Keep Providence Weird: Big Nazo
Back in March we conducted several interviews in preparation for CupaDupa, chatting with some of the acts who had been invited to perform at Wellington’s massive outdoor disruption event. That was all pre-lockdown, and for a minute these pieces fell back into the dusty ‘to do’ drawer, waiting patiently and deservingly to be published.
Now, CubaDupa is back in action with an upcoming special reactivation and we thought this would be a good time to share the stories of these wonderful humans in support of this.
Instagram / Website / Photos supplied
Where to even begin with this crowd—there is so much to say and yet so much that can easily remain unsaid, just look at the photos to see what we mean. Larger-than-life puppets, full body costumes, dance, music, performance, it all comes together as BIG NAZO in spectacularly confusing yet entertaining fashion. We’d better let them explain.
What exactly is BIG NAZO?
It’s an international performance group and creature fabrication studio that employs space creatures, alien robots and monstrous musicians in its mission to subvert human notions of normalcy and to promote the celebration of weirdness on a global scale. Their show is a funk-rock driven extraterrestrial dance party spectacle peppered with unexpected interruptions, constant transformations and some wrestling robots.
It began as a street theatre troupe and then evolved into a musical stage spectacle that has toured major festivals and plenty of unknown places around the world.
So what’s the connection with Rhode Island School of Design?
The Director of BIG NAZO LAB (and members of his cast and crew) have taught the performance-sculpture class “Creature-Creation” at RISD for several decades, inspiring many visual artists to fabricate and perform their own creations in a broad range of industries including some major Hollywood films.
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Welcome to Aotearoa! Could you introduce yourselves for the uninitiated?
Hello! We’re BIG NAZO, it means “Big Nose”, but we boldly celebrate tentacles, extra eyeballs, green and purple skin and other features often considered grotesque by those who are concerned with conventional definitions of human beauty. Our audience interactive alien creatures and raucous robots create a gorgeous theatrical, musical mess on stage as our funky rock band’s extraterrestrial dance party incorporates the constant interruptions of unexpected cosmic dancers and giant monsters.
Your performances have been described as “a puppet show without the stage”, was this the original vision and how did Big Nazo come to be?
BIG NAZO incorporates a variety of mask, puppet and musical performance styles that are collectively so weird, it’s referred to by most as “creature theatre”. Whether it’s on a stage or in the street, we like to subvert the setting and defy definition by mixing Commedia dell'arte, performance art, wrestling, and Sci-Fi freak show with live rock and roll funk music. BIG NAZO began by doing all that stuff on the streets of New York, Boston, Providence and many Canadian cities. Eventually the act morphed into a touring live music stage show.
What can we expect you to bring to the 2020 CubaDupa festival with its theme ‘A Beautiful Disruption’?
This is the first ever festival theme that perfectly describes our act! Expect the unexpected, expect seeming disaster that transforms into unexpected triumph. Expect confusion and fun.
The Big Nazo creature collection includes everything from “a giant three-eyed robot percussionist” to a “charismatic lab rat”. Where do you find inspiration for the character conceptualisation and design?
The three eyed robot percussionist has been replaced by a giant worm creature and the lab rat was eaten by our cycloptic lead singer, Alien Commander Glort, but they all draw inspiration from exaggerated perception of real life characters, Science Fiction and circus sideshows.
Do you have a favourite character?
It’s a toss up between the giant three-eyed robot percussionist and the charismatic lab rat, but alas, both are gone, so we have no favorites. Every one of us is highly distracting or unbearable in some way or another.
Can you explain a little bit about the process of bringing these characters to life?
The characters are fabricated by way of an innovative, but relatively straightforward, hand-made, practical effect foam-fabrication technique. Not much modern technology employed.
Does it get hot in those suits? I imagine it must be hard work moving around!
Some people pay a lot of money to join a gym and sweat. We’d never think of doing that when we’re lucky enough to have our own mobile work-out sauna-suit creature gear!
Here in the capital we have a famously groan-inducing saying, “You can’t beat Wellington on a good day!” What do you think would be the Providence equivalent?
Locally, what folks say is “Keep Providence Weird”.