was asked by a guy named Dan Polnau--I think he may be a director there now or something--if I would wanna do shadow puppets for a upcoming production, and I never did shadow puppets before.

I checked it out.

My friend that--Dylan, who was doing them with the theatre, we worked on 'em together.

It was a really good start.

It was a great start.

David: One of the elements of shadow puppetry, the three that I see are the puppets but also the screen and the light source.

James: Yes.

David: So I wanted to ask you a little bit about what kind of work you've done with the light source and what different light sources will do to create a performance effect.

James: Gosh, we have the sun, and we have the moon, and then, of course, fire, which is my favorite because it really gives life to the shadow puppet.

David: It just really brings the--really animates the shadows.

James: Makes them breathe.

David: The flickering, and it just feels like, you know, they're moving differently.

James: Yeah.

David: It's such a great effect, working with fire.

James: Gives that otherworldly effect of the shadows.

It's very magical.

And flashlights, I was doing things with stage lights and with clip lights, just simple clip lights with a clear bulb, figuring out how to get a really clean effect with that, and then a group came through.

We did a puppet slam, and it was the New Eccentrics.

David: Right, I remember them, yeah.

James: Man, when I saw them, they took a regular LED flashlight, and I figured it out with the help of other people asking them about it and created movement that was three-dimensional, and I took off running with that and made a couple of different devices that utilized that because of now the technology with LED lights.

So, found them to be a little cold, so, you know, always would go back to a regular lightbulb for the warmth of that.

David: Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

One of the fun things about it too--and I remember specifically the last big production that you did--is being backstage and seeing the action as an audience member 'cause that's half the show.

There's so much going on back there.

You know, the audience in the front sees just the image, but there's this incredible choreography.

[vocalizing] [muffled voices] [muffled voices, scraping] [high-pitched ringing] child: --And small like our pinkies.

[high-pitched ringing] ♪ Do-doo-do-be-do-be-do-be, do-do-do-doo.

♪ ♪ Do-doo, doo, doo.

Do-doo, doo, doo.

♪ ♪ Do-do-be-do-be-doo, do-do-doo, doo.

♪ ♪ Do-doo, doo, doo.

Do-doo, doo, doo.

♪ ♪ Doo, do-be-do-be-do.

♪ ♪ Do-be-do-be-do- be-do-do-do-do.

♪ ♪ Do-doo, doo.

♪ ♪ Do-be-do-be-do-do-do-doo.

♪ ♪ Do-doo, do-be-do-be-do-be-do-be-doo, ♪ ♪ doo, doo.

♪ ♪ Doo, do-be-do-be-doo, do-be-do-be-do-do-do-doo.

♪ ♪ Do-ooh-do, do-be-do-be-do-be-do, ♪ doo, doo, doo.

♪♪ James: The think about that, too, is when I started back doing shadow puppetry and I was at Dell'Arte--he wanted to put the technicians in front, and I was a puppeteer in that, and so it was a switch because, after that production of "Elisabeth's Book", the people would come up and say, "We loved seeing the puppeteer."

That led to other productions where I was out front.

Like, in the long way, I became an actor and a puppeteer, where the audience would see me opening books and holding up, with a flashlight, shadow puppets as the actor acted out the story.

It became a very-- David: Right, and the story was set on sea with sails.

James: In the--yes.

David: So you used the sails as the shadow projection, but it was from the front.

James: From the front, yeah.

David: That was a great theatrical device.

James: Yeah.

[wind blowing] [thunder crashing] [rumbling] [rumbling] [vocalizing] male: To the finder of my trunk, inside this trunk is the story of my voyage and a message for my wife.

If this trunk has found you, then I know, with all of my heart, that these messages will reach her someday, for out of all who live, it is the sea that has chosen to bring this to you.

This is how my journey began.

David: Can you talk about some of the other puppetry work that you've done, some of the giant puppet work, some of the smaller stuff, just to get a scope of what other puppetry that you have been involved in and done besides shadow puppetry?

James: I've done a couple of productions here at the playhouse where there was just hand-manipulated puppets and some with found objects, and then a couple of skeletons I made on a whim, they kind of--I just created them to come out and create mischief places, just appear out of nowhere.

David: Yeah, those are fun, backpack puppets.

James: Not for Halloween.

We've had so much fun with those puppets, they-- once--you had said too is, like, once you make something like that, it has a life of its own, and they have, and other people have been running around in 'em, and it's just, like, "Wow, that's great, you know?

David: Yeah, the playhouse, the Arcata Playhouse here has a collection of about half a dozen giant backpack puppets, and they're almost 20 years old now, and, you know, like what you were saying, they have a life of their own.

