Platero y Yo with puppets

Jaob Cordover is currently working with Canadian Puppeteer Tim Gosley (who worked with Jim Henson on Fraggle Rock and Sesame StreetI) to bring to life the beautiful poems of Juan Ramón Jiménez in a production of

Platero and I
for guitar, narrator and pupeteer

with music by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

During live performances, Tim manipulates and animates illustrations through a techniques he calls LOW-TECH MULTIMEDIA - projections with the analogue comfort and intimacy that puppetry brings to performances in our computer age.

In 1960, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco chose, and set to music, 28 chapters from Juan Ramón Jiménez’s iconic prose poem Platero and I - a story about a poet and his donkey. Composed as a melologue for guitar and narrator, the movements were published in no particular order.

Taking this work as a base, this project is an international creative development collaboration between Australian guitarist Jacob Cordover and Canadian puppeteer Tim Gosley (who worked with Jim Henson on various Muppets projects) to develop an adaptation of this spectacular work to include shadow puppets, adding a visual element to the beautiful music and text.

By selecting chapters and weaving them together to create unique storylines, the artists will develop and create various productions for live performances.

Tim and Jacob will conceptualize, design, create, and develop a new adaptation of Platero and I by adding the unique and captivating element of shadow puppets, enhancing the spectacular music that brings to life the Nobel Prize Laureate poet’s words. 

Using as a starting point Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Op. 190, they will develop and create adaptations for live performances in which the guitarist and puppeteer are both performing live on stage, with the shadow puppets projected onto a screen to be a clear visual presence.

With over two hours of material to work with, they will create a full-length production as well as a number shorter versions, each with their own order and narrative arc, appropriate for distinct audiences and venues.

The addition of the ancient and striking artistic discipline of shadow puppets will create a welcome visual element to these time-honored poems and the beautifully evocative musical element, allowing a new generation of audiences to fall in love with this artistic masterpiece. It will also, once and for all, present a complete revised and edited guitar part, which is currently lacking.