A A Pair of
Dutch Skating Marionettes
How Rick Morse and Dave Herzog Collaborated While 1,212 Miles Apart!
By Dave Herzog and Rick Morse
ccording to MapQuest, Chicago, Illinois, and Ellenton, Florida, are ap- proximately 1,212 miles apart, but that did not stop Rick Morse and me from
team building a set of Dutch boy and girl tandem figure skating marionettes together. On Monday, July 20, I called Rick to see if he had any good ideas about what mari- onette I could build next, as I was pretty much at a loss. I told Rick I needed a new project, preferably for my production, The Snow Show, that was unlike anything else I had done in my shows.
After discussing several ideas, Rick said, “I know you’ve done tandem dancers before, but have you ever done tandem skaters? How about a Dutch boy and girl skating couple?” I had thought about doing a Dutch boy skater, but wow! Dutch boy and girl tandem skaters were a great idea. I knew there was an illustration of Dutch dancers in Edith Flack Ackley’s Marionettes: Easy to Make! Fun to Use! (Rick, of course, imme- diately knew it was on page 54), so I began the research. Though published in 1929, the book still is useful and even inspirational today. With page 54 of “Edith’s book” on my workbench, I went to work on a design. Since they were to be tandems and weight would be an issue, I decided to make the marionettes only 18 inches tall. I sent a picture of the design to Rick, and after some discussion it was decided that the girl would have carved legs but the boy would have legs made of dowels, since they would not be seen. We also decided the joints of the dowel stick limbs would be done with Stevens/Rose-style cord joints. I should point out that Rick is an author- ity on the construction techniques of most American and Canadian marionette artists of the 20th century, so when we confer about matters of construction, our conver- sation is peppered with talk of Stevens/ Rose-style cord joints, Sarg-style hip joints, Stevens-style ball-and-socket knees, and Beaton-style bodies. With body style and jointing methods selected, I began the process of making patterns for the carved wooden body parts.
Carved parts ready to assemble. Photos courtesy of David Herzog
20
Carving the Body I started creating the wooden bodies by cutting out the parts. Each carved body part has two patterns: a side pattern and a top pattern. The legs are laid out on the blocks of wood, so I have both a right and left leg. I sent a picture of the cut-out parts to Rick and learned I had made my first error. I had not showed Rick the patterns before cutting out the parts. It seems that Dutch wooden
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