{"id":14510,"date":"2019-12-09T06:29:07","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T11:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=14510"},"modified":"2019-12-09T10:30:07","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T15:30:07","slug":"katherine-fahey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/12\/09\/katherine-fahey\/","title":{"rendered":"An Evening Of Crankies\u2014\u2018The Original Moving Pictures\u2019\u2014With Katherine Fahey And Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThey were like the original moving pictures,\u201d says Katherine Fahey of \u201cAn Evening of Crankies,\u201d<\/a> which she performs at Puppet Showplace Theater in Brookline on Monday, Dec. 9, at 7:30 p.m. The Baltimore artist performs with her partner Dan Van Allen as The Lantern Sisters. (They say they\u2019ll be donating part of their proceeds to Sierra Club Maine.)<\/p>\n

The evening will also feature two Boston-area acts. Lindsey Wagner performs \u201cThe Good Oak,\u201d which she developed with Kate Sokol. And John Bell and Trudi Cohen of Great Small Works present \u201cOda a las Cosas (Ode to Common Things).\u201d<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s a crankie? \u201cIt\u2019s basically a scroll of artwork in a box and the scroll\u2019s on sticks that have cranks at the top,\u201d she explains. \u201cYou crank it and you watch the artwork, the scroll move across the front of the box.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019re like handmade filmstrips, picture stories, cranked from one spool to another to be watched as images scroll across a \u201cscreen\u201d in the middle. Often accompanied by live music, they\u2019re a bit like DIY music videos. Fahey\u2019s are often backlit and incorporate shadow puppets.<\/p>\n

In the West, the technique goes back at least to the 19th century, in the form of \u201cmoving panoramas,” often on historical themes. They\u2019re a form of epic entertainment that can be seen as a precursor to the films\u2014the moving pictures\u2014that came to dominate society in the 20th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also this really cozy sweetness of sitting around this illuminated box,\u201d Fahey says. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like sitting around a campfire. And you turn out the lights like you would have done as a child waiting for some ghost story.\u201d<\/p>\n