Class Acts : With Its Touring Shows, the Music Center Brings the Arts to Children

Dinosaur bones danced, a cuckoo clock sang, a teapot spouted smoke and a roomful of first-graders quietly sat mesmerized as they watched the puppets. They didn’t know it at the time, but they were also learning the musical history of Charles Camille Saint-Saens.

“The Art of Puppets and Marionettes” show put together by puppeteer Jim Gamble features fanciful handmade rod puppets that tell the story of the composer who started writing music 100 years ago when he was about the same age as the children.

“For many of these children, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen puppets, and it’s very magical for them,” said Gamble, an internationally acclaimed puppeteer who has performed in local schools for the past seven years.

Gamble will perform Sunday at the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Van Nuys as part of the Los Angeles Music Center’s Tour Program, which has offered free programs to schools and the public since 1981. This year, the Music Center has a $1.3 million budget to present more than 10,000 shows, dances, readings and workshops in 13 languages.

“People may wonder if puppets are artistically sound, but for children we found they are a very viable art form, especially to present classical music,” said Joan Boyett, the Music Center’s vice president for education. “This is not birthday party entertainment.”

Boyett heard about Gamble after he performed a theater puppet show for adults. He also re-creates, for adults and children, Ibsen’s folk hero “Peer Gynt” with Edvard Grieg’s music, Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” and Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.”

“Our goal is to keep pushing the standards of art that is offered in schools with as many different ethnic heritages as we can,” said Boyett, of Studio City.

“It’s his kind of work that we are interested in, something for all ages that keeps your interest. Jim Gamble’s work combines language arts and music in a wonderful way,” she said.

Puppeteer Roger Mera, who wrote and designed the Saint-Saens story, held the children spellbound at Gamble’s “Carnival of the Animals” show at Los Robles Elementary School in Hacienda La Puenta.

First, he showed how the foam puppets work, and how he must wear black gloves, clothes and a hood so he can’t be seen. Then he explained how these 18 one- to four-minute musical pieces were written for Saint-Saens’ own children, although Saint-Saens was known to have composed music at a very early age.

The children may not have understood the history, but they did comprehend the floating furniture, the flying musical notes, the spinning starfish and the dog that transforms into an elephant. They also squealed with laughter as each new character appeared: a chicken, lion, frog, ostrich, kangaroo, mule, turtle, swan and a piano teacher named Madame Zucchini.

“Maybe you can go home and write your own music, maybe you can go home and turn your cat into a lion,” Mera told the children, challenging them to use their imaginations.

Mera is one of nine puppeteers working in Gamble’s troupe that uses puppets as large as 2-feet-tall and does about 100 shows a month in private and public schools. In December, Gamble’s troupe did more than 300 shows.

“It began as a hobby because I was an airline pilot for Continental,” said Gamble, 54, of Palos Verdes, now a retired pilot. “Now, I do it full time.”

Fascinated after watching a puppet show at the age of 10, Gamble worked his way through aeronautical engineering college by putting on shows. He also gives workshops to show teachers how to make puppets and pass that knowledge on to their students.

Gamble’s musical puppet show is one of 129 performances offered to schools by the Music Center. Others available include folk dancing and singing from the Philippines, Spain, Africa, Brazil, China and Aman; Scottish, Middle Eastern and jazz music; South American storytelling; mimes; hands-on bread-dough sculpting workshops; a woman’s Western show and performances on the works of Lewis Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr. and Shakespeare.

For the first time this year, all programs are detailed in a community guide brochure as part of an intensive outreach drive now being done by the Music Center. The brochures are in English and Spanish.

“I don’t think most people are aware of what we have to offer, and they can find out with this booklet,” said Cyrice Griffith, associate director of government and community relations for the center.

The programs are subsidized in part by the Music Center, but a fee ranging from $250 to $770 is charged for each performance. Each year, the performers are auditioned and screened for the tour program. The programs also are funded through various city, state and federal grants, as well as large donations from the James Irvine Foundation, the Joseph Drown Foundation and AT&T.;

“The reactions and questions from the children are wonderful,” Gamble said. “I get a kick out of seeing how they react every time I do it.”

Jim Gamble’s Art of Puppets and Marionettes will perform “The Carnival of Animals” show at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center, 13164 Burbank Blvd., Van Nuys. Free admission. For information on other programs, ask for the English or Spanish Music Center community guide by calling (213) 972-8000.