They've done this show in here, they've been here, they've been up to Canada, they've been in different states, and you have to--if you build this big thing, it has to have a life.

It has to get taken out and different people using it.

It's interesting to think about artistically something that's inanimate has its own, you know, performance and artistic life.

James: It would be nice to take some of the work in other places.

I'm really a homebody.

I really don't like Internet kind of stuff so much.

I'm really very much into where I am, and you experience that liveness.

So I have reached other places.

I've been in Colorado, and I've been actually played on Broadway, off-Broadway.

David: Oh, right, yeah.

James: And that was really well-received, but I'm pretty much like the work here.

David: Speaking of here, what do you like about working here in Humboldt County in the arts community here?

James: Oh, wow, it's the support--the support and the people, that people here really love artists, most, I would have to say, and a lot of support.

No matter what crazy idea that you have, people cheer you on and ask to be involved and are curious, I have to say that's what I really love about it is the people here.

It's pretty amazing.

David: So I understand you have some stuff in your studio, shadow puppets and other things that we'd love to look at.

Maybe we should go do that.

James: Let's.

David: Great.

Let's go.

James: My basic tools are gaff tape, masking tape, baling wire and hot glue and cardboard so--and sticks, of course.

But up in the ceiling, there's these mask ones I was telling you about, they're the two-sided.

I can pull one down for you if you like.

This was from another play called "The Saint," and it was a really sad--it was from a Hafiz play that I wrote with-- All my plays are all original.

Always have been since day one, since I was 20.

I had my own shadow play.

David: It fits on your--like this.

And then you have the shadow head with a live actor.

James: Right, yeah, and usually we'll wear a big coat or something or whatever.

David: Well, thanks, James, it's been really great to chat with you on the show and find out more about your work that I knew mostly, but it's fun to explore these details.

James: Thank you, David, it's been wonderful to be able to share that, thanks.

David: We've been here with James Hildebrandt on "Studio Space."

Thanks so much for joining us.

♪♪♪ Dionna Fletcher Ndlovu: I encourage the youth of our church.

We all create together.

That was one of the ways that I could express my spiritual views.

And it gets people thinking 'cause they're trying to interpret the body movements.

It gets people talking more.

That's what art should do in any medium.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Kati: Thank you so much for being here, Dionna.

Welcome to "Studio Space."

Dionna: Thank you for having me.

Kati: I'm excited to talk to you.

I find a lot of artists are involved in lots of different, you know, different styles if you're performing--you're doing mime, you're dancing.

Can you describe your medium?

Dionna: Yes, I am an afro-dance artist, and I am a mime.

I have not practiced that art recently, so I encompass my mime work as a part of physical theater because physical theater encompasses any physical movement that can tell a story.

It can be in short story or a long story, two hours, five minutes, but one of the things that I love to say and a principle that I operate on is that we are living theaters, and we are watching each other live out this life, and that is the play of life.

Like, art represents life itself, right?

And so the opening of the play is when I first see you, not when you speak.

And we are communicating physically to each other before we even speak.

We don't pay enough attention to our own theaters, like, to just listen to it, to watch it, to watch each other, you know?

When I first walked here, I'm watching a play happen in itself, so that's my world of physical theater.

I also am a stage performer, and, you know, just by virtue of my career, from all the way from youth, I've always been performing.

You know, it could be a classical play or a contemporary play.

Kati: Do you have a favorite piece that you've done or a favorite production you were involved in?

Dionna: My favorite performance, it's of me performing mime of a woman discovering--the morning that a woman discovered she had breast cancer.

It travels through the journey of when she first feels a lump in the shower, and then having to process through those feelings, and then maybe go to the doctor and it be confirmed and still have to process some more.

One of the things that I was interested in investigating is that the world only really focuses on after the diagnosis, after the prognosis, after the death.

But what about that moment, you know?

It's like when a woman gets her first menstrual cycle, nobody talks about that process.

We talk about, "Oh, she's on her menstrual cycle," but when a young girl goes through that first day, and I think it's just as important that we look at the beginning of things.

The saying goes, "Look to your past to understand how you got here."

So you didn't just arrive.

You know, something got you there, and that story, the character that I created through mime, what got her there with a shower, a breast check in a shower.

That was, like, a normal check.

Or I think I was experimenting with what it's like for the character to just happen to check it, or it was a routine check.

It's my most touching, my most raw performance.

I don't know if I wanna say "provocative."

That's not the word, but "real," real.

Kati: Well, yeah, yeah, I think that's a good word.

Dionna: I really love investigating art that makes you listen with your eyes.

Kati: Mmm, ooh.

Dionna: Because we talk to each other like this and like this and, like, you know, "Yeah, I hear you," you know?

