BareBones Halloween Show 2002: BonedoggledThe 9th Annual BareBones Halloween Extravaganza

October, 2002

Our story this year was inspired by the southwest myth of The Bone Gatherer, a crone who wanders the earth, collecting bones until she finds even the smallest bone - the tiniest tip of the wolf's tail - over which she dances and calls forth the energies of life.

Of course, we added some of our own observations of the world into the mix.

During the performance,  a group of people near the creek created a sacred space to feed and entertain Hungry Ghosts, or forgotten ancestors, with food , music, and ritual. We invited the audience to come to the creek after the performance to leave a gift or write a message to those they honored. In so many traditions the harvest is a time of thinning veils between the dimensions of the living and the dead. The spirits are near to us.

We honored the beautiful spirit of Carolyn McNeil, a dear friend of ours who entered her new life that summer. We also honored the spirit of Paul Wellstone, a peacemaker among us.

Have a memory you'd like to share about this show? Use the comments box below. If you were involved in this production, but don't see your name and would like it listed, send us a message from our Contact page. Thanks!

3 Comments

  1. Mark Safford on December 26, 2009 at 9:03 am

    A return to Minnhaha Falls deer pen after a sabbatical to Theodore Wirth. This show was a sumptuous visual spectacle directed by Barebones artists Kristi Ternes and Kevin Long. The bone woman’s search to bring her dearest dead back.The deep driven instict for conflict like the relation of dogs and cats. Paul Vandevort with his beautiful kitty marionette being chased by Ivan in yellow dog drag. Kevin’s giant oil snake burlesque revealing the life of bone beneath . A kalidascope of skeletons and bones and teeth with all their energy unleashing a demented djin toothfairy,demon fiddlers, political malfesent Derrick-licks in their consumptive oil worship,The four horses and frog of the apocalypse and we as living bones remembering as we come together and as Arwen and Kristen revel and roll in long sleeved ligament and the blood came out again and washed the bones to memory and what had been the tiniest bone became a giant howling spirit dog, A beautiful amalgam of Albinism ,Frankenstein and a shaggy Basset hound forty feet long ,Carrie on the tail, Bo and Katie on the head and so many others who I love creating life in this beast. Ah, but best of all was the Hayslide Maze by Julian McFaul and cohorts with five options and but one way out. On this one Theseus could not have cheated.The bittersweet demonstration of the technical and personal nighmare of the Tick (part projected video part television and weather balloon eighty pounds of costume on leg arm and butt stilts.)Aaaaarrrg! to this day I am haunted, but oh what a beautiful fall.

  2. Kristi Ternes on July 25, 2019 at 10:42 am

    It was a crone, not a crane 🙂

    • Arlys on July 25, 2019 at 9:58 pm

      Thank you! The correction has been made.

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