‘Candyman’ draws crowd with sweet performance

BANGOR – Birds and dragons made with hot pulled taffy were created almost magically by Masaji Terasawa – known as “the Candyman” – to the delight of young and old during the weekend American Folk Festival.

Adults and children alike sat with mouths open in awe during a show Saturday as Terasawa created the mystical creatures from candy that he pulled from his black art box, placed in the center of the crowd of approximately 300 spectators.

He stretched and then rolled the hot taffy into a ball and placed it on a chop stick that he attacked with a small pair of pointy hand-held scissors sniping here and there and pulling out wings and heads as he went.

The detailed confectionery creations were then cooled by the Candyman with an oriental fan to harden them before they were offered to someone in the crowd.

The sugar-spun sculpture technique – an ancient Japanese art form known as Amezaiku – is combined with origami, top spinning and dragon dancing by Terasawa into a surprising, fast-changing exhibition of traditional Japanese arts.

One onlooker, Charlie Fussell, 4, of Orrington got up and stood behind his mom when the brightly colored dragon got too close, pretending to snack on the leg of a child sitting on the small stage in the children’s area of the festival.

Another young father sitting close to Fussell also moved and said, “My 2-year-old is scared of dragons” as he departed holding his daughter close.

When the dragon spectacularly changed into a dancing Terasawa wearing a white, smiling Japanese folk mask, Charlie, who had a painted lion face, made his way back to the front row of the crowd.

Audience participation was definitely part of the act. During different segments of the half-hour show, Terasawa snapped his fan, making some jump in surprise, and pretended to steal and at other times eat a young boy’s Cheez-its crackers to the delight of the crowd.

Near the end of the display, the Candyman beckoned a shirtless man from the crowd to the center circle and gave him a lesson in candy sculpting. The man copied Terasawa as he pulled and snipped the quickly cooling taffy into a beautiful winged bird with a long swirling tail.

“His looked a little better than mine,” the man could be heard saying after the show. “The scissors were hard to use.”

The smiling Hampden man said his creation looked more like a drooping slug on a stick.

After the exhibition, Terasawa, who has been making candy sculptures for “a very long time,” said the heat did make the program more difficult.

“It’s hot,” he said.

The Candyman held six shows during the weekend festival.