Photo Shout Out #3

This one goes out to Anne Schaefer from the roof of the contemporary museum in Nice, France. Thanks for your support of our indiegogo fundraiser. We spent a really nice day and night in Nice, marveling at the Cote d' Azure, looking at some art and eating crepes and baguette. Our performance at Concert au 5 was really special and intimate. One of our favorites.

Super update!

It's been a bit since we posted and much has happened since! Our shows in Amsterdam went great. We had a nice evening at Delicatessan. Bas prepared a delicious pasta and screened a short film after our performance. We loved seeing all the cyclists there! We spent our free day at the Rijksmuseum and eating a cone of fries and mayonaise. Below is also a sneak peek of us in Paris eating crepes. Mmmmm!

Photo Shout Out #2

This is a photo shout out to Margaret Boozer from the coast of the North Sea in The Hague, Netherlands. Thank you for your support of our indiegogo fundraiser! We spent a lovely, misty afternoon walking the shore and searching for shells with our friend Rachel. This was a special and rare moment of rest between a string of performances. We also ate some tasty raw herring and onion sandwiches, a local staple.

Photo Shout Out!

This is our first photo shout out from Berlin to our dear friend Blithe. Many thanks for your generous contribution! One shot is of Tara making a "B" in front of the infamous radio tower at Alexanderplatz. The second is of us in the town of Marzahn. We encountered a beach wall mural there! Thank you Blithe! P.S. The sky was beautiful that day!

FIT, plus a pastry medley!

We performed at FIT today in Berlin. It was a great outdoor space. The weather was drizzly, but thankfully it was not windy. Just before we performed, a barrel of fire was lit to keep us and our audience toasty. Below are some pics and one of our morning pastry medley!

Tik Theatre

Last night's performance at Tik was a lot of fun. The space was a really nice black box theatre; perfect for our performance. As promised, here are some post-performance pics. Last night on the way home we got caught in a steady drizzle that yet again tested our crates! Everything was ok thankfully!

Scandic/Euro Tour Commences!

Greetings from Berlin! We just got in yesterday after spending a wonderful three days in Denmark. Our workshop at the Funen Academy went well and we can't wait to return to see the students' projects. We had an exciting first performance at the Brandts and last night was our first performance in Berlin at MMX. There have been a few minor mishaps, a blown fuse and navigating the cobble stone roads, but nothing that our glue gun and wonderful, kind hosts couldn't solve. On to Tik! Below is a picture of us lecturing and eating lunch at the Academy and navigating the metro of Berlin with our baggage. It was so, so lovely! Performance pics to come! 

"That's how I roll!", says the Rat.

We've been in rehearsal mode for a bit now. The script has been finalized and we're practicing dilligently to nail down our moves. Oh yeah, the Falcons can cut a rug. Here's a sneek peek of the rat finished, complete with roller feet and a snake tail. And our wild dogs are loose, so look out!

a rat, a quilt, wild dogs, the williamsburg bridge, some testers

We are on our way to finishing up all the making for The Cactus Duet.  We encountered a few hurdles, and had to make things over.  The first rat became a tester; we tried sawdust, fabric and charcoal to replicate fur.  None of those materials were used in the end, but we still like the first rat... so much so that Tara posed with it pretending to feed it some wood shavings, delicious!  We are super excited about the quilt.  One side is a mountain scene, and the other is an industrial city scene.  It's all coming together and we're trying some new things that we are feeling positive about.  More to come soon!

Support our IndieGOGO project!

http://player.vimeo.com/video/14630250?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff0179
The Cactus Duet Tour from Friendly Falcons on Vimeo.

Composers and Constructors, the Snake and Segovia

This weekend was spent writing songs and stories, and making a base structure for our traveling set. The set comes apart quite easily and can be carried under one arm or fit snugly into a suitcase corner. It took many more hours than expected to build this one- but we suppose that's what happens when function marries form and then takes a honeymoon in Europe with one suitcase. Three new songs were composed and now await words and imagery. More sneak peaks to come...