But do you hear me?

Do you see me, you know?

Dionna: Do you wanna tell us a little bit about the-- what you're going to perform?

Is there an inspiration behind it, or do you wanna tell us a little bit about where it came from?

Dionna: This piece is about disparities, and black and brown communities existing around the world, but there's a common thread amongst all black and brown bodies, not just in America but throughout every other country on every continent.

And the particular character that I created is someone who is experiencing disparities in our socioeconomic system and our prison system.

So those systems are keeping this character in a world of distress and, like, emotional turmoil.

Yeah, you'll see, and in this particular piece is where the character is trying to escape and also make it--how all these different systems and laws have kept black people from equitably being able to keep up with where the world is now with other European, Anglo-Saxon, white folks, and how, 400 years later, a white person could be at the finish line, and that black person is still running, 400 years of catching up and walking through systems.

And so that's the inspiration of this particular moment in disparities.

Kati: A performance by its nature is ephemeral.

How do you feel about the impermanent nature of theater?

Dionna: Well, I will tell you, as a theater artist, experiencing theater through the body, transferring it to the audience's eyes, to their mind, to viscerally landing in their body, for me, that's forever...if you were there.

That's where the saying goes, "Oh, what a time to be alive."

That saying.

When I think of a performance that I saw, for example, there's this great artist named Jordan Rosin, and his art is butoh theater, and he just simply did five minutes--ten minutes of this organism or being struggling to grow, failing, and finding some strength to still flower, and it made me cry.

It made me cry.

And I will probably won't ever see that again, but I'll never forget the effect of his art on me.

Someone will never forget how your art affected them from what they interpreted from your art.

So that's how I see how art impacts the world because it starts to change your understanding of the world.

It starts to change those strong feelings that you feel convicted in about something or belief, and that's why I feel like it's forever.

Kati: When you were little, when you were younger, were you always a performer?

Dionna: Yes, I've been performing since I was five.

Kati: And what did those early performances-- what were those like?

Dionna: My performance time started as a dancer, a African dancer.

I am Nigerian, I'm first-generation Nigerian, and so my mom, who is a black American, thought it was important for me to be surrounded by my culture and to be informed by my culture, so my artistry grew out of my own culture, which was required.

Kati: And that was in your hometown?

Dionna: Yes, from Yonkers, New York.

Kati: Awesome, is there a big Nigerian population there for you to connect with?

Dionna: Oh, yes, in New York State, period, lots of Nigerians.

Kati: I found up here that in Humboldt, people tend to think of themselves as enlightened or accepting or tolerant.

They feel like they have--that this is a safe place, but without actual diversity, it's difficult to tell if one is actually encouraging diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Dionna: You know, one thing that people need to be aware of is that you don't just experience inequity.

You feel it, and it is okay to honor what you feel.

So when people call me about advice that they experience at work, at the bank, at school, wherever, I always let them know honor what you feel.

Your body will not lie to you.

As far as being aware, it's not just about being aware.

It's about addressing your denial, and some people can't be aware because they're in denial of their own systems, and you don't have to be white to participate in those systems, to be in denial, to not be aware.

I do also believe in protesting on stage.

I do believe in your art being your activism.

I do believe in the art being the deliverer of messages, of news.

Sometimes that's the only way people receive it.

It's not gonna be the newspaper.

It's not gonna be the politician on 5 o'clock news.

You know, it's gonna be the artist.

Even if it is coming from the artist's perspective, people want the news, and they wanna be entertained, you know?

And they wanna see it relived.

I believe I'm someone who says I believe in all of movements coming together and not just one.

That is my understanding of how I approach how art should happen and how I approach it.

Kati: You started out in New York.

You've been to Maryland.

You've been to--is it Delaware?

Dionna: Yes.

Kati: What's it like doing your thing here in Humboldt County?

Dionna: Nature really has influenced my art.

It's less noise.

The city life, the city noise, everything has slowed all the way down for me.

You know, people say, "When I retire, I'll go live out in a rural area."

Like, I'm so glad I didn't wait till I retired.

This place humbles me, and as much as I cry about the lack of diversity, I'm honored and grateful that the indigenous people kept this land and that I'm here not by virtue of righteous ways of getting here, but I'm here.

Kati: Yeah, thank you so much for taking us through your life and your art and your inspiration, and thank you for being a part of the Humboldt culture and being a person that helps make this place better and more interesting for all of us.

And thank you for talking with us today on "Studio Space."

It's been my pleasure.

Dionna: Thank you for having me.

Kati: We hope you enjoyed today's episode.

David: To visit with other Humboldt County artists, go to StudioSpace.tv.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: This activity is funded in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

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