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https://hyperallergic.com/602315/new-yorks-own-pizza-rat-on-making-performance-art-accessible/>
"The internet is squeaking with delight this week at a 23-second-long
clip of a figure in a rat costume, complete with a long tail, whiskers,
and mousy gray suit, dragging a life-sized pizza slice up the stairs in
a New York City subway station. As surreal as it may be, the sight is
intimately familiar to urban dwellers who remember video footage of a
real rodent carrying an entire cheese slice up the platform steps a few
years back. The strangely endearing, ubiquitous New Yorker became
lovingly known as “Pizza Rat.”
The man behind the very realistic mask in the more recent viral video
that went viral is Jonothon Lyons, an accomplished dancer, theater
artist, and puppeteer whose previous credits include the Blue Man Group,
Sleep No More, and the Metropolitan Opera’s 2019 staging of Madame
Butterfly. For his latest act, however, no tickets are needed: his
audience is made up of the pedestrians and underground riders of New
York, many of them surely aching for the lively theater and cultural
scene that once pulsed through the city before the pandemic hit.
Buddy the Rat, as Lyons has baptized his wiry-tailed character, brings
the stage to the streets and the subway platforms: getting pets on the
Brooklyn Bridge, showing off for Minnie Mouse in Times Square, and
encouraging train riders to wear a mask."
Via Esther Schindler.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