The Cactus Duet Tour

In November, we will be undertaking a four-country tour, performing the newest iteration of  The Cactus Duet. We will be designing the performance set so that it fits into a suitcase and can be put together on site. On the same trip, we are leading a workshop at Funen Academy of Fine Arts in Odense, Denmark, called Nomad as Art. In the workshop, students will be asked to make a formal or functional artwork that explores the history and ideology of nomadism. We are excited to develop and undertake our own "nomadic artwork" at the same time. Visit back for some in-process photos of the work and the tour dates and venues!

Falcons on the flat, phat

As we waited in the ferry waiting room full of people, we watched the flat screen announce events for the weekend. All of a sudden, a familiar something came onscreen. Tara exclaimed, "Hey, that's us!" Then we proceeded to wait an additional 10 minutes for the loop to run again so we could take this picture.

Cactus Duet

We started a new project called The Cactus Duet. Tara's keys were made into an upright piano, a vulture hunts a rat on our tag sale turntable find, cat tails swing to the beat of music, and a cactus keeps time. Scratch, scratch.

Invitation

The Friendly Falcons & Their Friend the Snake and The Hawk is a Lonely Hunter present "A MOUNTAIN SOARS OVER THE OCEAN," a multi-sensory performance with puppetry, music and sculpture, inspired by traveling and the magnificence of nature.

http://friendlyfalcons.com/

Performance dates & times:
Sunday, July 11th at 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Saturday, July 17th at 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Saturday, July 24th at 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Sunday, July 25th at 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM

Location:
Governor’s Island, New York on the grassy hill across from Building 110
(exit the ferry and veer to the right, walk straight, you will see us)
For ferry schedule and directions visit: http://www.govisland.com/Visit_the_Island/directions.asp

This project is in conjunction with a Swing Space Residency through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council:
http://www.lmcc.net/

Puppet Master Blaster!

We've been busy at work getting ready for our first performance on Sunday, July 11th. We don't want to give too much away, but here's a couple shots of the puppets and props that we've been making. Most of them are cut with a jigsaw from 1/4 inch plywood and cleaned up with our fresh Dremel. Hope you enjoy the sneak peak!

You’re so vane…

We made and added a weathervane to the top of the radio tower. It is a big corn on the cob- the corn part is dazzling gold glitter. And yes, the weathervane works! The invitation with performance dates will be posted soon...

The Great Outdoors

Today was the day. We finally put the sculpture outside and gave it some space. We are calling it "A Mountain Soars Over the Ocean." The day started off humid and grey, but as soon as the last screw was fastened the clouds parted and the sun was shining. We were happily surprised to see that our original sketches for the sculpture looked very similar to what turned out, that rarely happens. Jeff was doing a belly crawl below the platform attaching concrete clouds so the thing doesn't fly away in a sudden gale and I was monkeying around on top of the platform most of the day, stringing the flags into a rainbow. We have a few finishing touches left to the sculpture itself and we are piecing together some travellin' songs and puppetry to perform on "The Mountain..." Also, we are collecting various noteworthy and memorable sights to be featured in our binocular tours. Stay tuned for top-secret tidbits that may appear as we prepare for the performances!

Concrete clouds! Whaat???

We made our foundation for the platform today. It was our first time working with cement and we really like it! At first we were going to try and replicate the form of boulders, but then decided to make clouds. We're happy with the change.

In other Falcon news, we're going to be doing our shadow puppet musical performance, In the Belly of the Bear at Better than Jam on Friday, June 4th at 8pm. Check our website's news section for details.

P.S. Yes, that's a snake head at the end of the cat tail. :)

Expedition, excellent!

The painting is complete! There's a chance that we'll add a few more cut-outs, but for now that's it. We took some time to explore the island while waiting for paint to dry. We found a playground and a vending machine full of snacks. The lunch truck (the only place to buy food) relocated to an unknown location, so finding the snack machine was sort of a big deal. On the way back to the studio Tara rode back with no hands. Damn, lady's got some skills. We gave the angry cat some extra long whiskers, and gave a couple of pigeons a pair of cool legs. Breezy.