When the woods are coated in frost and ice stills brooks and streams and the full moon glows on fields of snow, Hampton sparkles. That beauty inspired the Recreation Commission to honor the season in Winter-Fest, a celebration of community, art, and life in our Town.
Winter-Fest invited numerous town institutions to join in planning and participating in a weekend festival. As organizations volunteered, the reach of the festival extended deeper into our town. Hampton Elementary School and Parish Hill Middle/High School sponsored after-school puppetry classes for children interested in storytelling and performing in a puppet slam. Fletcher Memorial Library sponsored a lecture and demonstration about puppetry and masks and assisted with promotion. The road crew built an ice rink on the Town Hall ball field which the Fire Department flooded in hopes the temperatures would cooperate (oh well…). The Agricultural Commission sponsored a hot chocolate and cider station for ice-skating and the bonfire, and the Selectmen’s Office did everything else.
The festival began on February 6 and ran through February 10, and every event reached capacity crowd, and then some. Derron Wood, Executive Artistic Director of New London’s Flock Theatre, began the festival with an entertaining Library lecture about puppets and masks from around the world. He brought seven types of puppets and over a dozen masks to illustrate the breadth of the art form and gave a mini-lesson about how artists send energy into their puppet to make it look alive (it’s in the breath). More than once, the audience watched in wonder as Derron transformed little more than paper bags and burlap into living beings.
On Saturday, Derron returned to the Community Center with artists from Flock Theatre, guest puppeteers Bobbi Nidz and Jim “Nappy” Napolitano, and school children from Hampton’s public schools to perform a two-act puppet slam that featured object theater, shadow puppets, full body puppets, rod puppets, and mask. In short stories and song, the evening elicited laughter and glee and quieter moments of reflection and sorrow. The school children performed like professional puppeteers in “Shadowland” and “Arap Sang and the Cranes.” The evening ended with the incredible shadow puppetry of “Nappy”, who had everyone laughing at his and his puppets’ antics.
On Sunday afternoon, the Coast Guard Dixieland Jazz Band, all uniformed members, played a ninety-minute concert of classic jazz for a standing room only crowd at the Community Center. During the concert, which featured works by the great American composer W. C. Handy, each musician played multiple solos, and the audience knew they were listening to consummate jazz musicians: Mark McCormack on bass, Cedric Mayfield on clarinet and soprano sax, Thomas Brown on trumpet and vocals, Sean Nelson on trombone, Robert Langslet on keyboard, and Nathan Lassell on drums. The sound engineer was Robert Holtorff. Between songs Mark shared the story of how the new art form came to be and how it was received in cultural capitals like New York City and London.
The band enjoyed Hampton as much as the audience enjoyed them. They loved playing in the Community Center, and as one would expect of jazz musicians, they were ready to improvise. They found the “On Air” and “Applause” sign that Hampton players have used in staged radio plays, and they incorporated it into their act. More impressive, while the band set up, the pianist began to play the unturned old piano that sits backstage, and he liked its honky-tonk sound so much, for the concert he substituted Hampton’s piano for his electric keyboard. The piano is not just old, though; according to a local piano tuner, it’s practically unplayable. Cedric said Robert’s performance on Hampton’s piano was about as impossible as if he had been invited to a dinner party and arrived to learn he was expected to make the dinner in a kitchen with none of the ingredients he needed and a set of pots and pans that weren’t right for the dishes he was asked to prepare.
Spirits soared by the end of the concert, so the band played “When the Saints Go Marching In” as an encore, and marched into and around the audience like a New Orleans jazz line. Flock artists in full body puppets danced in the aisles. After the concert, everyone went out to the ball field to watch the bonfire, sip hot chocolate and cider, and munch brownies, but most important, in the spirit of Winter-Fest, to visit with family, friends, and neighbors.
Anne Flammang & Gay Wagner