In recent years, Schumann has said he wasn’t concerned about what happened to the theater after he retired or passed on — that it was papier-mâché, not built to last. But he’s now decided that he must consider the people who have helped him achieve his vision. Over the past winter, he began talks with his family and Bread and Puppet’s inner circle about maybe perpetuating the theater’s museum, archive, print shop, Vermont performance spaces, and perhaps even some sort of repertory of shows.
Can Schumann foresee a Bread and Puppet that he directs but in which he doesn’t perform? “It might happen, but I don’t see that. I see myself dancing with two canes or crutches. And having just as much fun as without the crutches. It comes out of the same conviction that says dance isn’t a school of movement or an aesthetic that gets trained, but dance is any existing movement whatsoever.”
Bread and Puppet’s annual summer series wraps up in Glover, Vermont, this weekend (August 29-31), with the Lubberland National Dance Co.: Election Campaign Celebration Dances at 8 pm Friday and the Sourdough Philosophy Circus & Pageant at 4 pm Sunday. Then it'll march in the Honk Parade from Somerville to Cambridge on October 12. It returns to Boston Center for the Arts from Jan. 25 to Feb. 1.
You can read Greg Cook's blog at gregcookland.com/journal.
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