Coarse & Janky was recorded & produced by Aleksandra Bragoszewska and is part of radio project that has been collecting dust for some years now. The extract featured here is pulled from one of four radio ballads to the Bread and Puppet Theatre; Coarse & Janky, Working the Clay, Monsters & Men in Suits, and Possibilitarian Meaning Making, the latter three which have yet to be made.
It features excerpts of the "Why Cheap Art Manifesto" by Peter Schumann (1984) as well as interviews and sounds from: Peter Hamburger, Massimo Schuster, Maryann Incoronata, Peter Schumann, Gregory Corbino, Tuesday night Shape Note Singers, Genevieve the Apprentice, Trudy Cohen, thrushes singing at dusk in the pine forest, Daniel MacNamara, Maura Gahn, the Bread and Puppet Band, Pepe Hilfrau on lip-whistle, Jason Hicks on porch-side banjo, and Highway 122 in Glover Vermont. It was recorded at Bread and Puppet Theatre in Glover, Vermont 2010-2016.
Aleks says:
Bread and Puppet Theatre is a 50-year-old self-sustaining radical political puppetry theatre under the artistic direction of Peter Schumann. It has a long history of making street theatre, radical puppet shows, and working with newcomers from far and wide to create shows. This is one of my radio ballads to the theatre, concerning the ramshackle esthetic characteristic of the theatre and its philosophical implications for show making. Presenting the audio in this way is my attempt to collect the vibrant sing- song chaos of the place and pleat it into a radio piece that would sound true to the Beast that is Bread and Puppet.
What's inspiring her these days:
The harmonics of old city apartments as heard underwater in the bathtub.
Constellations says:
As this roller coaster of a year comes to a close, we thought this sonic manifesto and portrait was the perfect toast for ushering in the new year: To taking artistic risks! To having the courage to struggle on stage! This piece, and the collaborative, political and tactile world of Bread and Puppet that it conjures, embody the ethos of experimentalism, interdisciplinarity, and community that Constellations aspires to. And we can't think of a voice more suited to sewing this cardboard cacophony together than Aleks'.
Aleksandra Bragoszewska is a puppeteer and an apprentice of storytelling. She sharpened her radio teeth with sound and storytelling experiments at CFRC 101.9fm Queens Radio in Kingston, Ontario, but they have grown dull since she apprenticed puppetry under the Bread and Puppet theatre in Glover, Vermont. She makes puppet shows with her independent company, Birdbone Theatre, and studies storytelling under Stephen Jenkinson, in Deacon, Ontario.