This show wasn't on my radar until I saw an article about the origami-inspired rhinoceros masks made by Amy Knight for this production. I made it to closing night & had fun checking out the rhino heads for myself. There are about 10 such masks, either worn by the actors or hanging on the walls & illuminated from within. They are made out of stiff buckram, may have either one or two horns, & each is different. They were easily my favorite element of the show.
Instead of being seated in an auditorium, the audience stands & moves around the small black box theater for the show's hour-long duration. One never knows where the next scene will take place, & a couple of times actors bumped into me as they moved through the audience. One lady was hit in the head by a stuffed cat kicked around by one of the characters. Director Evren Odcikin made the pre-show announcements in the lobby before letting us all in at once for the start of the show.
I visited the 1st day of the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown just long enough to check out the origami exhibit in a small downstairs room of the Hotel Kabuki. I especially liked the small & charming animal figures by Kyohei Katsuta. I met local folder Jonathan Miller who explained the improvisatory nature of his intricate tesselations & seemed confident that anyone could learn to do them as well. He also told me about an up-coming origami convention in Ohio. Many of the usual suspects are represented as well, such as Robert Lang, Bernie Peyton & Goran Konjevod.
Animals Out of Paper
The visit was worth it, even though I hate to drive. I quickly tired of making turns along the twisty CA 1, scenic though it may be. I overshot the turnoff into Bolinas twice. I had fallen victim to a local prank. At the museum it was explained to me that the locals hate tourists & have a habit of removing the Bolinas road sign. After replacing the missing sign over 30 times, local authorities simply gave up. Nowadays, one of the signs can be inspected in the museum’s history room.
Though I have done origami as a hobby since I was a kid, I discovered that I have none of the intense commitment of even the most casual folder at the Pacific Coast Origami Conference. Fortunately the convention attendees are a friendly & sharing bunch, as well as being delightfully nerdy. It is easy to start a conversation simply by asking anyone, “What did you make today?” Most of the learning really happens in the exchanges between the attendees themselves. In a couple of minutes between classes, someone showed me how to fold a simple PHiZZ unit. I was later able to make 30 & combine them into a dodecahedron. During one lunch, a woman showed us a gorgeous hand-made book she had bound. The book could be unfolded into a 3-dimensional tower. At another lunch, a man from Southern California showed me a variety of sharp models he had folded out of dollars bills.
My best class experience was with Eric Gjerde, who showed us how to fold a star puff tesselation during a 3 hour session. This is a totally new folding technique to me, & I am sure I would not have been able to figure it out by following diagrams in a book. I have to admit that I impressed myself with the result.
This weekend I am attending the Pacific Coast Origami Conference. This is my first time, & I feel very much an outsider. The conference consists primarily of classes where one learns a specific origami model in a classroom situation. There are a bit over 200 attendees, most of them from out of town. The majority are simply hobbyists, though there are several cliques of college students who keep very much to themselves.
The conference is volunteer run, & the organization in general is a bit haphazard. In the afternoon I ended up in a class for which a teacher did not show up, & the same thing happened to a group of people yesterday. I was shocked by the inefficiency of the class sign-up process, which requires everyone to assemble in a conference room & wait for their priority numbers to be called. & we have to do this all over again tomorrow morning.
