Rock Show Two years in the making, ‘Quarryography’ brings together dance, music and puppetry – as well as an entire community – in a daring outdoor performance piece in Stonington

To the untrained eye, the pile of steel cables rusting in one corner of Settlement Quarry in Stonington was nothing more than junk, left over from the days when the granite quarry was functional. Puppeteer Mia Kanazawa, however, saw kinetic potential.

“I saw the cable, and I knew I wanted to make a puppet out of it. I wanted to see it come to life,” said Kanazawa, a Brooksville resident and nationally renowned puppeteer. “But it was too heavy. It would have been impossible to work with.”

Inspired, Kanazawa got to work re-creating the cable out of pipe insulation and swimming noodles. And then, like Dr. Frankenstein flipping the switch on his monster, Cableman came alive.

The 25-foot puppet is the main character in “Quarryography,” a joint venture between Opera House Arts at the Stonington Opera House and Island Heritage Trust. It’s set to be performed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 10-12, at Settlement Quarry.

The site-specific, multidisciplinary piece was created by Kanazawa and Alison Chase, a founding member of the acclaimed Pilobolus Dance Company and also a resident of Brooksville. Through dance, music and puppetry, “Quarryography” explores the history of the quarry, from millions of years ago when the glaciers of the last Ice Age retreated, revealing the gleaming pink granite underneath, up through the middle of the 20th century, when the last stone was seriously quarried.

In the works for two years, it has also utilized more than 50 volunteers of all ages and backgrounds from Stonington and the surrounding communities – from 7-year-old dancer Amy Friedell, to Nigel Chase, founder of the Blue Hill steel drum troupe Flash in the Pans, who has composed music for it.

“The community element is the heart of it,” said Chase. “We have to have all these volunteers in order to have the energy to fill this space. … We get to use big images, and that is new and exactly what we wanted. It’s been really free. We’ve let our imaginations go wild.”

The quarry, which offers visitors a panoramic view of Webb Cove, is big enough that one of the members of the dance troupe assembled for the performance has plenty of room to work: Rick Weed, a Stonington heavy-machine operator, will use his 14-ton excavator to give life to Cableman, which is attached to the bucket of his digger.

“We knew we wanted to use some heavy equipment. I envisioned a pas de deux with an excavator,” said Chase. “[Rick] was game from the get-go, though I don’t think he had any idea what he was getting into. But he’s really gone with it. He’s added his own thing to it.”

Weed, who has competed in backhoe rodeos, operates his machine with grace and precision, making swoops and dives with his digger, and engaging the dancers in various ways.

“We welded these rubber grips onto the bucket, and he lowers it down and we hang from them,” said Stephanie Fungsang, a 21-year-old dance major at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, who came to Stonington for the summer to work with Chase. “I actually get to ride in his bucket at one point. It’s so fun.”

Dance soloist Matt Kent, an associate director at Pilobolus, at one point actually sits inside Cableman when he’s attached to the excavator, manipulating his upper body, while dancers use poles to move his long, spindly limbs.

“I thought he’d be a little more menacing, a little more ominous,” said Kent. “But he’s wonderful. A little girl went right up to him, and found the childlike quality in him. She wasn’t afraid of him. He’s a gentle giant.”

Kanazawa, who received a Good Idea Grant from the Maine Arts Commission for the project, has enjoyed watching Cableman’s personality unfold over the two years that the work has been in progress.

“His personality was unknown at first,” she said. “We’ve been investigating it as we go along. It’s the awakening of Cableman. He came from the quarry, as discarded cable. And he’s reconfigured himself as this entity.”

Settlement Quarry has never been used for any kind of performance, though it’s set up like a natural amphitheater, with a large, mostly level open space directly in the middle, and flat ledges near the entrance, perfect for seating for audience members. Up to 400 people can be accommodated at each show.

But as with any outdoors performance, unpredictability is the name of the game.

“In a place like this, you can’t be too detail-oriented. It can’t be perfect. There’s been a lot of improvisation,” said Chase. “Most would have written it off as nuts, but Opera House Arts dared to commission a piece like this.”

In addition to the Maine Arts Commission grant, “Quarryography” also received a National Endowment for the Arts Access to Artistic Excellence grant. Despite those funds, however, the show has remained essentially a low-budget affair – Kanazawa regularly hits up Marden’s for costume or set elements, adding and subtracting things as challenges or new ideas arise.

“It’s been a long process. I’d love to do another performance here, but we’ll definitely be ready for a break after it’s over,” she said. “Maybe next we’ll do Bride of Cableman.”

“Quarryography” will be performed at 6 p.m. Aug. 10-12, and also at 2 p.m. Aug. 11. Admission is $20, and tickets can be purchased at the gate, or in advance at the Stonington Opera House box office. Parking is very limited at Settlement Quarry; audience members may park in front of the former Elementary School building on School Street in Stonington and take a free shuttle to the quarry. Everyone is encouraged to arrive early and bring a picnic, as well as lawn chairs and blankets. For more information, call 367-2788 or visit www.operahousearts.org. Emily Burnham can be reached at eburnham@bangordailynews.net.