Cashore Marionettes conclude Galaxy Series season

The Galaxy Series concluded its 2017-2018 season with a performance of “Life in Motion” by Joseph Cashore of the Cashore Marionettes.
Cashore performed this two-act show at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in the Memorial Hall Auditorium.
Cashore’s interest in marionettes, puppets controlled using a series of strings attached to different parts of the puppet, began when he was 10 years old.
According to Cashore’s website, he has been performing and designing marionettes for more than thirty years.
Conferencing Coordinator Shellie Johns said the committee who selects each year’s Galaxy Series performances chose the Cashore Marionettes to be a part of this year’s Galaxy Series after seeing them perform at the Midwest Arts Conference.
Cashore’s performance of “Life in Motion” combined both marionette artistry and famous classical music from composers such as Beethoven, Strauss and Vivaldi with ordinary life events, from putting a child to sleep to flying a kite.
Cashore’s marionettes were knee-high, and each had different features and outfits creating varying personalities to be portrayed in each piece.
The show consisted of a series of pieces all based around different life events of humans and animals.
The first piece was of a marionette violinist who played along to a
violin solo from “The Lark Ascending” by Vaughan Williams.
Cashore then presented his next piece, telling the audience, “And now, I’d like you to imagine you’re at the circus … ”
The piece told the short tale of a young amateur trapeze artist, nervous to perform for the audience.
Manipulating the strings, Cashore showed the marionette struggling to grab hold of the trapeze, then performing various tricks.
The remainder of the performance went on in a similar fashion, Cashore prefacing each piece with background information, then performing the piece choreographed to music.
In a piece titled “African Morning,” Cashore performed with an elephant marionette, who was trying to find food on the savanna. With movable ears, tail, trunk and legs, Cashore was able to portray the movement of the elephant on a small scale.
Cashore also confronted some more controversial issues, presenting a piece titled “Old Mike, No Address,” featuring a marionette named Old Mike, a homeless man.
The piece showed Old Mike struggling to cope with his homelessness, from sleeping on a bench to rifling through trash trying to find food.
The next event at the Memorial Hall Auditorium will be Brooks Hafey’s faculty piano recital, from 3-4 p.m. on Saturday, April 7.
The concert, the third of five in a series of concerts featuring the solo pieces of Claude Debussy, is free and open to the public.